"It'll be fine—advisor or not, moving again won't hurt you."
Camera.
A shaking screen.
Step-step-step—!
Two sets of footsteps overlap. A dim, narrow hallway choked with debris stretches ahead, the air growing warmer with every meter.
Flickering lights slice across your features like passing windows. The hum of fans drone loud enough to drown out your thoughts.
The running man in front of you glances back, his gaze full of desperate perseverance.
With a bang, he shoves the door open, hurries through and then pulls it shut behind him. A click follows once he disappears behind it.
Your fingers twitch when something kneads against your head.
The door groans and buckles. Its latch engages and disengages over and over.
THMP—!
Again.
A dent caves into the metal.
And again.
You step closer until you are almost on top of the door. Your hand tightens, clenching hard enough to hurt.
THUD...SNAP!
The latch gives way. The bolt flies loose and the door bottoms out against a wall.
Blinding white light floods your vision.
Heat follows right after, rolling over you in a wave that forces you to slow. Your eyes narrow to slits.
You raise an arm and push through the light, through the doorframe.
Immediately, the scenery shifts.
The walls widen into an expanse of elevated catwalks stretching toward the horizon, filled with the muttering of the city above and the machinery below. You pick up the pace, each step ringing against the grated walkway.
Through it all, an exhausting smell pulls at your attention while sweat runs down your face.
Bam!
Through another door, the space narrows again, the walls extending into a long stretch that funnels your vision toward the man farther ahead.
You barely catch the knocked-down shelf in time, stumbling over it before you can eat the debris.
He keeps running, shoving down whatever he can reach.
The floor clutters with broken pieces and scrap. Yet for every step you take, the clutter shoves itself aside, clearing into a straight path toward him.
Faster, faster and faster until there is nothing left for him to knock down.
That same kneading feeling returns.
Frustration nudges into your conscience.
You flick your wrist and three distortions surge forward—a tintinnabulate sound like vibrating metal, wind snapping your hair across your face.
They miss by inches, scorching the wall in streaks of red right as he takes a sharp turn.
The hallway twists into a maze of bends and curves, one door splitting into many, slowing you down.
More and more strands of hair cling to your cheek, apoplectic heat poisoning your mind.
Another door, and it becomes the last straw.
The man does not even have time to close it behind him before you will it.
The metal heeds your call instantly.
The door tears off its hinges and slams forward, propelling him across the ground.
You flick a finger and a weight presses against your head. A streak of dull silver flies past you and bashes into his back, knocking him down hard inside a small, empty clearing.
"Fuc—!"
He groans, but forces himself back up anyway.
Step. Step.
You lift a finger, and a streak of grey flashes toward you, stopping just out of sight.
Step.
Figures emerge from the distance.
Without waiting, you snap your fingers. Another three distortions surge past you, hotter than the last set. Expanding heat licks at your skin, your sweat evaporates in an instant.
FWOOOM—FWOOOM—!
Two miss.
FWOOOM! fssshh…
The last one disperses.
His backpack bounces erratically with every step. You reach toward it, your eyes locking onto the bag.
Only for it to be ripped from your hold.
—!
A sting flashes through your mind, stunning you for a moment. The pack jerks back toward the group and the man's feet skid across the ground as he's dragged with it.
Glaring light.
An alarm trips in you.
THWIP—!
You pivot all at once, shifting direction just before a dull streak cuts past where you stood. A harsh thud lands somewhere at your side.
Your run slows into sidesteps, moving laterally instead of forward. Your heart pounds through your chest. The air cools your skin and your nose starts to run slightly.
The man shrugs off his backpack and throws it behind him. The bag skids across the floor and vanishes from view while four people step into place around him, their gazes fixed on you, their tools hanging loose in their grips.
A person half-obscured by shadow grabs the bookbag and turns to run. Before fully turning away, he flicks a finger toward you. The bracelet at his wrist catches the light, blinking once.
A pulse ripples outward from it.
The hairs on your body stand up. Then it's gone.
You step to the side, facing them, when the scent of burning chemicals wafts into your nose.
Your eyes dart down to your waist. Only to find your own tool smoldering, a thin line of smoke curling up from it.
When you looked back up, the group was slowly closing in.
Sweat pools along your cheek and slides down to your chin. Drip by drip, it soaks into your clothes while you make distance.
They step closer. Their silhouettes merge into a single mass, surrounding you.
You meet them with silence, their features appearing in the shadow, a litany of races.
Your hand finds the piece at your side, pulling it closer, keeping it tight against your body.
shff…
A lurch.
You move right in one sharp motion and launch it at the rightmost figure. The object tears sideways through the air, propelled by your will, slamming into him and tossing his body straight into the wall.
DUMPH!
The second his body crashes into it, the mass breaks apart and collapses inward.
You duck under the first swing and drive forward shoulder-first, knocking both of you onto the ground.
Someone grabs at your collar. Their fingers hook into the fabric, cutting into your skin.
You twist and rake your nails across a face without thinking. They hiss while warmth spreads across your fingertips.
Wind whistled.
Your hair snaps over your face, and you find yourself skidding across the ground when a hand grasps your wrist. They twist your arm painfully, a hiss leaves your mouth.
Instantaneously, you twist it the opposite way and drive a knee into their groin.
They do not let go.
Without thinking anymore, you claw at their face. You lunge forward and sink your teeth into their bare neck, jamming a finger into one eye.
They jerk back and let go right when someone clubs your back, knocking the air out of you before tossing you onto the ground.
Copper, iron, salt.
It lingers on your lips and tongue.
Your vision flickers.
Something displaces the air. Pressure gathers from afar. The floor beneath your shoes vibrates for a split second.
You sidestep just in time to see the ground split where you had been.
Across the room, the piece trembles where it has fallen. The tools attached to it rattle, metal ringing against metal.
One of them notices too late.
The piece rips free from the ground and tears through the air, clanging violently with every second. It smashes into someone's jaw with a crack and keeps going, dragging him off his feet before ricocheting back toward you.
You manage to catch it.
The momentum hauls you upright, only for your back to slam into the wall, knocking the air from you again.
It drops onto the ground with a thud.
You lift your arm through the thumping pain.
The kneading pressure returns behind your eyes.
It...burns.
Your ribs ache.
The depot feels smaller with each passing second. Your eyes flick to the bolted pallet rack lining the wall, stacked with crates.
A pause hangs between all of you.
Someone checks on the man with the ruined eye, blood slipping through his fingers.
Then it snaps like glass under pressure.
The lights above stutter.
Half of them cut out at once, plunging the room into uneven bands of shadow. The remaining bulbs buzz, casting broken patches of light.
You will the piece sideways and let it drag you away.
The floor where you stood explodes with a violent crack, concrete splitting open like a jaw. Dust blooms upward for a split second.
Steel flashes from your flank. A short sword drives toward your ribs.
You jerk back, the tip of the sword kisses fabric instead.
A hammer of heavy air slams into your side and sends you flying into wooden crates. They splinter under your weight and break apart, stabbing into your legs.
Your eyes snap upward to the crate above.
The edges of your vision collapse inward, frayed and unfinished like a badly drawn picture, while the center opens up into perfect clarity, just like the blade driving toward your throat.
The silver steel.
The angle.
The wrist behind it.
The eyes of the one holding it.
Their intent.
Their exhaustion.
Their hesitation.
Everything coalesces.
You tilt your head just enough for the blade to scrape along your collarbone instead, carving into the wood behind you. You grab their wrist, shove the hand up, then slam your forehead into theirs.
"Gah!"
For a second, you feel you could understand them.
You plant a palm on their chest and will it.
Bam!
They crash into a metal rack. You clench your palm into a fist and the crate above them shatters.
The fragments launch together, peppering whoever it was. Pieces jam into their face, throat and chest.
WHAM!
The small generator inside that crate slams into their chest. Spit and blood spray from their mouth, their eyes gradually losing their light.
Your foot finds purchase.
Metal screams.
The rack beneath you breaks like ceramic. A brace drops like a waiting hand, and you catch it, gripping it hard.
Your breathing slows down, you catch the remaining three already surrounding you.
You flick your fingers.
The piece tears free from where it wedged itself and whips back to your side. The cloth snagged over it drags along, obscuring its outline.
Without looking, your fingers dig beneath the cloth. You find a handle and pull free a long knife bordering on a short sword.
Its face glows dull silver under the broken light.
…tchk.
It whips in your grip before carving through the air.
The first clash nearly tears it from your hand.
Metal grinds against metal, sparks spitting between you and the attacker while the blades shimmer, your eyes finally adjusting to the dim.
They press in.
The edge slides and screams down your blade. Your wrist buckles while pain climbs through your shoulder.
The attacker slips their blade away before snapping it back toward your face.
Clank~!
The top of your blade catches theirs.
They press forward and blazing hot burst across your cheek before you even feel the cut.
Their weight bears down through the crossed steel, forcing your arm lower inch by inch. Your feet drag against the floor, searching for purchase but finding only dust, splinters, and blood slick grit.
Another shadow moves, your eye twitches toward the left.
Thwip—!
You twist your neck aside and something bolts close enough to drag a line of wind across your face.
The second shot follows immediately, lower, aimed for your side but you let yourself fall back, letting your combined weight pull the two of you down.
It hits them instead, punching into their ribs and jutting out.
Their face turns red and for half a second, their breath vanishes. Then they snarl through their teeth, spit flying from their lips.
They wrench their sword away, stagger back one step and rip a hatchet free from their back with another hand.
Clank!
The impact jars through your elbow.
They hook the hatchet over your blade and yank, your grip tears free. The long knife rips from your hand and clatters across the concrete.
Behind them, the last one moves their hand through a sequence.
The air around their fingers turns like heated glass. Lines shimmer, bending the dim light until the room warped.
Then they close it.
The remaining lights flare brighter than ever, static needling at your skin.
Pupil dilation.
Your heart beats like heavy drums.
Fight.
Something inside you stutters.
Fight.
Fight.
Fight.
Compel.
The racks behind you answer first.
A low metallic groan crawls through the depot, slow and strained.
KRRRNNNCH-SHRAAAK—THUNK!
Bolts scream loose. Shelves cave inward.
Crates shudder and slide off while long beams of corroded metal peel away from the walls, tearing free in jagged skewers.
KRRRNNNCH-SHRAAAK—!
The mass lashes down like a pythin.
THUNK!
It spears into the concrete beside you, splitting the floor in a jagged ring.
The static crawling across your skin snaps toward it.
The hatchet-wielding man moves at the last second.
Crack.
For an instant, the entire depot turns white.
The metal pythin drives the strike whole, every jagged length flashing bright enough to burn its shape into your irises. The concrete around it turns red, heat spiderwebbing before the floor begins to hiss.
BANG!
The sound punches a hole through the haze of your mind.
Only white.
Only the shape of your own hand, half-raised, your fingers curled around something you do not remember doing.
It smears your memories.
The depot stretches sideways, shelves and bodies dragging across your vision like someone dragged a wet hand through paint. The lights overhead hummed, both too loud and too close, too far away and too quiet.
Your raise an arm, it trembles with every breath.
The smell of burned chemicals and blood linger in the ruined room, your thoughts weigh like heavy stew.
You lower yourself onto your piece, breathing deep and slouching your shoulders.
Golden silence.
"...Hah..."
"When...did I...get hurt?"