Chapter 2 — Run

He scrambled forward as fast as he possibly could, the delivery bag abandoned, desperately darting between corners as he could now clearly hear the footsteps of something chasing him.

Whatever was chasing him was eerily silent, although if he listened closely he could hear the unsteady gait, the unmistakable breathing, its body moving fast and stealthily. He dared not look back and risk losing momentum.

All those years of experience navigating the alleys since middle school came to save his life at this very moment. He hurtled around several corners and ran over furniture with the rapidity of a monkey, knowing that with each turn he got closer to the main streets where there would be patrols, where he could call for help.

But that was ages away, and there was no help to be found in the alleyways. The government had given up on them long before the break. He turned another corner where a rusted rake had fallen to the ground. He did not see it in time, and his foot got caught by the long wooden handle, tripping him. He fell to the ground with a tumble, the creature still behind him, and he knew that it was all over.

But the impact never came, and William glanced back as he got up on his feet.

There was nothing behind him. He wondered if it had stopped chasing. Just as he was about to turn and continue running, a rustle came from above.

A pair of yellow eyes emerged from the corner of the second floor of the building behind. It moved slowly, the rest of its body imperceptible in the darkness. Realization dawned upon him that this creature could climb.

William ran without looking back, not stopping to catch his breath even as his lungs burned and his feet were heavy as lead. His heart thumped like it was about to burst from pressure.

He could see the street lights up ahead. That meant a main street was there. Sprinting forward with both arms pumping, he crashed into the open and nearly ran into a parked car.

Looking around, he recognized the place. This was the old docking district. There was a police station down the right between the convenience store and the warehouse. He’d be safe there.

——

The officer looked on at William with a bored expression.

“So you’re saying that it chased you down to the docking district.”

William nodded, but he could tell that the officer was not buying his story.

Four soldiers with assault rifles idled about outside the conference room. One picked his nose.

“Where is it now?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did it look like?”

“I told you, it had yellow eyes and it could climb—“

“I mean the body, so we can identify it.”

“It was dark, I couldn’t—“

“Essentially you didn’t see what it looked like.” He sighed, jotting down another note onto his notepad.

The overweight officer with a mustache put one elbow on the table, his metal rings glowing under the harsh fluorescent interrogation light. He sat across from William. “Listen, kid. Tell me what this is really about. Were you smoking in the alleyway?”

“No, I’m telling you—“

“If you need an alibi for the school, just let me know. This wouldn’t be the first time a Trinity kid needed a coverup.”

“Officer, this isn’t a coverup and I am being entirely serious. You need to send a patrol to find this monster.”

The police officer shook his head. “No can do, kid. We’re short staffed at the moment and need to be on alert for an emergency.”

“This is an emergency.”

The officer snorted. “Fat chance of that. I’ve never heard of a monster that stops chasing someone after seeing them. At least, not on this side of the gate.”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

It was clear that he’d made up his mind.

William slumped back down on his chair. What the officer said was true. Over the last twelve years, scientists from around the world had done extensive behavioral testing on captured monsters. A foreign paper first called it the madness principle, the phenomenon where monsters indiscriminately attack humans without caring for anything else.

This was a proven fact, with countless studies backing it.

If this monster stopped chasing, then it broke everything that humanity knew about monster behavior. It seemed implausible. Only monsters still on the other side displayed any form of intelligence or organized behavior.

Even he was starting to second guess himself. He was tired, the initiation was tomorrow, and maybe he just imagined the whole thing.

“Second,” the officer continued. “We’ve had breaks under control for months now. It’s sort of confidential, but our radar guys at the government have figured out a way to immediately find new breaks using electromagnetic tracking. That’s why casualties have been so low lately.”

William nodded weakly. That’s what he suspected as well. The officer made sense, too much sense.

“You probably saw some kind of animal, or just the light moving in a funny way.” He paused in thought. “Could be a homeless guy using an ability, too.”

“Either way, I doubt it was a monster. Have confidence in the systems we have, kid. They haven’t failed us yet. And isn’t Trinity having its initiation tomorrow? You better head home and get some sleep.”

“Mind if I charge my phone a bit before I go?” His battery was completely dry.

“Be my guest. You should always keep your phone charged to receive emergency alerts, you know that right?”

William nodded.

The overweight officer got up from his chair and left the interrogation room, leaving him alone.

He plugged in his phone to the socket and checked the time. It was already two in the morning. A few texts floated on the lock screen from Manager Kim, no doubt asking about why he missed his last delivery.

If Manager Kim docked his pay, he was going to miss his rent payment again. It hurt his head just thinking about it.

Best just not think about it for now. If everything went well at the initiation, he’d be able to awaken a decent ability, join a guild, and make a solid part time living going on raids. At least enough to keep a roof over his head until he graduated college.

The officer swung by the interrogation room and rapped on the door.

“We’re closing soon, kid. You should head back.”

—-

William arrived at his apartment dead tired. He had stuck to the main streets after that questionable experience in the alleys, and arrived at home safely.

He was greeted by a rat scurrying past the staircase that led up to his dingy place, and after a quick shuffle with his keys the creaky door whined open.

His place was small in a way that was reminiscent of a coffin, with peeling wallpaper, a sagging bed, and a tiny kitchen that had seen better days.

A cracked mirror showed his reflection, blond with dark brown eyes, slightly malnourished, tall, with bookish looks and messy hair.

He was filthy after everything that happened today, and immediately headed to the shower, trying to forget the whole episode altogether as he wetted his face. Perhaps the officer was right, and he had imagined the whole thing. It was too dark to tell for sure.

Tomorrow was the big day. William dried himself, changed into night clothes, then went to sit at his laptop. He cracked it open and navigated to the discussion forums.

This was actually a useless practice. He already read all that there was to read about abilities. Out of the common four elements, he already knew that he preferred to awaken a fire ability, because knowing his luck, he’d awaken at a power level of 1 or 2, and at least fire was still viable at those levels compared to something like clairvoyance which was quite bad at lower levels.

He just needed to nudge the awakening towards fire. Hence the little setup he had next to his bed, with the candles, newspapers, fire-proof tiles that he scavenged from a nearby junkyard, and matches. It almost looked like an altar for witchcraft. He built it over the last few months to ‘manifest’ a fire ability.

If the forums were to be believed, then a person’s wishes, experiences, family background, and a slew of other non quantifiable factors were taken into account when ability was being determined. For instance, individuals from families that had deep ancestral roots to the forest were likely to awaken earth or plant based abilities. Nurses were more likely to awaken healing abilities. So on and so forth.

The problem was that he had no clue what his family did. All that the government told him was that his parents died in an accident, that his surname was Blackwood, and that they left him a college fund but otherwise no money to use on day to day expenses.

He appreciated the fund, which in addition to a scholarship program were the reasons why he could attend Trinity Academy, but the mystery around his family dug at his heart. He felt like he was missing a part of his identity.

To the right of his laptop were several dusty books from the city library, the kind that were never bothered to be scanned into the internet archives. William had scoured them for any mention of Blackwoods in the past, but aside from some offhand mentions of a mayor here or a tax evasion arrest warrant there, he couldn’t find any conclusive details of his family, or even confirmation if those other Blackwoods were related to him at all.

He tried accessing the government census records, but many files were destroyed during the break, and his request was of too low priority to get processed by the bureaucratic machine.

The whole endeavor left him completely in the dark. Therefore, for purposes of his ability he had to just stick with his gut and awaken something practical.

Taking a match out from the box, he lit the candles and prayed.

“Please, just give me a level two fire ability.”

He completed his little ceremony, then blew out the candles and went to bed. This was the most he could do. The rest was up to fate.