Refracted

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They were after me. I could feel their presence behind me, but I could not hear them. I could not look back or they would catch me and drag me to an even worse place than that from which I came .So I ran. And I ran fast.

My heart was in my throat, pounding to the beat of my footsteps. I could not breathe, I could not talk, I could only run.

And the pain, oh god, the pain was excruciating. My legs were like lead as they dodged and weaved the debris from the construction sites. The hunger was gnawing at me, worse than an unforgivable disease which only created pain and torture (and I had seen a lot of that where I came from).

Every breath hurt, every bone felt shattered and my brain was exhausted. My arms were covered in cuts and scrapes and my hair, my fiery-red hair that showed the defiance within me, was completely shaved. I looked pathetic and all I wanted to do was cry and curl up somewhere where they never would find me. But that was not an option, so I ran.

Through my peripheral vision, I could see them: dark black mask covering any face they might possible possess and long, mechanical limbs, extending and retracting in their terrifying imitation of a chase. But the VISORs were dumb and that was a fatal flaw, the intellectual AI were not wasted on policing the poorer classes of society. With a low life expectancy and minimal ambition, it actually was not usually us who proved to be a problem. At some point in the last millennia, people had forgotten that there was strength in numbers and instead cowered behind the false protection that the government promised in return for obeying their every demand.

The VISORs were a relatively new invention; they were really called Virtual Intelligence and specialised in Security, Order and Reconnaissance but their most distinguished feature was their mask and anyone who ever saw what was beneath that construction never stayed alive too long.

But they were dumb, they were also agile, strong and incredibly fast but I was more focused on the things that might actually have allowed me to see the light of day again. So for someone who knew this part of the city like the back of her hand, it was not impossible to escape. It was very much nearly impossible but I had heard of people who had escaped, unfortunately they left immediately and so I never really got the chance to learn from them.

I was reaching the centre of the construction area and the dilapidated buildings began to look more familiar. I had entered this sector through the entrance behind my school as opposed to the entrance by the facility where I guess you could say I lived. I was infamous there for my hopeless escape attempts which was how I learned my way around this place but however awful the facility was, living on the streets was suicide, literally. People with no home were removed by the VISORs and were killed one way or another. Ironically, the government never ordered for rebels to be killed as they believed in a system of re-education but the homeless were no threats, just a drain on society. And those drains were inefficient and limited the growth and potential of Zyphia, so they like many other things had to be eliminated. Consequently, when I attempted escape, I had two choices: go back to the facililty and try again or die.

I always chose life.

Until now.

My breathing was slowing simultaneously with my legs and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had to stop soon. My options had been reduced to hide or death. Luckily for me, I was back in familiar territory. Looking up, I saw my safe house I had built over the years. But the VISORs could also climb and were much faster at scaling broken skyscrapers than I could.

However, they were not too intelligent, as previously mentioned, and pursued their target (basically me) until either I was captured or until they were destroyed. Now I would have liked to test this theory beforehand, but my guess was that they would not test the strength of the building in terms of supporting their gigantic weight before chasing me. Like I said, I had limited options. So I dodged down the nearest alleyway and reached the structure that had been easiest to climb in the past.

Then I climbed, my legs burning and my hands clammy.

I couldn't make it.

Why now? I had never had that much trouble climbing this before.

CRUNCH! The VISORs had begun the climb too and the metal beams were twisting and snapping under the machines' iron grips. I tried to climb higher again but the vibrations and destruction of metal were causing the structure to shake at an alarming rate and at that point, I think I became scared of heights.

I could not express in words, the insurmountable fear I felt at the prospect of falling to my death or falling only to be caught by the VISORs and all this would have been for nothing. I could not go to that place. I just could not do it.

The VISORs were climbing higher and were getting closer and closer.

My eyes were fixed on them.

I forced them shut.

CRUNCH! The vibrations ricocheted up and then my hand slipped.

Suddenly, I was hanging on to a twisted metal beam with one hand and a blank abyss of concrete lurking below, while the VISORs just kept on climbing...

I screamed and screamed and screamed until there was no air left in my lungs but I knew it was useless. It was at that point that I realised my theory had not worked.

Shaking and deformed, the metal structure I was hanging onto had become very fragile, it was holding the VISORs weight but only just. So perhaps if I let go? The balance would be thrown off and the momentum would push the structure entirely off the rest of the skyscraper.

It was my only chance.

Quaking myself, I prepared myself to leap to my death.

1...2...3...

I let go, and was falling.

My hands reached out to grab the ledge below me and I thought I was going to make it... until the front VISOR reached out and snatched me away. And then we were falling, entangled in the sky, as the VISOR closed itself around me, its huge body covering me in a cocoon, drowning out the light. The air was crushed from my lungs as we fell and fell.

And everything went black...