Challenge 1

Prompt: The story takes place twenty years into the future. A character dyes their hair, but it is done for different reasons than people would expect. A character is tense throughout most of the story. During the story, a character drinks something that disagrees with them.

I am being hunted. The number of people outside of my apartment complex is proof enough of that. As a computer hacker, I expected to be caught by the police one day, but not so soon and not over something this big. I had found a leak. The leak was of government information; information that could make or break society as we know it. Not that there is much of society left to break anymore, though. The world had been slowly crumbling for years. The economy had slowly improved earlier in the century, but now it was on a downhill slope. The environment had been all but destroyed in most places due to a steady rise in population since 2015. After almost twenty years of population growth, people had realized that they needed more space. It had been ridiculous how quickly cities grew around the world. Borders needed to be expanded, but almost every inch of available land had been claimed already. Wars had already started in other countries, but I had expected that we would be fine here in America. I had been wrong. The information that I found was about a secret war. The government had been using the CIA to do the dirty work for them abroad; taking out powerful leaders who threatened our hold on the majority of the Western Hemisphere. It was shocking how many lives had been taken just to keep the power the government held so dear in tact. Now they were coming after me because I knew what they had done. I was just another problem that needed to be dealt with. I zipped up my overnight bag and stepped into the bathroom. Grabbing the bottle of hair dye off of the counter, I made quick work of turning my pale blonde locks a dark brown color. Once my hair color had been changed, I took the scissors from my kitchen and proceeded to cut the strands. I stared into the mirror and noticed that my eyebrows looked out of place with their pale coloring. I pulled out an eye pencil, coloring my eye brows with it so that they matched my new coloring. I had already used bronzer on my exposed skin to make it appear as though my skin were a different color. Looking down the length of my body, I was amazed at my change. I had managed to make myself look like my neighbors Hispanic cleaning lady with just a few simple changes. I was even wearing jeans and a faded pink shirt like the ones she always wore. I couldn't ponder over my looks any longer. I had to make my escape. Placing the note I had written for "the maid" and a check on my kitchen counter, I quickly grabbed my bag and left. I walked to the nearest bus stop, feeling eyes on me the entire time, and got on board just before a bus could pull away. I rode for hours until I was well outside the city. After getting off, I walked into a diner and grabbed a bite to eat. The waitress pointed me in the direction of a cheap, dingy motel where I would be able to sleep for the night. As I finished up my meal, she brought me a final cup of coffee. I took a sip just as she said, "That gentlemen at the counter sent this over for you and said your meal was on him." 
I turned to look and saw the flash of a badge before my world went completely dark.