Interstellar Ross

Chapter 18 Villains

Dragon Realms

Killing Season

I fell hard on my stomach on flat, compact earth. "Oh sweet Hell, I did it." I breathed out raggedly. "I did it."

"You did." Dimitri's voice came out strained. "Now hold still." He gripped a hand around the hilt of each knife.

"Do it quick." I buried my face into the sand as he pulled both blades from bone and flesh. "How are you?" I sat up to face him, my eyes dropping to the hand over his ribs.

"Later. Right now we need to keep moving." He struggled to stand from the blood he had lost down the side of cloak, shirt and pants.

I caught him from falling, slipping an arm under his to support him. "You're pretty beaten up." I observed.

"We need to keep going." He maintained. "Opening a new portal creates a tear, a tear that can be reopened by any portal jumper-unless you know how to close it behind you. I don't even know if it is possible to close a tear, all I know is that as long as you leave tears, they'll be able to follow us anywhere and everywhere."

"How are we supposed to outrun them then?"

"We keep jumping until we find a fixed portal, they won't be able to track us through that." He explained. "Quickly." He winced.

Blood was already beginning to stain my own clothes.

"Okay." I pulled him closer to me, picturing a distant land to portal to within my mind.

A glowing purple outline appeared before us and I stepped through with Dimitri by my side.

I followed his advice, conjuring and jumping through portal after portal until we found a fixed portal in the Siren Realms. I visualised a place that I felt would be safe for the moment as we leapt through the fixed portal.

Human Realm

California

"Human Realm? Really?" Dimitri had the audacity to complain as I resorted to carrying him like a newlywed bride in my arms under a bridge, a place I had spent a large portion of time under in my recent past.

"I'm going to leave you here for only a second, I'm going to get you some medicine from the hospital." I propped him up against the graffiti tagged wall.

"Okay." He closed his eyes and I tapped the side of his face to wake him up.

"Keep your eyes open for me."

He nodded weakly.

I forged a portal and leapt through before his health could decline any further. I emerged inside the bathroom of a hospital I had been admitted too after I was in a bus accident. I caught my reflection in the mirror and grimaced, I looked like a sewer rat. I put clothes on the list of things I needed to attain in my mind.

I exited the bathroom and into a bustling hallway, nurses and patients moving to and fro. I quickly looked through each doorway until I spotted a bag of fluids hanging idly in an empty room. I was quick to unhook it and stuff it under my jacket, searching the cupboards until I found a first aid kit and a blanket to take with me. I checked the adjoining bathroom and grabbed a few spare gowns.

"Hey! What are you doing in here?" A nurse had appeared in the doorway of the room.

"I don't have time for this." I slammed the bathroom door shut and locked it.

"Someone call security!" She ordered.

I visualised Dimitri in my mind and my old bridge, holding them close to my head and heart. A portal formed in the mirror and I stepped up onto the sink to throw myself through it.