Prologue
As I run down the alleyway, heart pounding out of my chest and steel-toed boots clanking against the frozen ground, I can hear the footsteps of my pursuers echoing along the walls of the buildings. It's snowing tonight, making everything seem deathly quiet and still as the falling flakes coat everything with a blanket of white. My breath is visible and my lungs ache against the frozen air as I run, telling me to just let myself be taken, but I don't stop. And I don't surrender.
I can see the portal up ahead, the one that I was given orders to enter and close immediately. The swirling vortex of black visible even from behind the sewer cover is reaching out to me, telling me that I'm it's last hope. I'm almost there.
But suddenly, I feel a lash at my back, and I look behind me to see the black masks of my pursuers getting nearer and nearer to me as I lose the energy to run. The sting of the whip that stung at my back is slowing me down even further, and my lungs are literally bursting against the freezing air, but I can't stop. Not until I get there. 10 feet, 9 feet, 8 feet, 7 feet away I lunge, sliding against the layer of ice that has settled over the sidewalk, and throw open the sewer cover. I take one last glance at the world I know, and I jump.
