(Jamie Bell Fanfic) Jumper: Black Balloons || WATTYS2019

Mufflers Under Sunny Days [ V ]

Mufflers Under Sunny Days [ V ]

I saw what Griffin thought, that he didn't know the woman who stood in front of him anymore. I'm Wyvern, a jumper from Oahu, born in France. I sell fruit shakes then watch sharks on my rest days. I sail too. And surprise the family with me and my friends' catch. Then we have a filling meal with music in the evening breeze. No. That was all in the past. Who am I? I'm Wyvern, a jumper who's been discovered and will continually be hunted 'til death-—who can't go home now. Yet can make countless homes around the world. Except for that one. 

My future? None. I don't see anything but the red splatters— that could smoothly be washed away as if nothing happened. Tsk. That Brit, Griffin. He didn't want to involve me at the start then did. Trained me to kill then asked me not to. When will he make up his mind?

"Wyv." Kana peeked from the covers. "I should go. Griff hasn't been back a while, something must be up." Wyvern stared at her, tongue-tied. She continued, "even if he's used to going alone... with the number going after us... I doubt—"

"No, no, stay," Wyvern muttered under her breath. "He said he'll just get something for us to eat. It's probably cause of the large order I asked. I'll call and tell him it's fine if he doesn't get it."

She stepped outside the suffocating atmosphere of that hole. It's fine, Griffin. 

I've made up mine.

When Kana went out to check why she took so too long, Wyvern was gone. Her eyes dropped to Ethan's grave. "What can you do Wyvern, you're still so new..."

-------

There, so unmistakably tall, so pathetic-looking just from the back. 

"Oliver," Griffin called.

His comrade turned to him with that same fearful look he now found so despicable, when before he only felt pity on him cause he was in the same life. But now he knew why he had that face all along.

"I wondered why you didn't have burn scars on you when you told us you got free of the wires yet Bastien didn't." Oliver eyed Griff's hands, scars marked line over line.

Oliver's face changed. He grabbed the knife in the other room then chased Griffin in jumps, slashing and thrusting the blade with the momentum aimed at Griffin's body. 

Griffin held his bat tight and kept his eyes sharp. Despite how his fellow Brit always shook in fear, he knew how skilled he was. Oliver was quicker, taller, and more muscular. So when Oliver let go of the knife, grabbed his arm, and jabbed at his ribs, he doubled on the ground, coughing.

Oliver kneeled on his chest, pressing him on the pavement. He missed the killing stab on Griffin by inches, the blade drove from his collarbone to his shoulder. Griffin shrieked, surprising himself. 

"It's the same old story, Griff." Oliver shove the knife farther in.

"I wasn't—," he breathed hard,  "asking."

"I want you to know cause I didn't have a choice. I didn't want to turn my back on any of ya'. To go to the side that's been annihilating our kind since medieval times."

"But you did. You should just shut your trap. No one wants to listen."

It was terrible when you lose someone in your kind, but the worst was when it should be done by your own hands. Another bad jumper again in front of him. Include him in the list with *David Rice. 

With Griffin losing blood fast, he held up the small remote, "where's the loyalty to the race?" Oliver recognized it instantly cause he liked it, liked how easy it was to end things and the person wouldn't even know the little bug of a bomb was on them. 

How easy it was to end things— wires shot at Griffin, pinning him to the ground, electricity wrecked havoc through his body. Beside his blinking leg, the remote was picked up by a Paladin and left it on the chair at the corner. This same one went to Oliver and removed the bug off him. He hit the back of his head. Oliver's shoulders drooped.

"O'Conner's finally caught." The predator gloated.

Griffin felt the party in everyone in the room, seeing him bathed in his blood and the volts endlessly surging through him. 

Was I that famous? That special?

-------

She popped in an apartment and went straight into the jump scar before the men in black shot at her. Alarms blared. She jumped to the mountains in Chiang Mai, Thailand then back, wary of surprise attacks amidst the overpowering scent of rust in the dark. When her eyes adjusted with the blinking red lights, she pinched her nose. Below her were pools of red and limbs. No one else was around. It smelled so bad... She thought of returning to ruminate about the situation some more but fought the idea off. She must be on the right path. Those 'people' were in the apartment.

Farther inside the room, walls of weapons enwreathed her. She grabbed a tether bolt and read the user-guide. Interesting. With this version, net bolts come out of this same rod too.  She scanned the other weapons 'til her eyes landed on the thin silver bangles. Did this mean... Oliver... hmp. Developing the 'people-watcher eyes' behind the store counter unexpectedly got handy.

After clasping it around her wrist, she ran towards the hall, careful not to slip on the blood. 

-------

By the time she found the room, the alarms had stopped. Wyvern peeked by the door way at Griffin limp on the floor in his puddle of blood, surrounded by, she counted, thirteen Paladins. Their dangerous equipments rested on the table. From the short self-learning session in the weapons room, she knew they hid so many others in their pockets, around their bodies, their legs, and even at the corner of the room, a small remote on the chair. 

Aside from the full body twitches, Griffin couldn't move from his injuries. His palm was flat on the ground, the index finger out. 

"We know you're out there, jumper." The man said without turning. She doesn't move.

For some reason, her mind went to a memory that felt like yesterday. Her training session with Griffin. We can always jump away and leave everything behind from one place to another. Leave the warfare in front of you for somewhere safe... too easily. He sounded like he consoled her.

Just to wait for another fight in the future, he burst a sarcastic laugh. It's not gonna end.

His eyes lost its focus. Head lolled.

She should blame him from the first time they met. She sneered at the corner of her mouth, I still do. She stepped into the room.

-0-0-0-0-0-

*David Rice is the lead character in the movie version, 'one of the lucky ones'. He preferred not to actively kill Paladins just to save himself, insisting that he's 'different'

Credits to Hi-def Ninja for the attached image