Coming Undone

Chapter 5: Aiming Skyward

Runt's body quaked gently as he looked up at the stars. Anxiety was busily tying knots in his mind, reminding him that time was short and his strength was shorter as he fought in vain to calm himself down.

Even in the blackest of nights, there was just nowhere to hide from the monster just beneath his skull.

Runt crossed his arms tightly ahead of himself and leveled his vision back on the sidewalk. He was just approaching the door of one of the university buildings, one of the few that was still lit up and unlocked.

The redeye session.

Runt shouldered open the glass door and kept plodding ahead.

He didn't really want to turn in his paperwork.

He definitely didn't want to buy boarding passes under false credentials to a freighter that moved slower than a gas giant's orbit, filled with strangers who could at any moment prove to be MLA agents.

But he was going to. Not a thing would stop him.

Except himself, maybe.

Runt paused outside the second set of doors in the vestibule and just breathed for a minute. Nausea tickled the pit of his stomach as he drug his fingers across his datapad and swallowed. There was a lot resting on his shoulders. More than he should have been trying to handle in the first place, let alone without pills. But there was no turning back now. He pulled the datapad out of its case quickly and sharply, trying to surprise his anxiety, trying in vain to sneak by its watchful eyes and accomplish his tasks in peace.

He opened a message app and hastily typed something to Quixxa.

Quix-

Please remember my pills. Still planning on meeting at the usual spot?

-Runt

He sent it, nervously re-reading the message in his head as he did so.

He hoped she had those pills.

With that, Runt pushed open the next door and slipped inside.

Air that was still a bit too warm for Springers wafted over him as he pulled his hood down and glanced around the lobby. No more than a dozen people were there, including the female Kavera secretary who'd flirted with him too many times before. She hadn't seen him yet, and simply stared down at her glowing datapad in the dim nighttime light, her massive, fur-covered body rising and falling with her breath.

Runt felt his face get hot. He pulled his hood back up, and looked to other way.

She'd gotten the wrong idea about Runt the first time they'd met.

And he hadn't been able to set her straight, or escape her hungry glances, since then.

Not the time.

He clenched his teeth.

It was hard to avoid eyes, though.

He was a Springer, after all. And that made it hard enough to blend in.

Add in the incorrect body and no stripes mixed with a voice deeper than his body should have produced, and he attracted much more than his share of stares and raised eyebrows.

Not the time! He snapped at himself.

He had much bigger things to think about.

Better distractions from his resident troubles.

"Hey Runt!"

Runt's cloud lifted just a little as the familiar voice caught his ear.

A study group for philosophy majors was reposed around one of the couches in the hall up late again and expecting Runt's attention. If not, his company.