Onehundredfourtyseven Minutes.
That's how long I was running until I allowed myself a break.
Why did I choose this number?
No particular reason.
It's just that 147 is a nice number that's all.
It has four factors which aren't one or itself and those are 3, seven, 21 and 49.
So that means in a mathematical way the numbers one, four and seven are all nicely placed in the 147 itself. What an odd number.
What? There are endless numbers out there that would have the same criteria so there must be another reason for me to chose this number?
No there is none.
I can't think of anything regarding this number.
The moment I jumped out of the window I decided that I died there. Sadly I can't remember anything from my past life other than the fact that I got reborn with another chance of becoming a better me.
Huh; I can't just decide that I died? Of course I can! I just did so.
In fact I did the same thing once before – I decided that I should die and just jumped from a roof. But as I just said; I don't remember anything like that.
It's not possible to deny something that I just explained?
Would you for twelve's sake just shut up rational me?!
When I say there is nothing then there is nothing!
A single tear rolled down my cheek while I was screaming at myself internally. It needed about two seconds to reach my chin and then dropped into the black cloth from the jacket that I pretend not to know where I got it.
Gimme a break.
Not waiting until someone mercifully decides to grant me the break I just took it.
Well it's a nice way to put it but actually I just sat down in one of the seemingly unlimited back alleys this huge city has to offer.
Hidden behind some smelly garbage bags I hid my whole body in the closed jacket. This thing cold work as a very small miniature tent for me and once used to it the stench of blood wasn't a real problem. Because it's black you don't even really see the stains until you get close.
And no one gets close enough for that.
Of course I passed some people while I was running but they only yelled after me because they thought I was some brat who stole a soldiers jacket and didn't even bother to try chasing me. Aren't they correct in some way?
Nah.
Even if I'm short I should still be about twenty-three years old or something like that. So no brat but a reliable and proper adult. Yes those people are just idiots for not noticing that.
But their way of acting means that at least the cover is good or they would have chased me for sure.
Ah, yes, you are so clever rational me.
Praising myself I reached out for the hem of the hood the jacket had and pulled it a bit more over my face so that I am nicely covered without me loosing to much vision.
I only have just half of a normal field of view and absolutely no Idea why.
Well, it's bec-
NO IDEA!
Hehe~ I scared myself enough to stop my own thoughts.
I just sat there for a while, thinking nothing while listening to myself calculating negative numbers so fast that it made my normal line of thought somewhat dizzy. So I just watched the shadows very slowly wandering from one side to the other.
Judging from my sense of temperature and the movement of the sun it should be late summer or it was a still warm beginning of autumn. I just can't be sure if this place has the same sense of seasons that I am used to.
I looked up and watched at the nearly golden sky between the skyscrapers. The sun should go down soon if it isn't already but I assume that it would be some time until it gets dark.
So should I just wait here?
Maybe that would be better.
You see, I didn't just run away from my problems like everyone; I in fact did some great job that I started a long time ago but that I don't remember – I am a spy.
As the great spy I am I made some nice observations.
First of all; this world is way more developed than the one I knew and I don't even try to understand how many of the things I saw work because by the laws of physic they shouldn't.
For instance there are things like small hypermodern trains in various forms, colours and sizes. The smallest ones seem to be made for two people while bigger ones could be for twenty without a problem.
Those things seem to be something like cars in this world. Oh and there is one small, insignificant detail;
THEY FUCKING FLY!
Like, what the fifteen?!
Flying cars!
Even I know that this was a long distanced dream for humans.
Here it is just normal.
And not just cars – there are some nice looking boards, some scooter like things and even something like a chair and ALL of them fly or at least hover.
Some seemed to do it by themselves and others gave the impression that the user had to workout to make them move – get fit by flying through the city! What a nice advertisement.
I shifted my gaze a bit to look at the highest layer of the city and observed those cool things.
What the highest layer is you ask?
Well I just call it like that for myself.
This city seems to be made out of at least five layers.
First is the one that I can't see because it is underground. I only assume that there is something because every now and then there is a soft vibration in the ground as if there is a subway.
Then the place where I am and the place above me; there are the car-things roaming around like usual traffic. Also there are many small alleys connecting shady looking shops and obvious adult-bars.
And then there are the two top layers whose ground is made out from some coloured but see trough material and this is were the people are -loads of people. Way to many of them.
Ugh~ just looking at them running around made me somewhat nauseous.
Just get lost so that I could roam around more freely!
Oh, and I am not trapped in this layer or something as there are stairs everywhere and some cool looking tubes that would either suck you up to the next layer or let you glide down. I am really tempted to try those.
Quickly shacking my head to focus my mind on something else lead me to the most obvious question: what now?
It's a good question to be honest.
Do I have an answer?
No.
But hey I could at least answer that question.
Hmmm~
…
I don't want to be here longer than I need to.
Not just in this alley but in this city.
If this world has the concept of countries then I want to leave that too.
But that means I have to walk more..
Ugh…
Not that I am tired or something, I rally am not.
I'm not even sure if this messed up body even can get tired to be honest.
And the walking doesn't hurt too.
How should that be possible?
As I said; this body is messed up…
I carefully observed one of my arms – there were just a few, nearly healed scratches in places were my skin got peeled only a few hours ago. The holes in my hands, feet and tail are gone too and the thing that really irritated me is that my canine tooth just grew back.
I licked over my teeth just to make sure there is none missing – yep, all assembled in a nice order.
But the tooth didn't just grew back slowly. It just popped out instead and surprised me so much that I ran into a wall completely confused.
Remembering my still fresh third life wont help me waste much time it seems.
Ah well… time to move on.
I stood up slowly and stretched my arms a bit.
Then I froze in place.
There was something!
A weird thing that seemed to observe me closely.
"What are you, a stalker!?" I shouted at the hand sized, hovering ball.
It didn't like that.
Getting closer to me it started to blink in a bright green light and made a sound that reminded me of sirens.
No idea what that is or what this thing wants but this cant be good so I just grabbed the oddly soft, warm ball as it came into reach and stuffed it into a garbage can. To seal it up I placed a full garbage bag on the can, then turned around and ran away.
…
…
...
...
Notgoodnotgoodnotgood!
I am being chased!
No actually I'm not being chased:
I am being hunted!
That's even worse!
Since I "hid" the one ball, some more of them appeared and started chasing me. I tried to escape their vision but just couldn't loose them for too long until they found me again.
Is that some kind of way to modern to be in a fantasy world security system? I guess.
Then after a while I caught glimpse of those black military uniforms every now and then and those people aren't playing around.
The moment they get clear sight they just start shooting at me with those weird green rifles.
To my advantage I am pretty fast as my body seems weightless to me and because I am small I can quickly change directions on small passages so even the cool looking scooters couldn't really catch up. Well for now at least.
I don't know anything about this place but seeing the black uniforms in intervals that are becoming shorter after I lose them gives me the bad feeling of being encircled.
As long as I can run I will do it.
It helps that they couldn't really hit me too, because until now I only got shot once and it just scratched me.
Well actually I did loose my right ear because of that but the bleeding had already stopped and it somewhat felt as if it was growing back slowly so I don't mind it for now.
Someone shouted something behind me that I didn't really understand and a few moments before I could hear it I already [felt] that they shot at me.
To not get hit I threw my whole weight to the side and thus jumped away, barely evading the invisible projectile.
But now something just crashed into my head.
No, it's vice-versa – I crashed into something.
The moment I noticed this a weird feeling of getting pulled overcame me. Way more gentle than the feeling of being [summoned] but with the same amount of determination. There was no option for me to escape.
I was already halfway through it when I noticed that I jumped into one of the tubes by accident and am now being transported to another layer.
A part of me enjoyed this awesome way to travel as much as possible but the rest of myself got anxious as I realised my destination.
…
1.973.455…
1.973.456…
1.973.457.
The tube somewhat spat me out a bit more roughly and the moment I landed with my naked feet on the blue, glass like ground of the highest layer, about a hundred pairs of eyes focused their gazes of me.
They all held the same mixture of surprise, fear and disgust but some tended more to one and others to another.
But it doesn't matter because it's mean anyways.
Stop staring like that!
I know that my hood came of while I was in the tube but I am not that ugly… am I?
The sound of nearing sirens got me back to reality and soon after that I saw some military-looking people on scooters coming closer from the layer below me.
I hecticly covered my head with the hood again and started to run anew.
I suppose they wont leave me alone if I say that I don't remember some bloodbath in an adult-bar or will they?
Better not take chances because this time I had a direction.
A few hundred meters in front of me was some kind of sightseeing platform and below that the endless ocean stretched as far as one could see.
I had never seen the ocean before and its evenly golden colour could made an artists heart cry but at this moment I could only see it as one thing:
an exit.
I ran even faster than before and the rational me stopped counting just to concentrate on escaping too.
People jumped out of my way as I was running so they can be as far away from me as possible. Is it because of the ominous reason everyone hates me or because the soldiers behind me started to shoot again?
Who cares?
A hundred meters.
Seventy…
Fourty…
Ten…
I heard dozens of shots behind me and could feel their presence but this was not important at the moment.
I stretched my last step, grabbed the edge of the security fence that was as high as me with both hands and threw myself over it with the incoming speed.
. . .
. . .
.
.
THIS IS AWESOME!
I am flying!
No, you are just falling.
Shut up I am flying as free as the birds!
...falling…
Humpf~
The rational me is wrong as I was clearly flying into the golden-red sunset.
But then something odd happened.
For a moment it felt like I was falling trough a thin membrane that didn't stop me in the slightest.
And then...
it got cold.
Stupid cold!
What's going on?!
Where is my astonishing sunset?
The warmth?
The soft breeze?
…
I looked down with a bad premonition.
Where is the ocean that should catch me?!
Everywhere I looked was just grey and white and the also white mass on the ground came closer very fast as freezing winds hit my body.
…
Aw shit!