SILAS

Something shifts in the twilight gloom ahead. Flickering across the surface of the rocky incline at one side of the canal. Slight and subtle, like the shadow of a mouse.

No, not a mouse. The movement is deliberate. Predatory. The skulk of a tiger in the grass. The air moves as something passes through it, though nothing is there.

Danger. Though I can't explain it.

I pick up the pace, bursting into an all-out run. Whatever it is, I'm not going to make myself an easy target. My eyes are ahead, my body a projectile, honed for speed.

Mid-stride, one foot pounding into the dirt, momentum carrying me forward, an alarm bell goes off in my head. I sense, as if by extra-sensory means, before my eyes actually perceive the new threat. A nearly invisible tripwire at knee-height, directly ahead.

I boost off with my foot, jumping, letting the momentum carry me. I tuck in my limbs, flipping in the air.

I land on my feet on the other side of the wire, skidding, boot heels scratching across gravel. But I can't slow down. I have to-

Something strikes my abdomen. Hard.

Running, I glance down. A metal spike, the length of my hand, protrudes from my abdomen. I reach down to grab it. Before I can manage to close my fingers around it, blue lightning streams out from the device, arcing across my stomach, down my legs, even jumping through the air to touch the tips of my fingers and streak up my arms.

Searing lances of pain erupt throughout my body, like a thousand knives piercing outward from within. My vision glitches. Bright, solid squares of primary colors flash across my view. The sensory inputs throughout my body check in and out, going from excruciating pain to completely numb, and the reverse, in quick, intermittent flashes.

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I stumble. My knees hit the bumpy, gravel-strewn ground. I catch myself with one hand, palm pressed into the dirt. My other hand, as well as the arm itself, twitches wildly, maniacally, thrashing like a cornered animal.

There's a prolonged yell. A roaring, ear-splitting sound. And I realize it's me. And I can't stop.

Insubstantial creatures shimmer in my peripheral vision, like the air itself shifting, circling me. Prowling.

There's a flash in my mind's eye, an image of a fly caught in a web, with a shiny black spider slowly creeping across the threads toward the prey, closing in.

With a heaving grunt of a yell, I manage to lift up one of my legs so I'm only on one knee. Even as I struggle to get myself up the rest of the way, I can feel the inexorable pull of gravity as my entire body betrays me. Every muscle, every joint, being targeted at once, under attack from the electricity.

There's another thud as something else strikes me, this time in the upper chest.

A new threshold of sensation seizes me. I'm not sure I can even call it pain, not anymore. I fall back down to my knees, but my torso stays erect. My body is rigid, unresponsive, nerves and muscles on end. My hands are wide and open, fingers flexed, shaking violently at either side of my vision. My elbows are trapped against my sides. My head is tilted back, jaw stretched, eyes locked straight ahead, mouth open in a now-silent scream.

The air ahead of me shimmers again, and then the figure of a man warps into existence in front of me. The details jump out at me, vivid and clear, as if the electric pulses have a heightening effect on my senses.

Late-thirties. A semi-full beard, with some scratchy stubble on his upper cheeks and what I can see of his neck. Thick, long hair, in a bun behind his head. Camo pants, shirt, jacket, and backpack. He carries an assault rifle, resting against his stomach, with a strap slung over his shoulder and neck. He wears a mask, tight against his face, insulating his nose and mouth. It's see-through, like a layer of plexiglass. Every time he takes a breath, the mask fogs up a little, before the air filtration system kicks in, and the smudges disappear until he breathes again.

He smiles at me. Not in a welcoming way. Not in a way that's actually directed towards me. It's the grin of coming across a great find. It's the look I probably have on my face when I see a good deal for a rare game in a pawn shop.

I don't like that look. Or that face. And I don't think he likes me, either. He watches me with satisfaction, enjoying my suffering, nodding to himself. Then he pulls back one of his jacket sleeves, revealing some kind of iWatch-looking thing on his wrist. He taps something on the screen, something I can't see. There's a loud, crunchy buzz as the voltage dials up—doubling, perhaps even tripling. My head whips fully back, my body going end on end. For a second, my vision is upside down, as more figures in camo jackets and rifles appear around me. Then everything fizzles and goes black.