It was as if I couldn't run fast enough. I knew I could run faster, but at the same time I just couldn't. It was as if the air around my legs had grown thick and heavy - but I couldn't stop running. I could hear her footsteps behind me, steady, exact, unrelenting. If she caught up with me, she was going to kill me. Carbon fibre skin and dead coral-pink eyes… and the barrel of a gun.
My legs felt so tired, and my right arm felt as if it were about to drop off, but I couldn't ever stop. The stairs - did they go on forever? I had been running for so long. My heart was thumping in my chest so loudly. Was that blood leaking from my shoulder? The arm hung limply at my side. I wasn't sure what had happened to it. All I could remember was running.
"Citizen, please remain still," The voice was a jarring monotone that echoed around me like a swarm of flies. It made my lower right leg ache, though I had no idea why. "Citizen. Citizen."
"Fuck off." I grunted through clenched teeth as I forced myself further up the stairs. Something about the situation felt disgustingly familiar.
"Citizen. Citizen." The voice buzzed about my head, like a drill at either temple, punctuated by the steady clack-clack-clack of her footsteps and the rapid thumping of my heart.
Somebody called my name from the top of the stairwell. Was that…? No, it couldn't've been. She was long gone; any chance I would ever see her again having long since faded into nothingness. What was I fighting for, again?
I looked over my shoulder, and SF-A2 was right there. "You are an obstacle." She droned. The barrel of the autocannon lifted to fire.
The weight on my legs had seemingly vanished as I scrabbled for dear life up the stairs. To stop was to die, and I wasn't planning on dying. My arm flapped uselessly at my side. I couldn't even feel it - it were almost as if the arm had died but by some miracle was still attached.
The buzzing, echoing voice followed me. She couldn't've been close. It was impossible. She was moving far too slow to be able to keep up with me - but every time I glanced over my shoulder, she was coming around the bend I'd just past. No matter how fast or how far I ran, she was always there.
I gulped, and kept running.
"John," The mention of my name - my real name - from that thing sent slivers of ice lancing into my chest. "Stop running."
"Fuck off!" I screamed, feeling blood dripping from my palate. Why was that happening? I came around another bend in the stairwell, and there was a door. I scrabbled at the handle with the one hand that worked, glancing accusingly at the one that was hanging limp - only to find that my sleeve was empty. The arm had simply vanished without a trace. Had it ever been there in the first place? I couldn't remember.
I shouldered my way through the door and onto the roof of the building. The sky was perfect pitch black, as if every star in the universe had simply winked out of existence. The only light was that of the moon, and of the buildings around us. The right leg was throbbing painfully below the knee. I glanced about, but there was nowhere to go but the edge. I heard the door slam open again behind me, and I turned to face my pursuer.
She stalked toward me, slowly, purposefully. Before I knew it, I had backed toward the edge of the building, and finally she stopped. The autocannon levelled. Her eyes were so hauntingly dead. "Yamaha apologizes for any stress, inconvenience, or damage of property," She droned as a round clicked into the chamber. This was it. End of the line. "If you feel your rights have not been upheld, please go to Hell."
The autocannon fired, my lower right leg exploded, and I toppled from the building.
As I fell, I could see her, watching me. There was no trace of satisfaction or anger or even acknowledgement on her face. There was nothing. It would've felt a little better if there had been even an ounce of any emotion on her porcelain face.
I seemed to have become blind in my left eye. I didn't know when it happened. It simply occurred to me, while I was falling, that I had been half-blinded.
I didn't feel scared anymore as the momentum flipped me over mid-air. The ground wasn't far away. It'd be over in a few short seconds. There was somebody down there with long blue hair. It was reassuring for some reason. She looked up.
"Miku!" I screamed just before I hit the ground.
That was when I woke up.