I fled back towards the Mulberry Estate as fast as my legs could carry me. Tears kept streaking from my eyes as I remembered the horrors that I had left behind me. I was numb. I just couldn't put it all together. I couldn't fathom that anyone would do those things. There was so much blood. How many people had been slaughtered in that den, deep in the dark below the earth? How scared they must have been, how terrifying would it have been to sit there and watch, waiting for your turn.

  I violently shook my head, trying to shake the horrific image from my mind and the smell and taste from the back of my throat. I was flying across the rooftops with wild abandon, activating my Jet Boots again and again, soaring through the air, landing with heavy thuds, sometimes falling flat and skidding. But I didn't feel any of it. I didn't care about the scrapes and the bruises, I just had to get away. I had to get away from the horror and those whispers. They hadn't been that bad in months, now it felt like the horrifying rending of my sanity was almost too much to bear. I could feel the taint of those callous voices in my ear. The faster I ran, the more I convinced myself I was getting away from them.

  Finally, I had to stagger to a halt. I bent over and wheezed, spitting putrid bile and saliva out of my mouth. My chest went like a piston as I tried to regain my breath, unable to shake the uneasy feeling that I was being watched. But I knew that was just paranoia. I had felt like that for months now, that there was always something over my shoulder, following me and watching me.

  I straightened up slowly, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and pulled my scarf back over my face. It was drenched in sweat; my entire body was covered in cold sweat. I could feel it snaking down my lower back and across my neck. I had hoped getting back out into the fresh air would dispel some of the fear, but it was still there, deep in my heart. The terror of that place had infested me.

  I took a few skips forward, ready to bound over to the next building and continue my journey home, thinking about my bed and my safe room where the whispers couldn't get to me, when I suddenly saw a billboard flash just out of the corner of my eye. I stopped and turned to locate it. It said: "Hi again," this time with a cute little cat waving at me. Who the hell was this person? What did they want? The billboard suddenly flashed, and there were a pair of eyes staring at me. Underneath, something was being typed: "You're being followed." My blood ran cold. The billboard changed again, and in giant six-foot letters, it said "Run.”

  I turned and sprinted, leaping off the side of the building, activating the Jet Boots and flying over to the next one. I landed in a heap, rolled, and began sprinting. I fired off my Grapple Cord and caught a towering billboard, swinging myself across the next gap, flying onto a fire escape of a building that was slightly taller. Again, I landed hard, but I kept running. As I looked over my shoulder, I swore I saw a figure, inhumanly tall, dark against the night sky. I didn't dare take a second glance. I sprinted up the next flight of stairs, across the rooftop, and I bounced my way to the next building, putting on an extra spurt of speed.

  As I flew by the next gap, a billboard about four buildings away changed: "He's still behind you," and then there was an arrow pointing in a direction to my right. Blindly, I followed it, leaping across the next gap onto another building, running across, and then I skidded to a halt and saw that there wasn't another building after that, it was a main bypass road. I saw a billboard across the main bypass, and it was flashing with an arrow pointing down.

  "Shit," I grunted, took a couple of steps back, and ran.

  I leaped off the building. I'd only done something like this once or twice, and it never quite ended well, but the third time is always the charm, right? As I flew down through the air, I shot my Grapple Cord out, hooked onto a lamppost, and swung myself down. The problem with swinging yourself like that is the sudden change in direction is torturous on your joints. You have to have really good body control and a lot of strength. I didn't have either of those things, so as I swung, my whole body jerked, and I clung onto the Grapple Cord with both hands, mitigating the damage through both shoulders instead of one.

  I flew into the street, skidded on my boots, and then rolled headfirst into oncoming traffic. The bypass here was six lanes, three going in each direction with a 50 mile per hour speed limit, and in New London speed limits were more of a suggestion than a hard rule. Most people would be going 60, maybe even 70 miles per hour. As I rolled, I leapt up and froze as a car zipped by me, blaring its horn. I heard another horn go off to my right and narrowly avoided another car screeching past me. I turned and ran, barely making the middle divider without getting flattened. I leapt over the divider, looked to my left, and saw I had a free gap, and I sprinted.

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  As I reached the middle lane, I realized cars move a lot quicker than I do, and I thought I had enough time to cover all three lanes of traffic, but I didn't. A large black minibus was on me. I had maybe a second to react. I activated my Jet Boots and funnelled sheer terror and panic energy into them. The Boots activated, and I flew like I had springs in my heels. The problem was, I flew straight up. As I came down, windmilling my arms, I bent my legs enough to absorb the impact, rolled forward, heard the scream of another car horn, and then activated the Boots again, this time angling my body and pushing off with my legs enough that I flew across the final lane over a car and into some bushes on the side of the road. I rolled hard, slamming through whipping branches, scraping against concrete, until I finally came to a halt in a ditch on the side of the road.

  I groaned and pulled myself up, and then I had a thought. I raised my freshly scraped palm and wiped it across the cloaking charm on my belt. Darkness billowed around me, and I sprinted out from underneath the bush, across a quieter road, and into an alleyway. Panting heavily, I struggled to catch my breath, it felt like there were shards of glass in my chest but I kept running. I put my head down and dashed through the alleyway, desperately looking around for another billboard. I was completely disoriented now, and I had no idea where I was. Down here on street level, I couldn't see any billboards. But there was a traffic light. As I looked at it curiously, I saw the green arrow indicating the left lane could turn blinking furiously. Who said men were bad at taking hints?

  I sprinted down the street the light had indicated. Even though it was late, people were still outside milling about, waiting for buses, or hanging outside shops. I pulled my hood low and kept running. I saw people watching me, nudging each other; some even shouted as I ran, but I ignored them and kept going. I was directed by another blinking traffic light and then I came to a street-level billboard with a giant arrow pointing straight up. I skidded to a halt, looked left and right, but there were no fire escapes, not in this part of town. There was, however, a five-story building with a metal drainpipe in front of it. I looked at the sign and sighed.

  “Really?” I grunted, and as if it heard me, the blinking got more furious.

  I turned, activated the Magnet Rune, and began pulling myself up the drainpipe. It was a tough climb; my shoulders ached already, and pulling myself up with only one hand was making my shoulder hurt even worse. But I pulled myself resolutely up and managed to get to the top of the building, where I heaved my body over. I fell in a lump on top of the roof, panting for a second before scrambling back up and looking around.

  I vaguely recognized where I was. I think I was somewhere close to the Mulberry Estate, but I'd never been here before. I scoured around for a moment and saw a billboard far in the distance. It had a pink background and a big white-gloved hand, like Mickey Mouse's, giving me the thumbs up. I ran to the edge of the building, activated my Jet Boots, and began bouncing along the rooftops. Fortunately, the buildings are quite narrowly spaced here and of similar heights, so I was able to make my way quickly across them without any more amateur acrobatics.

  By the time I reached the billboard, which turned out to be much further away than I first thought, I was gasping for air. Suddenly, the billboard changed to a down arrow, and it was blinking furiously. Had I not lost whoever was chasing me yet? How? That was impossible. I looked over my shoulder, but I couldn't see anyone. I snarled in frustration, leaped from the building, and began running down the fire escape. I saw another blinking traffic light, followed that, and then saw a bus stop advert suddenly change, with a picture of a garbage bin on it. I looked to my right, down a dark alley, and saw one of those massive commercial-grade bins.

  “Oh, you can't be serious,” I muttered.

  The bus sign changed, and it had the words "Do it" flashing on it.

  Shit.

  I turned and sprinted down the alley, threw open the bin lid and chucked myself in, pulling the lid down on top of me. I was breathing so hard now that I thought my lungs would explode. I wanted to be sick, but this time not out of fear, just out of pure exhaustion. My face burned and my legs quivered. I crouched down in the filthy, stinking bin, and then out of instinct, I held my breath, covering my mouth. I heard the heavy thud of boots dropping into the alley. There was no way he could have been that close to me. I hadn't seen anyone chasing me, but whatever it was, it had only been a few seconds behind. I covered my mouth and willed my burning lungs to be still. I heard some sort of hiss, not like a snake, but like a pneumatic hiss, and then a heavy clunk of footsteps. They paused, and then they were gone. I heard another pneumatic whoosh and then silence. Finally, just as I thought I was gonna pass out from lack of oxygen, I gasped and breathed in the stink of the bin deep into my lungs. I burst out of the bin and almost collapsed out of it, rolling to the floor, stinking and covered in bin juice. On my hands and knees, I wretched and if my stomach had any food left in it I would have puked again. Groaning, I looked around, but the alley was empty. Then I looked down the alley at the sign that told me to jump into the bin, and I saw another thumbs up, and underneath it read "You're welcome."

  Who the hell was my mysterious digital guardian angel? And who the hell had been following me? What was going on?

  I groaned and vomited again.