Shred Of Fragments

Epilogue

"Stop!" Someone called, but he kept running.

The air tastes like metal, burning his lungs as it goes past. It’s all he can feel as he runs for his life as his footsteps pounding against the hard, cold ground. He doesn’t know where the voice was coming from; if he were paying more attention to anything else then maybe he might have noticed. But he can only think of running and escaping and not being killed.

Sweat dripping down from his forehead and his hair sticking to it with a cold sheen of water. His lungs burn and everything hurts but he doesn’t stop, not even when he falls forward in exhaustion. He only just manages to regain his feet before falling once more as he gasped for air.

The world spins around him, his body feels weak, they're getting closer, as he can hear their breathing behind him and that's not good, that's bad, because if they catch up to him now—

He tried to breathe, getting up on his feet, as he forced himself to keep going. His arms shake, his legs hurt, he doesn’t know how much longer he can go on. He can't outrun these guys. There are too many of them. He could try to make it back to the ship and maybe, maybe they wouldn’t be able to follow him then.

It won't work. He knows that even if he managed to escape they will come for him sooner or later.

So he can only keep running

There isn’t any time left.

The footsteps behind him don’t slow, they get louder with every step that passes him.

He’ll just have to keep running. Keep fighting and running until…

Until what? Where does he go now? How far will he get? Who will save him? The voices get louder now as well and panic rises in his chest as it threatening to choke him, making it harder to breathe and—

"Keep it together Blaze!" shouted the power sphera in his hands, "You gotta stay strong and run!" Blaze looked at the sphera and took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down. It was hard; it was so hard.

Right. Stay focused on keeping them at bay and not on letting the fear overtake him completely. Just for this moment he needs to remain calm.

So he tries. He really tries, but even still he feels his muscles weakening, his heart hammering against his chest, blood rushing through his ears and—

"There he is!" someone yells from behind him.

Blaze looks over his shoulder and almost trips on the uneven ground but he catches himself again, pushing himself faster, trying to get away from the sound of the footsteps behind him.

"Hurry Blaze!" cried the Power Sphera as Blaze hand tightening its grip on the Sphera ball, "You need to make it to the ship before they catch you!"

They were close by now. Too close. He could feel their heavy panting breaths in his ear and hear their boots hitting the ground as they chased him. And now they would have caught him, they were already catching him, he was done for, oh god, please, no—

A loud crash sounded behind him and a second later he felt his body slam into something hard, rolling backwards onto the ground. The pain was excruciating.

His body curled in on the power sphera as he tried to protect it from any further harm. His whole body shaking and quivering under the strain of holding his head above the ground. It seemed like he had been hit square across the back.

Blinking rapidly and trying to get his vision clear, he looked up, hoping desperately that the alien chasing him wasn't there. No such luck though.

Standing a few meters away, staring right at Blaze. He wasn't chased by the same alien