Rule number 5: Always look both ways before you cross.

Yup, we’re running again. Have I mentioned how much I hate this activity? I don’t understand how people do this for fun. They must have a screw loose or something. At least I can see where I’m going this time. Does that stop me from almost falling flat on my face? To those of you who had faith in me and my ability to move efficiently, that faith was sadly misplaced.

My breaths crystallise upon contact with the chill night air. Under the illumination of various, sequentially placed lampposts, I observe our surroundings. High-rise buildings erected in every direction are the first clue that the Cage is located in the city centre. The other glaring clue is the building we’ve just exited. Large and imposing with a considerable compound around it, the gold trim letters haven’t faded in all this time. In another day that time may soon forget, this was the manufacture site of one of the country’s most sought after beverages. Now its status is hobbled by pernicious affiliations. Affiliations that are pursuing us this very second.

I’m following as closely behind the Duchess as I can manage, freezing through my wet clothes whilst also being heated up by the exertion. It’s an uncomfortable mix to say the least. We’re following a wide road and sticking to the shadows as much as we can. A number of churches line both sides of it and I halfheartedly make the sign of the cross each time we pass one. Not even places of worship were spared from the ravages of man. Like the shopfronts around them, they too were trashed without a second thought. Perhaps they were looking for salvation, or faith, or some other inscrutable thing. In any case, I don’t believe they found it. Now the only things that travel through their hallowed halls are the lonely winds whistling for company.

The area is curiously devoid of life, or un-life as it were, in the form of Brights. Not just that, it’s uncharacteristically quiet and there’s not a body in sight. It’s completely within the scope of our new reality to hear the occasional shuffling of heavy feet or even the sound of something breaking. Yet there’s nothing to prick my ears up for as we continue our run. There are good silences sure, but I haven’t encountered one of those in thirteen months and twenty-six days. There’s an irritating itch in my brain and try as I might, I can’t seem to scratch it. Instead I focus my attention on keeping pace with my new companion. She moves silently through the cramped streets as red locks bounce on her back like spring-heeled flames.

Several steps ahead of me, she ducks left into a shadowy side alley. I speed up and do the same. The sudden change from relatively smooth pavement to a cobbled side-street sends pain shooting up my legs. I stifle a groan and push on. We are brought to a crossroad and I remember a time when every second building here housed a pub showing the weekend match. Throngs of people would arrive, tourists too, to take in the jovial atmosphere and alcohol that pervaded the entire street. Roaring supporters robed in their county’s colours would fill the streets with colour and noise. Now all too empty and drained of the vigour they once possessed. We continue in a straight direction and emerge on the other side to meet the river. That and impending danger; more impending than our pursuers. Remember those hordes I mentioned before?

It would be more apt to refer to them as a legion at this point. The sheer number of them would deserve nothing less. They’re pack creatures: stronger together and deadly in the unfortunate instance that you got caught within a group of them. It feels wrong in my mouth to describe people, fellow humans, in such a way but that’s how it is now. Each face is contorted into a pained grimace and black, murky blood trickles from the corners of their mouths. Between us is an impossibly long chain-link fence, the river, and a mound of cars and other vehicles stacked about ten feet high on each of the three adjoining bridges within sight; ‘Ha’penny’, ‘Millennium’ and ‘Grattan’. Someone wants to keep them out. Or us in. Personally, I’ve never encountered one that was afraid of water; they simply can’t swim in it. Their movements are too uncoordinated and sluggish in water; they’d just float out to sea. Those hopeful few who attempted to flee across the sea were met with the grizzly misfortune of being preyed upon by floaters.


There must be thousands of those dazzling yellow orbs behind the fence, shining in contrast with the dark of night. Little pinpricks of light on a black canvas, they resemble still fireflies or the clear night sky when the stars come out to play. They’re almost beautiful. Almost. The scene playing out in front of us is anything but. The scene where a trembling figure is hanging for dear life onto a metal pole protruding from the side of a red-brick three story building. Beneath the figure is a host of Brights with ravenous gazes fixed on them, silently baying for blood. They’re dangling just a few feet out of the reach of even the tallest of them. The river’s dark waters flow without the slightest consternation for what goes on above it. Our side of the street is thankfully only filled with rusting cars inter-spaced irregularly on the road and the fading blue carcass of a bus lying on its side like a wounded animal. But I can’t take my eyes off the figure on the other side of the river

Something strikes me in the chest, knocking the air out of me and I instinctively retract my arms to my chest. In my hands now lies a large helmet with a bumblebee motif.

“Put it on.” Straight to the point, she wastes no breath with extra words.

Beneath the stretching shadow of a nearby building she rolls out a green motorbike to stop next to me.

“It was you.” I whisper as I marvel at our new mode of transport.

“Me what?” she asks in an accusing tone, levelling the words at me like a pointed blade.

“N-Nothing, don’t worry about it.” I respond absentmindedly as I reach out to feel the words embossed on the side of the bike ‘Ninja’.

“Don’t touch Cassie.” She snaps, smacking my hands away in the process.

“Who?”

“Cassiopeia.”

She puts on a matte black helmet hanging on the left handlebar and mounts the bike known as ‘Cassie’ with the ease gained from an action repeated countless times.

“Get on.”

I don’t make a move to get on behind her. My eyes are once more focused on the person dangling mere meters above the muted jaws of death.

“We have to help.” The words slip effortlessly from my mouth.

“We don’t have to do anything. You have to get your ass on this bike or so help me you won’t have one to sit with.”

In front of me, one of their fingers slips from the pole and the dark purple claw of despair seizes my heart. I turn erratically to her and grab her by the shoulders.

Gazing into her tinted visor, I plead with my eyes. “Please, we have to save them. There’s no one else but us.”

Not a moment passes between us like that before she takes a hold of one my hands and twists it. A gasp of pain escapes from my lips and I release her from my desperate grip.

“Even if I wanted to stupidly risk my life, there’s no way we could get over that fence and the river anyway.” She relinquishes her hold on me.

“So you’re saying I just need to find a way to get over there?” I ask with with the subtlest hues of hope in my voice.

My eyes dart around quickly, looking for something to aid in my quest. I spot a pair of long, wooden boards leaning against a building and the inklings of a terrible plan begin to take shape in my head.

Without a moment to lose, I’m scrambling to set my plan in motion. In the space of about a minute I’m ready. I get on the bike behind the Duchess with the helmet fixed tightly around my skull and interlock my fingers around her waist.

“Do you trust me?” I ask from behind her.

“Fuck no.”

“Good. That means you’ll be careful.”

The sound of a revving motorbike fills the helmet and we’re launched forward. I feel the first board dip under us as we ride across it. They felt certifiably sturdy when I was transporting them earlier but now they feel all too flimsy. Now atop the side of bus the real challenge is apparent. The metal exterior bends and crumples noticeably with every second we’re on it. We have no chance to stop and rethink our current course of action. The second board is leaning against the looming fence that seems more like Hadrian’s wall the closer we get to it. I made all the calculations needed; the board is at an angle of 15 degrees to the top of the fence, the river is about 50 meters wide, and the bike can more than achieve the velocity required to make this jump. But man, I really hope my math wasn’t off. That’d be a real bummer


“Is that a knife in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” As you can see, I’m not very good with tension.

The Duchess speeds off without a reply and I wonder if I just led us to our deaths. I feel the creak of the wood and its threats to splinter into pieces in my core as we ride over it and leap desperately at its edge. I pull my hands together even tighter around her waist. At the apex of our jump, I’m sure we resembled a strange sort of flying fish. All the while, multiple sets of eyes are keeping watch on us and our flight. I keep both eyes firmly on the person we’re flying towards and their struggle to hang on. Don’t look down. Don’t look down.

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