This is so stupid. I should not be here.

  Klein thought in mock self-criticism. It was dangerous being here, more or less with the chance of being found, but there was no way he would let go of this chance now that he had found it.

  He shifted a bit as the information warned him, and hid behind a building and continued to look at the cloaked people ahead of him. They had stopped by another store–a big one, obviously leading to its higher reputation in the market–to wave their metaphorical wanted poster and dangle the rewards.

  He had gotten pretty good at heading the warnings of his trait. It worked so naturally when he had a target in mind, like a siren which honked in his mind whenever their information garden enclosed him.

  He called it a garden, because it looked like one to him. He hadn’t tried to enter that field of vision after the first time when he had been grounded with a deep headache at what he had seen. It was a garden around them. A lush green one with trees and their far reaching branches which plucked at the world around them. The branches far exceeded the garden of information.

  He wondered what would happen if someone were to come in contact with the branches, or if someone were to cut the tree itself. He had tried to affect it, but nothing happened.

  He regretted not advancing his abilities before he actually came here. It seemed that his powers would’ve increased his efficiency at this job by many factors.

  At least I can use it as an alarm for now.

  While he waited for them to leave the store, he went through all the mental hoops and all the choices he had made in life that brought him here: hidden in an alley, stalking three people who are after him, most likely with the intention to kill.

  Life sure is something.

  Soon the chase started again. Klein tried his best to keep out of their range, and although he almost got caught a few times in the middle of it, he also improved in the process.

  Sneaking around is kinda fun.

  It was only an hour or two later that the cloaked gang seemed to have enough of the day. It was after the leader had grunted something to the other two, that they had picked up speed with frowns on their face.

  Klein once again wondered if he had been found out. If they were going back to their headquarters to ask for help, or maybe something important had come up. He wondered if maybe now was the perfect time to disengage and go back home before it got too dangerous.

  But I haven’t even learned anything crucial. I can’t just go back empty-handed!

  The moment of indecisiveness came and passed. He resolved himself, and sped up to follow them. He had lost them a bit in the crowd, but their information remained in the air. Although quite muddied in the information of so many others, he who had spent a lot of time studying their information signatures, was able to find a vague direction of their retreat.

  A few minutes of covertly catching up on them, Klein finally stopped. The three people had come to a stop, just outside the outer regions of Charting Borough. He frowned. He understood the piece being there coincidentally, but this?

  Is it just for convenience, or is it something else?

  Klein waited for them to make a move, but they seemed content to wait. As if waiting for someone.

  Who could it-

  A sharp pain exploded in his temple and he stumbled. Klein tried to look up, to understand what had happened, but his vision swam. The directions changed, and he didn’t know when he struck the ground. The only thing he remembered after that was a shrill scoff, a hand on his neck, and then he passed out.

  #

  Klein woke up to the rattling of chains, a massive headache, and a vision spinning in colours and shapes. He blinked and the shapes changed, the colours too shifted, as if out of phase. A guttural sound escaped his mouth, but he couldn’t hear it either.

  What… is HAPPENING to… me.

  Even his thoughts were disarrayed, like a dispelling wave which tore at them as they formed. He shut his eyes, but a constant feeling of toppling over struck him. He didn’t know if he was really falling, or if that was an illusion of his mind, but he panicked nonetheless. He opened his eyes and tried to stand, but as the colours shifted around him, the distorted rattling of chains was heard again and a faint pain came from his hand.

  Belatedly, he realised that he was chained to a chair.

  He sat back down and tried to clear his mind, but it only aggravated the symptoms. The colours in front of him did a full 360 as he shook his head.

  I’m… drugged.

  Maybe even under anesthesia because he couldn’t feel his hands apart from the slight pain.

  I need… to GET AWAY.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The thought struck in his mind played like a broken record. He struggled like a wild animal, as he cut his arms and wrist upon the metal chains, and through it all he felt like he was forgetting something very important. An insistent voice, a small presence in the background of all the colours and all the rattling.

  use your power. use your power.

  Then a third sound came. Footsteps on a hard ground. Klein looked up in an emergency, his eyes bloodshot, and he saw figures of distorted and constantly changing proportions walk towards him.

  He tried to focus on them, and their figures cleared a little somehow. A feeling of garden around them, but he couldn’t understand what that represented. In the back of his mind, the voice continued.

  use your power. use your power. use your power.

  One of them came towards him and Klein was able to discern that it was a man. The trees around it poked at him, and he unconsciously tried to get away from it, but the branches followed.

  Then something threw his face to the side. He could feel a touch of pain on his cheeks, and the feeling of a rolling tooth, but he couldn’t understand it.

  “Just a kid….to follow us…are you?” Another yank and his face fell on the other side. The colours around him exploded in red, and he finally understood what was happening.

  He focused on the man in front of him, and as if every bit of his brain burned, some of the psychedelic burned with it. His vision cleared just a bit, and a clear vision of the man was presented to him.

  He had golden hair, green eyes, and a black cloak around him. He looked at Klein with distant eyes, as if indifferent to his state, as if the mere use of anger was just an act by the guy. Did he know that he could see him clearly now?

  Use your power. Use your power. USE your power.

  My power…. In that moment of clarity, the voice beckoned for him harder than ever and Klein realised what it had been trying to say to him. He can use his power. He can break the chains. He can… then what?

  His head burned with a heavy fever. The colours still jumped around him, but they were less so now, and he was still surrounded by an unknown number of people.

  Can I… can I escape?

  Klein turned away from the man, lest he see his emotions surface. The hesitation came at him, the corner of his mouth quivered in fear, but he hardened his emotions. He can get away. He can do it. He. Can. Do. It. He gripped the chains which bound his hands tightly.

  His face was pulled towards the man, his expressions already dull. Klein looked at the man with hazy eyes, drooling from his mouth.

  “What should we do with him?” Another man came up beside the leader. He was shorter, crooked, and bony. Klein hadn’t seen him earlier; perhaps he was the one who struck him.

  “We question the lad,” the woman from earlier now looked at him with a wicked grin. Klein felt shivers run down his spine, but he dared not move. “He must be involved with the incident. Snooping around like that, kids these days,”

  “Leave the questioning for the others. They can do it much better than we can,” The leader said.

  “Tsk. Do you think the boss-man would allow us to sell his organs after they’re done with him?” The third guy, the last of them asked.

  “Best to not have such aspirations, Jared. If he really has the artifact, then you know what happened to the last girl who unfortunately got one,” The woman sighed in resignation. Klein had a feeling that she wasn’t sad about the death of the girl.

  “You spoil the fun, Taylor, can a man not even drea-”

  “Are you awake in there?” The leader suddenly exclaimed, and looked in his eyes. Klein shivered, the terror of the moment ran through his spine and unconsciously his hands moved.

  “So you are. Amazing. To gain clarity through the alchemical drugs,” For the first time, Klein saw traces of emotion flare in the man’s eyes. A spark of joy, of rebellion.

  “I wonder what else you hide behind those robes of yours,” His eyes travelled through his body, and Klein shuddered and sank behind in his chair.

  “Sadly, it might be our last meeting before the boss comes. If you survive that, then I’ll come for you, okay?” His eyes looked pleading. “For now, give him another shot, Beralo. Make sure that he can stay down for at least a few hours.”

  The man left his face, and turned away. The other two trailed behind him after one last look at him. The man, Beralo, though, stayed and brought some sort of syringe out of his pockets.

  Klein in that moment of clarity understood that if anything, then perhaps this was the last moment for him to escape. The clarity of intent made every doubt a noise in his mind. What would he do after he broke the chains? How would he deal with them? He didn’t know.

  His hands glowed, the chains gripped within them shifted. Their structure grew brittle, and Klein thrashed. They still wouldn’t break. He poured more and more mana into it, a flood of it into the spell, and when the chains had grown brittle enough, he pushed and they broke with a snap!

  Klein quickly pulled himself out of the chair, his steps wobbled, and he still gripped a piece of metal in his hands, but he quickly caught the startled Beralo. He whirled behind him, his steps misled him a bit, but the man was very weak. He caught his syringe hand, and the other with the metal glowed again. The metal in his hand grew sharp and hard, like a sword caught between his fists, he brought it to the man’s neck and looked ahead.

  Three guns stared back at him. The cloaked figures looked at him, and their figures distorted a bit under the influence, but he could feel their surprise even from his distance.

  “Let me go! Or I’ll kill this guy!” He warned. His voice came out weird, his pitch too high, yet he pressed the metal against the guy’s neck and blood oozed out of it.

  “How in the mother’s hell did you escape that!” The guy, Jared, yelled.

  “It doesn’t fucking matter anymore! What do we do now?” Taylor looked at their leader, and Jared followed her gaze. The leader meanwhile looked at him with a predatory gaze, his gun still at ready.

  “Wow,” Were the only words he said.

  “Tommy, Tommy! Tommy, please save me! Please save me!” Belaro struggled in his grip, so Klein dug the metal even further in his neck. Even as he did it, the sound of piercing flesh hit him, and his fists shook a little.

  “Put your guns down and let me go! I won’t alert the officials, I promise!” Klein tried to compromise, but the leader, Tommy, just looked at him with fascination in his eyes.

  Klein didn’t know when the fascination turned into madness, but he flinched when one of the branches around the man suddenly lunged for him.

  He shot Belaro in the head. The body in his hands went limp, and Klein could only stare at the man and his madness in shock. The others looked just as shook as him.

  “Come little puppy, try something else now,” He said.

  Lost for words, Klein eyed him with a newfound resolve. He pocketed the syringe the man held in his fists, and his hands once again glowed. The real fight then began.

  #