NO PLANET

'RAGE' (Chapter 1)

Can you picture in your mind's space a single solid colour?

Now, whilst you are probably imagining a fiery red or a cooling blue, a joyful yellow or neon green, the human teenager chasing the horizon in the gunmetal grey, open-topped speeder, was seeing a colour that didn't exist. A colour that was in no way a shade or variation of any existing colour, but completely unique, distinct and separate, just as black is to white...

Ky slammed on the brakes and screwed his eyes tight shut. His upper-body flew forward. There was an unthinking moment of incomprehensible proportions that seemed to rip through time and pause it, just for a millisecond. Then his head came down and his forehead rocketed into the steering plate.

The pain was instant and he felt his brain shake inside his skull. Lights danced under his closed eyelids as gravity seemed to constantly change its angle, pulling him round and round and round... Unable to think, he stayed hunched over, with his head pressed against the wheel and his fists still gripping the frame. His chest heaved, desperately gasping in the heavy, dust-layered air around him.

Time seemed to fly as he lay there, waiting for his senses to return. Only once his breathing had slowed, and the waves of dizziness were beginning to cease, did he deem it safe to open his eyes a fraction.

The colour had gone. The colour that had so suddenly appeared and filled his entire vision.

Ky slowly opened both eyes and creaked his stiff neck and aching back upright. Warm, thick, sticky liquid flowed down from his forehead. Looking down, he saw that same liquid glinting crimson in the blinding sunlight, dripping steadily off the steering plate. It made a steady tap...tap...tap as each drop hit the speeder floor. Stifling heat hung like a haze in the air and seemed to cling to his clothes. After stretching his sore body he then pulled off his jacket, throwing it into the back seat.

Catching his reflection in the rear view mirror he saw a scruffy teenager with dark brown hair and brown eyes, bleeding heavily from his head. Running his fingers through his blood and sweat matted hair he gave the mirror a cheesy smile and began to laugh hysterically at the state of his reflection.

This speeder was better than he could've ever imagined.

He jumped down from the speeder, slightly delirious, and laid himself down on the side of the road. The ground was hot and gritty, and dug into his back. A glance at the speeder told him it had escaped unscathed. Staring at the sky he felt the corners of his mouth turn to a grin as he lay spread-eagled, feeling the adrenaline slowly drain from his system, and his heart rate slow to a steady beat.

Ky's grin quickly vanished when he tried remembering how it had all happened.

He had been working on the speeder for the best part of the last two years. This speeder was gonna catch him any and every runner Don Kato could possibly issue him to. Runners were deviants, the people who had betrayed or done any kind of wrong to the Don and his criminal empire. It was his job to catch, tow, and dump the runner on the Don's doorstep. All runners were ranked from levels 1-5; 1 being the petty deviants, 5 being the extremely dangerous and most wanted. This speeder was gonna get Ky those level 5's. He was gonna be the fastest Seeker in Arc-9. Once he started hauling in the big fish, the Don would keep the promise he made to Ky and finally give his ship back. This speeder was his ticket off this god forsaken planet.

Fixing it from an empty frame to a ferocious animal, it had finally become time to put it to the test. He had hit the ignition and felt it growl into life beneath him. He'd seen the horizon and had gone for it, gunning the roaring engine, and blasting across the barren wastelands.

He must've hit at least 250 analogues when what could only be described as colour exploded into his entire vision. Unbearable pain had seared deep into his temples. The colour had torn through his entire being. It was like nothing Ky had ever seen or felt. He flinched just thinking about it. It had felt as if his brain were being repeatedly stabbed by burning hot knives over and over. It had forced him to take back control of his limbs just enough to slam on the brakes, and wrench the steering plate around. He was just lucky the speeder hadn't flipped. He would have been dead for sure.

Confusion etched Ky's face. What was that colour? Could he even call it a colour? It was unlike anything he had ever seen before. And yet the feeling...it reminded him of...that night on the ship...that rage. Something wasn't right.

He got up to his feet and got back into the speeder. He punched the starter once, twice, three times and the speeder canons roared into life. Taking a moment, he closed his eyes and gently brushed his bloody fingertips along the speeder's metal hub. He could've sworn he heard it purr in return. It was as if this wild mesh of twisted distorted metal knew what he was about to do.

With the blood still coating his face, he gripped the steering plate and gunned the canons. The corners of his mouth slowly up-turned to a half-smile as he felt the tyres tearing up the ground beneath him and exploding out furious clouds of dust and grit behind him.

230.

His hair was whipped back off his forehead. The stifling, dusty air invaded every pore and forced him to squint, as the speeder cut straight through.

260.

Ky could feel it coming.

280...

The half-smile slowly turned to a grimace as the colour slowly crept into the edges of his vision.

290, 300...

It was beginning. That searing pain stabbing straight through his brain. He saw his Grandad. He saw his Gran. He saw his Earth going up in flames. He felt burningly hot. Yet, eerily cold.

310.

He hit the speed.

The teenage boy roared his rage against the agonising torture and the blinding colour, tearing his way across the wasteland.