Introduction to Insanity

He slams the door shut. Turning around to run, he hears the first shouts behind him. Sprinting down the sidewalk, he slides around a corner into an alleyway. Hurdling over a dumpster, he sprints down the dark, damp alley. The sounds of pursuit echo behind him like death knells, drowning out all other sound. Seeing a fire escape ladder, he jumps up to grab the lowest rung. It’s slippery from the rain, and he loses his grip. The ladder, loosened from his grab, slides down as he falls to the ground. His head hits the ground first, but only seconds before the metal rungs of the ladder crash down on to his face.
*BZRRRRT*
The alarm blared like a klaxon. Charlie sprang up in bed. He clutched his bleeding face, only, it wasn’t bleeding.
"Just another nightmare," he told his room.
The received this statement glumly, as befitted a room such as his. It was a moderately sized bedroom, with a table situated in the corner opposite the bed, and a dresser along that same wall. The wall between the dresser and bed held a large Irish flag, the colors so faded that the orange looked more like an old piece of parchment, and the green like a worn piece of felt. The room was otherwise bare, the only other decorations being a lamp by the bedside, and a large glass formicarium on the table.
Standing up, Charlie walked over to the glass case, and tapped on its side. After several seconds, the sole inhabitant of the large ant farm climbed to the top of its maze of dirt and started patrolling the earth for food. Charlie dropped two chunks of sugar into the ant’s path. Moving to the dresser, Charlie dressed himself in a splotched blue t-shirt and faded grey jeans. In the bathroom, Charlie cleaned himself up, then ran a hand through his pitch black hair.
"I hate dying my hair," he told the mirror, "this mess feels an oil spill on my bloody head."
But Charlie had no choice. Hiding from the IRA was his first and only priority. It was a miracle he had gotten out of Little Ireland alive, and now he was determined to stay that way.
"I’m off to the store Charley!" he yelled as he unlocked and opened his apartment door in the next room.
The ant inside the formicarium stopped briefly to watch him go. After Charlie closed the door, the little ant creatively named Charley began butting its head against the wall of the ant farm. It was determined to find a way out of this invisible prison, it had work to do.