Running

Running. Seemed like I was always running. Each day, filled with running, my nights spent in uneasy slumber, alert at the next time I'd have to take flight once more. Weeks, months… maybe years, I felt like I'd been running half my life now.

How many worlds had passed by, I wonder? Dozens… no, more than dozens. A hundred? A thousand? I'd lost count. I just kept running, jumping from one to another with the help of my wrist transport. It had been getting weaker, though. The last jump had been a wrench of reality twisting around me.

I didn't even know where I was now. The last planet had been predominantly Crespallion, and blending in became nearly impossible. There seemed to be no one here. Some formerly human-based planet, apparently, full of buildings and alleys. Empty of all but rubble, leftovers of some great battle.

I rounded a corner at speed and sped slapdash into what appeared to be an abandoned city center, set on a bay. Wrecks of shattered glass and metal littered the ground like discarded toys. I had to leapfrog several downed obstacles, slowing me down.

I paused to look, a shadow in the twilight hinting at words, letters on the side of something but nothing clear that I could recognize. Right beside the bay, a deconstructed tower echoed with the noise of water falling, drawing me toward it, into an oblong impression built into the ground. As soon as my feet touched lower pavement, I heard a growl behind me.

"Time to stop running, boy. You can't get away from me."

My pursuer was catching up, damn it! I'd have to risk another jump and hope I had a chance to get further away this time. Flipping open the com at my wrist, I pressed the sequence for a temporal shift window and crouched, waiting to leap through the tiny fissure in space.

LIGHT! A bright flash of light startled me into a yelp, the fissure opening wide and strong, flaring light and color I couldn't begin to name. As my pursuit stumbled into the basin, I took off at a sprint and leapt into the spatial crack, hoping it would close behind me.

Mere moments later… or was it a lifetime… I was dumped unceremoniously back onto the pavement. My head was spinning, my stomach roiling. I hit the button again with shaky fingers, closing the fissure soundlessly behind me.

I was back in the oblong walkway. How was that possible? Did the jump fail? No, wait… my mind started to grasp the differences.

First, the sounds of water behind me, then other lights and sounds introduced themselves to my abused senses, a wall of common noise leaping out of nowhere. People walked along the pier, beside buildings, holding hands or chatting amiably in the evening air. A new world, a whole world, mirroring the last but seemingly untouched by war.

A wave of nausea hit and I dropped to my knees, violently vomiting what little food I'd had, retching until there was nothing left, until even the idea of food left my mind. I heaved for breath, wiping my mouth on the back of my sleeve. No one seemed to notice me, sitting cloaked in the shadow of the water tower.

A beeping at my wrist alerted me to another fissure opening, my muscles bunching automatically in preparation to run. The curse of these jumps is I wouldn't know until he was right on top of me if he actually made it through. I'd only have a few seconds, but it might be enough in this crowd.

A commotion behind me, sounds of startle and even fear, followed by retching. I froze, my head was still spinning, the edges of my vision graying out a bit. If he went the other way, I might still lose him in the crowd temporarily. Long enough… I shook my head, trying to keep focused.

Footsteps to my left, booted feet stopped almost beside me. I'd waited too long, now I was caught. People followed behind him at a distance, staring and pointing, whispering. My breath caught in my throat as I braced for the inevitable.

Only… it didn't come. My persecutor, an enormous brute of a man with cold eyes and a cruel slant to his mouth, crouched beside me. He stared at the cooling puddle from my stomach, stirring it with a finger. My gut tensed again in reaction and I held my breath, trying not to compound my potential torture for having thrown up on him.

He swore, wiped his hand on the edge of his coat and stood again. I felt as though I were rooted to the spot, didn't rise, didn't even look up at him, just stared at the dirty, ragged military boots. My voice had failed me and still I waited for the gloating or the crushing grip as he dragged me away.

After a moment, the boots walked off across the oblong, he was almost strolling. Trying to avoid being noticed, after apparently causing a stir with his arrival. Still I remained, my arms starting to shake, my knees aching from the cold hardness of the concrete, my eyes blurring in and out of focus. The crowd that had gathered wandered away from me, still following the feral stranger illogically meandering away down a city street.

No one could see me. The jump must have gone wrong somehow. My consciousness was sent through the window but my body stayed behind. That must be it.

Wait, that couldn't be right. A consciousness doesn't throw up, does it? I was getting confused. Or was everything around me getting confused? No, it was spinning, and the pavement rushed up to meet me.