Run, Rabbit

Author Notes: Finished up this piece earlier. Initially supposed to be a part of the "Infinite City" setting, I started this piece that same year, but just spun in my head unfinished. I don't know that I'll come back to it, but I felt I needed to at least finish this scene.

"What you were before doesn't matter anymore, Zec."

As they always did at times like this, his thoughts turned toward himself, introspective, contemplative. His body did things without input from him, taking action born of instinct, training, and habit. His senses absorbed information without requiring him to filter them into order, warning him of dangers ahead.

“What you are now only matters in that it shapes what you will become.”

A flash of crimson light ahead of him, approaching at speed. The glare of a shade? No, merely the glow of a sign, flickering its ideograms into the surroundings, telling all that looked upon it that this was a hostel, a haven for weary travelers. He knew that he would find no shelter there, no protection from the pursuit. As he moved, his hands reached out, grabbed the lower strut of the sign and swung around it, catapulting himself onward.

“What you will become is paramount, more important than what was and what is.”

He turned the words over in his mind, remembering the arch tone that had accompanied them. Ludo could be far too pompous at times, inflating his words with portentous fluff. It was one of the many reasons Ludo had as many knives arrayed against him as he did aligned alongside him. Ludo never could distinguish when it was okay for him to wax dramatic and when it was time for him to talk plain and straightforward.

“What are you, Zec? You're not a beast. You're not a boy. You're a runner. And what do runners do?”

He felt the pressure of air shifting to one side, heard the sussurration of cloth that accompanied it, and he landed on a beam, feeling the iron beneath vibrating, jarring up his legs and spine. He thrust his arms out to the sides to keep his balance, then sprang backwards just as the shade snapped out from the space between the buildings. He dropped, grabbed the underside of the beam and swung further down, touched a ledge, and ran along it, hearing the bellow of the shade's fury behind him.

“Runners are cunning. Runners are courageous. But runners do one thing better than anyone else.”

He was aware that his legs were aching, that his lungs were burning. He had been moving for quite a while at this point, never stopping, trusting himself to move instinctively toward safety. He had run through the city as long as he could remember, he knew its twists and turns, knew how to lose a chase. But this was a different kind of pursuit, this was the kind that never ceased. And so he could not stop either, even as his body cried out for relief.

“Runners run, Zec. They run. Because a runner who stops won't run anymore.”

Another shade lurked ahead, and he dodged aside as it lashed at him. A swipe was deflected aside as he leaned back out of the way, but then it grabbed the front of his jacket, grasping for the strap of his satchel. He tangled with it, grabbing its wrists, trying to ignore the sour breath it huffed in his face, holding on as it writhed in his grip. He showed his teeth in what was simultaneously a grimace of effort and a grin that exulted in the rush of adrenaline, then grabbed it by the back of its head.

“Runners don't fight. A runner that fights is a runner that's stopped.”

He stepped back into the open air and dropped, dragging the shade down with him, and heard the satisfying crunch as its head crashed into the ledge. He caught himself on a window, then turned and leaped for the wall behind him, grabbing a drain pipe and scrambling up it. He heard a shout and risked a glance backwards, and saw another shade hunched over its fallen fellow. It looked up and saw him, and there was the bellow again. The new shade sprang for the pipe and started climbing up below him.

“Never stop running, Zec. Keep moving forward. Because that is the way to the future.”

Reaching the top of the pipe, he clawed his way up to the roof and turned around to snatch his foot out of the way just as the shade came up after him. He paused to swing his foot in a savage kick, feeling the force of the impact all the way up his leg as it connected with the shade's jaw. Its body went slack, then plummeted into the darkness below. He let out a yell of triumph, but heard the answering bellow of another shade. And then a second. And a third.

“You're a good runner. One of my best. One day your name could equate to the ideal. Now that is something to which to aspire.”

He cursed and kept moving, leaping from one roof to another, but soon he had to climb again, and then run along the ledges and signs and beams that interconnected the buildings here. All the while the sounds of the pursuit getting louder, getting closer. The satchel bounced against his back, and he reached up to tighten the strap. He worked on leveling out his breathing, pushing aside the memories of Ludo's words. He could operate without thinking, but now that the pursuit was closing in, he needed to focus his attention on the here-and-now.

A rush of movement below caught his attention, and he saw a shade on a patch of pavement. Only this shade was different. Its fellows took care to cloak themselves like darkness, only the hateful red of their eyes to be seen. This one's head was exposed, its flesh pale but its lips black. It ran a hand back over its hairless scalp, and then he saw the sigil tattooed over its eye. The whorls of the Adversary, accompanied by the barbs of the Thorn.

It leered up at him, then threw back its head, cupping hands around its mouth as it ululated a howl. For a moment, this sound echoed through the concrete canyons, reverberating in the iron and steel, and then there was a silence. He knew what would come next, and he didn't dare linger. Soon enough, an answering howl rose up around him as more shades congregated below, and the Thorn-shade pointed a finger at him.

He cursed again and climbed, moving laterally as much as vertically. The shades were scrambling over themselves to try to get to him first. He reached a ledge and pressed his back to the wall as he made his way over toward the edge. The void of a window opened behind him, and then arms tangled around him and dragged him through. He let out a yell, but the weight of a body slammed down atop him, trying to knock the wind out of him, and the shade clutched at the satchel, trying to tear it open.

He thrashed, then slammed an elbow back. He felt it connect, and the shade stumbled back, giving him the room to turn over. It lunged down at him, but he got his leg up and was able to kick it away with force, sending it toppling back over a couch. Or at least, something that had been a couch before the room had become inhabited by a shade. It was dark inside, as befitted the shades, and the fetid stench of their filthy lives filled the air.

The shade was already getting back up, but he grabbed the remnants of a wooden stool and shoved the legs into the shade's chest. It swung at him, gabbling at him in their lingo, but he kept it at bay as he let his eyes adjust to the darkness. The room was on the corner of the building, and there was another window, boarded shut. The light from outside was obscured partially, and he saw the shades from below struggling to get past each other and into the decaying room.

He cursed, propelling the shade backward toward the boarded up window, putting all the strength his aching legs could muster into forward momentum. The boards shattered under the impact of bodies, and he saw the boards, shade, and stool knocking other shades off the side of the building. He braced himself on the window ledge, then leaped over them for the building opposite.

He heard the shades bellow in their rage, and mercifully they were not climbing up his current building-perch. That wouldn't last long, and he climbed, jumping from foothold to foothold. The risks of such reckless movement were inconsequential, compared to the certainty of what would happen if he stopped moving. He crested the top of the building, risking a glance downward. The Thorn-shade was no longer there, which was never a good thing.

He ran for the far edge of the roof, but the shades were already after him, the roof access door banging open to let a stream of them from a lateral path. He angled away from them, but when he reached the nearest edge, he saw that his path had ended. The nearest foothold or ledge was too far to jump to, and climbing down was out of the question. He loosened the satchel on his back, pulling it around in front of him as he opened it. The bauble inside felt cold to the touch, and it stung his fingers as he gripped it.

He looked down at it, looking over its facets and the runes carved into select parts of its surface, then hurled it as far as he could. It twinkled briefly in the twilight, before it disappeared into the distance. He picked out the sound of a shattering window, and hoped that the room's occupant would keep it safe.

The shades were almost upon him, and he turned to face them, showed his teeth again, then jumped backwards off the edge of the building. The roar of the air rushing past his ears muted out the shades' furious bellows, and he let his lips curl in a smile that he had denied them their quarry. The pursuit would finally be at an end, for him.

But then a force collided with him from the side, and he landed heavily, and painfully, on another rooftop. He gasped for air, but his ribs creaked and ached and his breath came through short. His vision swam, but it cleared in time for him to see the shape of the Thorn-shade rising to its feet. Its black lips twisted into another leer as it loped over to where he lay.

“Good chase, good chase.” The Thorn-shade leaned down over him, then gave a solid kick to his ribs, sending another spasm of agony through him as what little breath he had left him again. Its voice was surprisingly high, a hint of rasp to its words. The sigil tattoo appeared to crawl over its pallid features, the whorls and barbs curling and sharpening. “But too bad, too bad, it is done, done.”

He gave a weak curse as he tried to get to his feet, but the creature jumped up and came down on his midsection, straddling him and clutching his head in its spindly fingers. It giggled and its head bobbed as if nodding in approval. “You have fight in you, yes, yes. That is good, good.” Its sour breath wafted over his face, its grin twisting into something out of nightmares. Its voice dropped into a deeper, guttural tone. “We can make use of that.”

He drew his knife and jabbed it up into the shade's ribs. Or at least he tried to. He got the blade clear of the hidden sheath. He got his arm up and jabbed toward the exposed ribs. But the Thorn-shade snapped one arm down, trapping his wrist and weapon before it could pierce flesh. With a growl, it tensed its arm, and he felt his bones snap.

“Rest, rest, little rabbit,” the shade giggled. “Your chase is over, yes, yes.”

And indeed, for Zec, the pursuit was over. The runner had stopped.