Floating Face Down (boyxboy)

Chapter Twelve

[A/N] Sorry it took a while. I got sick and then had my flight back and then had two appointments yesterday and didn't have internet until this morning. Haa... Let's go!

My legs took off and I went charging into the night. The previously breezeless city streets were now filled with a turbulent draught that wrapped around me and refused to let go. My arms and legs chilled quickly while my skin heated up, my neck burning like I could already feel hands around it.

The burst of speed I found was like nothing I had ever experienced before, blood charging through my body like it was competing with my muscle and my bones for first place.

I should have thrown myself into a wall five seconds into a sprint like that but every sidestep and turn I saw myself carrying out like I was some kind of experienced at parkour or dancing. I saw the fuzzy black lines out of the corner of my eyes and dodged the obstacles whether they were there or not and continued running even as I heard the feet hitting the ground behind me, charging after me like the hounds on my heel.

I'd never run like that before. When I ran I was afraid of the people following me, so conscious of them I could practically feel their breath on my neck, afraid of the wind as it chilled my throat and hurt, afraid of the floor, waiting for myself to trip and smack the ground, lose a couple teeth and even break my skull if I was unlucky.

Not anymore. Now I only felt my own heart pump, my throat ache, my thighs going numb, mucus running down from my icy cold nose to my lips.

My lungs already burned as I burst through the city streets, there were more and more people around but they remained hot on my tail. No matter how fast I ran I could hear them catching up, one pair of feat by far the fastest, terrifyingly close at times.

None of us spoke, but I felt like shouting for them to piss off if I wasn't convinced I'd have to slow down just to get the words out.

No one seemed to get I was being chased, or maybe they didn't care. If I stopped and screamed for help they'd help right?

I couldn't figure it out anymore.

When I tried to look into their faces as I passed, for some kind of possible sympathy, something warm, I couldn't see their eyes. Either I was running too fast or their features were melting away just like they had with my mother and my brother.

I couldn't keep running, my legs were getting too numb. So I tried, after passing a group of three girls laughing, drunk, walking together under the lamplight, to last second sprint to the right down into an alleyway.

The alleyway itself was wide enough for a small car to fit through, but piles of junk and fire escape stairs on either side made for quite an obstacle course to get through, and when I heard the yells and the cursing and then the footsteps following me into the dark alleyway I nearly cursed myself.

Even worse as I finally properly looked ahead of me I realised there was nowhere to run, up in the distance the other end of cut off with a large fence with huge metal slats.

I couldn't climb that...

I felt entirely breathless all of a sudden, and my skin felt icy cold.

Just out of the corner of my eye I saw a gap near it, and taking the greatest leap of faith turned to knock over a pile of trash bags sitting on some old discarded furniture, a table, mattress and upside down sofa chair. I didn't turn to look but I heard it scatter and the yells behind me.