Mirage

Chapter Eight

     Lindsey was silent. The only sounds were the wind rushing in his ears and the fluttering of their clothing. The slowly collapsing building behind him filled with panicking people, the drone of the choppers above and the Peace Officers yelling orders ahead become obsolete. Nothing mattered but the jump. The familiar feeling of weightlessness overcame him. 

He made the mistake of looking down.  

      Every Deathwalker learned early. Don't look directly down when you jump. Fear could kill you. Your biological response to jumping at such a height could send your brain and body into overdrive and you'd black out, which was a death sentence. Even creatures of flight like Dragons or flying shapeshifters weren't immune. If you couldn't shapeshift in time or there wasn't enough space to do so you'd die like everyone else. 

          Ryder had seen something moving in the corner of his vision and it didn't look like a piece of metal or building material from the collapsing structure behind them. The distinct motion of fluttering cloth caught his eye, more specifically, the shade of green. Crow colors.

       A raven-haired man was jumping at least a hundred feet lower than Ryder was, holding a child in one arm. Ryder had a split second to register the fact that Whisper had ordered his men into the collapsing structure to save as many people as possible, before the fear sucked the air from his lungs. 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

     The next thought, or lack of one, was incoherent screaming. The ground was literally thousands of feet below him, the people on the street looked like tiny little ants. Vehicles zoomed this way and that and a traffic jam had begun on the north end of the street. The flashing lights from emergency response vehicles were little more than glimmers. He could see a few blue colored tarps that had been stretched out for people forced to jump from the second or third story of the building to escape. There were no brightly colored tarps where he was jumping. The only thing below him was cold, rough brick. 

      Ryder's vision began to narrow, black spots beginning to creep in from the corners. He tasted vomit in the back of his throat. It was Lindsey's grip that gave him something else to focus on. He had a toddler on his back, he wasn't alone in this jump. Whatever happened he couldn't let her die. 

    A small sob bubbled up in his throat as he finally tore his gaze away from the ground below him and refocused on the landing point. He right hand caught on the edge of the railing, a loose piece of metal catching on his wrist and tearing straight through the fabric of his jacket before sinking into his soft flesh. The pain more than anything else chased the black spots from his vision. He grunted with pain then hauled himself over the railing onto the landing. 

     Ryder collapsed onto the structure, the cool stone beneath his hands and knees as he doubled over and dry heaved. Tears stung his eyes and one even ran down his cheek. He sat there for a long moment, trembling. 

     "Is my mommies down there?" Lindsey's tearful voice was the slap in the face that allowed him to pull himself together. He slowly reached up and undid the silcord with trembling hands. He sucked in a deep breath of air as she slid off his back. 

    "Oh my god, are you ok?" A woman's voice came from just in front of him and Ryder slowly looked up to a see a blond haired woman with hazel eyes. She had rather strange looks, he thought to himself,  Laehlian for sure. Their hair colors were muted and their eyes were usually earthy tones. 

     "I'm fine. Take care of her." Ryder said, getting to his feet. He roughly rubbed his face, ignoring the blood on his right wrist. The cut was shallow and the metal had missed anything major. He should be fine. The woman gave him a worried glance as she scooped up Lindsey. 

     Ryder turned and hobbled back towards the scaffolding. He made his way up a few floors, this time a little more slowly. The world had shrunk to this single moment. Jumping and climbing. 

     He wasn't sure how many times he went back and forth between the buildings. Everything had become a blur. His only thought was to get one more kid across. Just one. The scaffolding was beginning to blur together, rusty framework all looking the same. The jumps were all massing into one. Had he made this jump before or was this his first time? 

       His lungs began to burn, the burning pain any time he moved his arms becoming part of the background. His ankle throbbed with every step. He was on autopilot, so deeply in the zone that nothing else mattered but making that perfect jump. Over and over again. 

     The building lurched beneath his feet. 

Ryder sucked in a deep breath, shaken from his trancelike state by the awful sensation. He slowly glanced over his shoulder at the weight nestled into his back. It was a two year old boy with yellow hair and cream colored eyes. The boy gazed calmly at him, oblivious to the dangers around them.

Ryder's legs were shaking with exhaustion. Every muscle in his body burned from the exertion. He glanced around, trying to find a spot to jump. There was none. The building was on its last metaphorical leg and starting to sway more in one direction. 

He wrapped his legs around the metal piping then began to slide. He needed to get lower, find a better place to jump. As he slid down the pipe the building lurched again and a terrifying echoing groan emanated from the building. Chucks of rubble began to fall from above. A piece of building the size of a car missed them by a mere foot and Ryder felt the draft as it passed them on the way down. 

  His stomach was in knots as he desperately glanced around for a safe spot to jump too. A piece of metal caught his cheek, a fragment from the metal framework that exploded on their level nearly taking his eye. 

Ryder sucked in a deep breath, the scream trapped in his throat as he stared up at the skyscraper that was now coming down on top of them. He kicked off the next ledge and continued sliding down and then suddenly, there was no more scaffolding and they were dropping into space. 

Its just a jump. Ryder told himself, spotting a halfway decent space to land. It was a piece of broken landing that jutted out slightly. His right foot slammed down onto the outcropping and he lunged forwards, his knees hitting the cool stone. Then he leapt to his feet and sprinted for the scaffolding he'd spotted on the other side of the landing. 

       The stone was beginning to crack and large chucks of the floor were falling through onto the lower levels. The sounds of groaning metal and shattering stone filled the air. On these lower levels most people had been evacuated. They'd climbed up to the waiting choppers and bridges. Even so, he spotted a few bodies, people who hadn't made it. 

   A pink sleeve wrapped around a hand, protruded from beneath a chunk of stone that had fallen from a higher level. To his left was a man with a metal frame protruding from his chest, blood dripping into a puddle where he sat. A few stragglers were haphazardly leaping over the sides, choosing to jump rather than be crushed. 

Ryder lunge for the scaffolding then hauled himself onto it. He risked a glance downwards and realized he was only five stories above ground. He began to slide downwards again, even as the building lurched once more. He was halfway down when he felt the colossal structure slipping sideways.

He risked another glance downwards, his heart in his throat. They were still too high up. This was it, he was going to die here. He clung desperately to scaffolding, even as he felt the structure he was holding onto give way completely with a small bending sound. Ryder kicked off the edge of the building then spun, ready to spot his landing like he always did.

He was freefalling with chunks of rubble and metal. 

The wind whistled around him, or maybe it was the screaming lady who'd jumped just after him and was pencil diving towards the ground, her momentum taking her past him. He caught a flash of blue hair. 

Everything felt surreal, like he was in some sort of dream. He should have felt afraid, but the fear was oddly absent. At least the exhaustion and pain would be over. Ryder reached back, slowly and carefully untying the child on his back before turning to curl around him. 

The least he could do was try shield the kid.