Chapter 1
Come on. Just run. Just run faster. Keep Running. Just keep running. You can do this.
I push my legs harder and faster than I felt I've ever run in my life. For my life. Because that's what I'm running for now. Or rather my freedom to be precise, but for me one cannot exist without the other. I risk a glance behind me, to see how close they are, to see if I'm free. Nothing. Clear open desert as far as the eye can see. Did I do it? Is this for real? Thank God, I've finally lost them! I take a sharp dive to my left and roll behind some boulders and crouch there for half a minute to catch my breath. I felt like I'd been running for miles, and maybe I had, maybe I'd covered leagues in my attempt to escape them, but I knew that in reality I had not. My limbs trembled and shook at the very thought of moving from my collapsed position, but I knew I had to move. Had to stay free. I found the last of my strength and willpower and slowly dragged my unwilling body from the ground. I was exhausted and I knew it. I had to find some form of food somewhere. That's what I had been doing when they found me, raiding an abandoned shack, scavenging for food, drink, anything edible. I'd happened across some cans of Power Pup, but unable to find anything to open them with, I went outside hoping to find a rock to crack them open. That was when they saw me. I had heard yells and looked up, unable to believe my bad luck and then ran (I had to drop the cans as they were weighing me down, even more bad luck as I hadn't eaten in days).
That seemed like a week ago now. Running had really taken it out of me. I never was much of an athlete. I wasted a bit of my precious energy on a humorless smile and then glanced around. Still nothing. Still clear, open desert as far as the eye could see. Relieved to have escaped, this still made me uneasy. Had I really lost them? Where had they gone? How could I have possibly escaped their lethal clutches? I cast these unanswerable questions aside and stealthily crept through the cluster of boulders. I was bent double using the rocks as natural cover and this was killing my already dead limbs. Reaching the farthest side of the boulders, I scrutinized my visual fields left and then right, like I was crossing a road, a road that led to my freedom, but with imminent death waiting if I dared to cross. Once again, nothing. That made it three for three. Best do it now, live for the moment or whatever. My hands were positioned flat against the rocks behind me, ready to give me a flying start should I need it, but apparently, I didn't. Seriously on edge with all my hairs on end and my skin prickling uncomfortably, I launched myself out of my shelter and flew across the dry, crumbling earth of the desert...
BANG! Right into the midst of what must be at least 5 units of Draculoids. Unable to stop I crashed right into one, who gave me the best right hook I have been on the receiving end of in my life (and believe me, there have been a fair few). Reeling, I stumbled and collapsed to the ground, blood streaming from some part of my face. Dazed, my vision spun wildly around me, showing me my situation from all angles available. But I didn't need them to tell me that I was in the most shit that I'd ever been in. The Draculoids had surrounded me in a circle whilst I had been having issues with my vision, giving me all the answers to my cast side questions: no; they had been laying a trap for me and waited for me to fall, or rather crash right into it; and no, I definitely had not escaped their clutches. To them, I was dirt, I was filth, I was a bug that needed to be squashed and there was nothing that could make them lose the chase.
I feebly glared up at them through the blood that was ruining my attempt to emanate pure hatred and saw the pair in front of me step aside and there he was, emerging as if he was a mirage out of the hazy desert heat. Korse. I'd only ever heard whispers of his existence and now he was hunting me down personally? This didn't make sense. Not one part of my twisted situation made sense. Korse raised his hand, as if to inform me of my forthcoming death, as if I didn't already know that's what he was here for. As his other targets before me had known; when Korse reared his pale, evil head your life was as good as over.
His raised hand was the signal the Draculoids around me had been waiting for as they silently raised their standard issue ray guns, eagerly anticipating the moment they could pull the trigger. Knowing there was no way of escape even if I could have persuaded my bleeding, aching body to attempt to fight back, I wearily pulled myself off the ground, feeling the burning strain of my limbs and swayed as I stood. I wasn't going to die slumped on the floor goddamnit, I still had a sense of rebellion left in me. My reaction was unexpected and if I could see beneath their masks, I knew their expressions would be confused, but not nervous or worried, the Draculoids never were. Korse grimaced and his face contorted into an expression of pure evil. I closed my eyes, my fear finally getting the better of me, not wanting to see my own death sentence.
It was as I stood there, weary, covered in sweat, grime and blood, swaying on the spot with my eyes closed and my mind filled with thoughts of freedom, that I heard inside my mind the acceleration of a car engine, the squeal of car tyres and the sound of a ray gun being fired, closely followed by the firing of more ray guns. Instinctively, I threw myself on the ground and, squinting through the cloud of dust, I saw the most amazing sight I had ever seen...