ydal

He tur­ned a cor­ner, hoping to buy some time from his pur­su­ers, and sped along the alley­way in front of him. Sharp metal­lic steps could be heard behind him, rather like hoofs clap­pe­ring among cob­ble. He seriously wis­hed it were hoofs, as hor­ses aren’t really dan­ge­rous. But they were still a bit away, he could make it.
The rain was poun­ding hea­vily on the roofs around him, adding to the mons­trous sound of the steps.
Com­pa­ring the alley to a trail in the woods would be a serious insult to nature. Someone seems to make a living of going up and down through the alley, ran­domly kicking a few full trash­cans around. The ground was lit­te­red with scat­te­red trash and lea­ves the wind car­ried in after they fell from the trees. The con­di­tion of the pave­ment was a mess. There were lots of small holes the rain fil­led up to pudd­les, and so he was not only splas­hed with water from above, but from below, too.
He didn’t mind. He was alre­ady soaking wet a couple of minu­tes ago, when he star­ted to run. He didn’t bother about get­ting a cold or seriously rui­ning his clo­thes. He’d be happy when he got out of this mess in one piece — and alive.
He slip­ped while trea­ding over a news­pa­per which was cove­r­ing ano­ther puddle, fal­ling flat on his face. A bit of blood trick­led on the ground, mixing with the rain­wa­ter, for­ming two-coloured spi­rals..
Loo­king up at the sky, he imme­dia­tely dis­car­ded the thought ari­sing in his head. He wasn’t good at ground move­ment, but they’d shoot him down with no pro­blems if he left it.
Being far too wea­ke­ned to try other means of escape, he stag­ge­red up and con­ti­nued to run, but reached the end of the alley.
Dead end.
Turning around, he saw the faint glint of glo­wing little orbs at the other end of the alley.
Acting as fast as he could, he faced to the high wall of one of the alley-side buil­dings, and jum­ped in it’s direc­tion, and then pus­hed with his feet against the wall to acce­le­rate in the other direc­tion. Turning around, he mana­ged to grab the drain­pipe and pull him self up.
A sound like a small thun­der­storm shook the night, and he noti­ced a flash at the end of the alley, where the little orbs were.
Then, the bul­let hit him in the left arm. The knock of the impact sent him spraw­ling back to the ground of the alley, spin­ning around. The arm was flai­ling hel­plessly in the air.
With one big thump his body slap­ped the ground, spil­ling some more blood. The metal­lic sound of the steps came nea­rer, until even­tually a large black armou­red foot lowered its­elf to the ground before his face.
The tro­oper grab­bed him by his neck, the ser­vos in his powered armour how­ling as he lif­ted the still brea­t­hing body from the ground, until the dark, red­de­ned eyes and the rest of the blood-splattered and torn face were up to level with the glo­wing orbs that were his eyes.
“Why do you always run? You’re finis­hed. You and your whole race. You’ll only die tired.“
The prey chuck­led and coug­hed some blood, its body shaking in a spasm of the slowly dying orga­nism.
“Your piti­ful people will never stop us. Can’t you see this? You think you are supe­rior, but you are not. You hide behind your tech­no­logy and your ignorance. If we hadn’t hel­ped you in times past, you would still be a couple of pri­mi­tive tri­bes.“
“Talk as much as you want, stran­ger, you’re com­ing with us. We’ve got a spe­cial little room set up for you at base.“
The stran­ger looked coldly into the mask that was the face of the sol­dier, sta­ring into the glo­wing eyes, remem­be­ring why he was in this situa­tion, wit­hout any assis­tance, in the hand of the enemies..
He remem­be­red the look on her face as he saved her from them who are his cap­tors now, after hea­ling her wounds — how he then ran away, yel­ling to her that she should run as fast as she can, that they wouldn’t fol­low her because of him.. He remem­be­red how she sta­red at him. He still felt how he used the powers given to him to heal her, and saw what price he is pay­ing now..
But it could not be undone. He could only hope to repent for what he has done, and hope that it isn’t too late.
He faded back into the real world around him, still loo­king at the sol­dier.
“No. I will not come with you.“
“Try to stop us.“
Qui­cker than they’d ever expec­ted him to react, he reached to his belt with his still working arm, grab­bing a small device..
The sol­dier never finis­hed his yell, cea­sing to exist after the device activa­ted, obli­te­ra­ted along with ever­y­thing else in the vicinity.
A gust of wind blew away a bit of ash.

Prologue story for the tale of the Wayfarers.