(Episode I) A (Long) Time Coming

The girls ran across the ground that was giving way to the flat void below them. It really wasn’t their night.

Jackie’s sneakers, made for traction, ripped up the loose dirt from the ground, as it loses consistency, then form, then disappears. But she didn’t care about her exhausted muscles possibly locking up in strain or letting the fear trip up her steadily tempo she’s practiced, something she figured out and tailored it to suit her.

But she was clearly worried about the normal girls behind her lagging behind, clearly not used to it. Everyone can run, the brilliance of the human evolution is the fact that we can run away from danger, allowing the adrenaline flow and rush just as much.

The method, however, was how we pace said running. In a burst of speed, a human cannot overtake a cheetah. But a cheetah only can have that burst, whereas a human can jog or evade as soon as it gets ready to sprint, then dash themselves as the cheetah’s inner workings take the brunt of its tax. The human will be laid up in bed for possibly a week, but they survive.

Aiko was doing the best out of everyone, but it was precious little between sprinting like a cheetah and not being aware of that she’s already taxed herself way too many times already. River already seemed to be at the end of her rope and merely is holding out for time, Maddie cursing and shouting in a effort to express her pain but it’s still slowing her down, hammering her down despite that, and poor Tracy is stumbling more than running, at the back and the closest to the advancing edge.

What was the Pell Forest—or was it the Pell Forest? Is it a copy? Casted away section of the location? Either way, it was a fragment, not enough for a field. There’s only the hill, with the wooden forest path that you normally have to walk down, as it crumbles away because it can’t be that, mimic that successfully. Thankfully Jackie in her panicked state constantly look back and forth, to figure out something—anything—in this fresh hell.

Like the area it tries to copy, down the stairs lead to a street into the city. Never mind the obvious falsehood of the depth, the problem was the horrible logistics… It wasn’t even the same part of the city where the forest and it met. It was ripped from another section near the harbor Jackie could only guess, warehouses darted about and the…Smashed up, beached docks. Her mind was racing, to be fair.

She had to figure out how to guide the girls out of their funks and fast, or they’ll go into an even greater existential trap. She saw Aiko’s knee buckle during the sprinting, and she had to act now.

“STEADY,” Jackie roared, craning her head as she herself start to stumble, “STEADY YOURSELVES—FOCUS—LET THE HEARTRATE GO DOWN INSTEAD OF IT EXPLODING!”

She corrected herself again, following her pace as the rest dramatically slowed down themselves, “DON’T BE AFRAID—JUST FOCUS ON KEEP GOING AND YOU’LL FIND TRACTION! BUT GET TRACY JUST IN CASE!”

Tracy was basically running on a treadmill leading into a hole, screaming, crying, turning into an absolute wreck as she pleads not to fall in. River was right in front of her yet behind, on the same pace, extending her hand and saving the redheaded girl and flinging her forward. Now all of them are so close to the edge, meekly buying their time. Time, cruelly, isn’t a factor in this run. Like the Shift before it, there could be a case that they could’ve been running for hours or minutes, or it’s seconds: running down a hill, just a hill, yet they haven’t made any headway.

It wasn’t until Maddie gasped out was there any notable change.

The ground broke at a different pace. In segments, clumps, then it quickly tumbles down and away. What was controlled sprints quickly turned into desperate lounging. Each of the girls in their own ways nearly got caught up in it all, and the worst part of it all is the fact that their collective screams are running dry as well. Maddie nearly fell in twice, clutching her leg as she tries to keep going. Aiko twitches as she tries to keep after Jackie. Tracy is running on her animal instructs because any and all energy have been drained. And River staggers along, nearly falling over versus falling in.

Jackie tried to call out, but another curveball hit her square in the jaw. Then her throat and forearm, before getting pelted at the point of rising a bit from the very ground that’s attacking them.

The hill broke apart upwards as well as downwards now, debris rising and falling, disintegrating both in a reverse shower and intense downpour.

They tried to keep their pace, they really did. There was only so much to do against something that was above pace, above logic.

Maddie was the first to get swept up in the updrift, then Tracy, then Aiko, River and before she knew it herself as she tried to shield her face, Jackie was carried away as well. The soft rock juggled the girls up into the sky void, but the motions had no pattern, so the swarm only hit upward and irregular. Faces, elbows, guts, collarbone and lips. Then cheeks, throats, faces, guts, hands, shins, and ears. Over and over, relentless, aimless, and undaunting.

It was only when Jackie was swept up into this mess, that she understood that they were trapped further within a trap. They’ve been running so long that their physiology acted as their clock, and it was pointless. They were trying to move, trying to regain ground, when they were stuck in a place where time didn’t matter, yet did only for the removal of the ground, removal of them.

Each of them tried to fall, to reach the ground again, but was uppercutted multiple times with the broken earth, in multiple spots and areas. More and more, they were floating away from the shrinking ground, both in their clouding view and it’s dwindling structure.

This wasn’t a plan, this wasn’t premeditated, what came next. It was primal.

“JUMP!” Jackie coughed out, as she used her aching legs to do so, falling face first into the grassy side of the hill, hoping that she’s leading by example.

She did; the other managed to jump out of harm’s way and joined her in rolling harshly down the hill.

Jackie covered her nape and back of the head with her hands, feeling the false ground take, cutting and digging into her as the dirt compounded itself onto her as well. She hit her stomach flat onto the sidewalk’s pavement, struggling to get up, glad in part for it because she needed to wait for the rest barreling down.

…Only to witness not only hers, but the rest of the girls left trails, empty streaks, due to them tumbling down. Jackie can only stare, in object terror, as she hoped that they try to evade each other’s holes, for them to even notice.

A scream indicated, validated, that hope; each one steered themselves in their downward spirals. River corrected her trajectory towards the further left of the hill, Aiko kept herself steady—but aware—as she was closest to Jackie’s streak, with Maddie and Tracy doing the same thing as River, but had the same problem as Aiko.

As she got up, they came down, just in time for her to help them out. They were riddled with wounds, bruises and cuts spotted about, blood starting to cover them all the same. Panting, hurting, Jackie helped them along as she drags herself ahead, running down the empty, colorless street, straight into the warehouse she eyed.

Jackie hunched over, bloody hands on her skinned knees, as she starts to heave out of exhaustion. The rest had their reactions, but all where united in pained sorrow, fear.

She panted and looked outside the warehouse, “LOOK AT HOW MUCH THE HILL’S CRUMBLED! IT’S GONE! IT’S FUCKING GONE!”

And that it was, the remnants caved into itself, swallowed whole. Giving a clear view to the skies that they haven’t paid attention to… How flat it is. How dull it is. Colorless as well, but in a different sense. Blue, but without any hues, texture, or volume.