After Effect

Chapter 1

"You need to give it up, girl."

The statement was barely a threat, but coupled with his slow, preying pace and harsh, loud boots that echoed and rattled up the several corridors and windows that indicated he was behind her, and the heavy, black gun that seemed to be as light as a toothpick in his left hand... and the snarl that curled the side of his lip that further exposed the jagged and dark red scar embedded on his forehead that ran down his cheek and nose in a sort of horrendous, disgusting crimson half-spiral... it all made me run and slip and trip up that much faster.

I reached the glass elevator at the end of the east-wing's longest corridor, when I chanced a glance over my twisted shoulder.

Empty.

My face blanched. There were no more foot steps but I knew that the stab I had made to his hip and the cut along his face wasn't going to injure him enough to cause him to stop. Nor was the scratch on his wrist or the added teeth marks to his thumb.

He was dangerous; the best of the best.

The glass of the elevator was smooth enough that by pushing my shoes out behind me I managed to get my body to slip into the small space less painfully than I imagined. The walls supported me as I leaned back and let out a laboured breath as the transparent wall slowly slipped into place.

A glint of light.

His eyes. They were terrifying red and purple flames that were shrouded by the occasional dark lids of a blink that made them look like two drilled, endless caverns.

I smashed at the illuminating 1922 button frantically.

Silent bullets smashed through the glass; powerful winds gushed through while I spiralled up the golden building, flicking my hair into my bloodied face. I could feel my stomach clench in trepidation and nausea.

I needed to move.

I thought I could run, that I could escape, but either way I knew I was going to lose. Eventually, I would die from blood loss. I knew that. But I had some hope. I knew that I needed to keep going. So I did.

The broken wall lifted half a foot from the ground then stopped, it was a big enough gap for me to slide out onto floor 1922. Top floor.

It was hard. I was bleeding all over. I was crying. I felt as if I had survived what seemed like a century of pain being constantly inflicted upon me, when in reality I knew that it had been less than forty-eight hours.

My people had always passed with flying colours. They spoke of being witness of the treasures and the eternal, never-ending events of the universe we were forged to silently protect.

And me? I was weak. I couldn't do it. I felt like an imposter. As if I was intruding on the most private part of their timeline... their last seconds. I couldn't watch their last moments; I couldn't watch them die.

I was an insult to my people. I was a failure. A failure.

I had nothing else to give.

My transition was a failure.

I nearly killed my instructor.

I stole.

Our kingdom was in chaos.

Our princess was dead.

And it was my fault.

All of it.

So I looked at the box, and I pressed it.

I heard a final gun shot before my torso squeezed in on itself and I was catapulted into the next galaxy. My vision of illuminating, smoky skies, silver nebulas, golden supernovas and polka-dot planets meshed into one until it was shrouded by a black shadow and I saw no more.