Page 2 of Stars in Umbra
He scanned the alley mouth behind him, then the walls.
He found no clear exit. They’d circled him tight.
So much for slipping under the radar.
He straightened, adjusting the strap of his battered school satchel over one shoulder, scuffed boots planted on the cracked cement.
‘You for real?’
His voice came out dry, edged with tired sarcasm. ‘Ten of you for one backpack and a pair of roughened buskins. Not very legendary, is it?’
The leader stepped forward, shoulders rolling.
A smirk split his face. ‘Nada, the legend comes tomorrow, kid, when everyone hears about how we grifted tenkinais, including you, tonight.’
The youth arched a brow and smirked, unable to help himself. ‘Is that right?’
They exchanged glances, affronted by his moxie.
With shouts and yells, they rushed him.
He sighed and moved.
Quicker than thought, swifter than muscle had a chance to react.
A flash of motion, limbs loose and whip-crack fast.
He twisted, ducked, and lashed out.
The first guy’s knee buckled to the side.
Another caught an elbow to the nose and dropped like a stone.
Electricity prickled at his fingertips, dancing in the air around him, white and aqua, raw, and freakin’ alive.
His skin burned with it, crackling at his heels as if a power core inside him had been flipped on.
He spun beneath a swinging pipe, kicked a boot from under one, and slammed his shoulder into another’s chest, forceful enough to send him sprawling.
They fell, one after another, groaning and cursing.
The alley lights above flickered, shadows fluctuating over the brickwork as the ambiance crackled and glowed with an otherworldly charge.
Then, he was gone, running. Hard.
His feet skimmed the ground, the streets turning into smeared streaks of light and steam as he sped through the sleeping district.
Past broken neon signs, rust-scaled vents, and the reek of fryer oil and burnt plastics.
The suburb he tore through was the ass end of the capital.
It was tucked closer to the strobing dark crater of a stratovolcano that had risen tall over the eons through the accumulation of alternating lava and pyroclastic deposits.
He sweated as he raced through the super-heated, purple haze that enveloped the surface of the volcanic planet’s shattered landscape.
The only sound left behind was the fading echo of his breathless laughter, guttural and ragged, chased by the hiss of dying streetlights.
When he finally reached the familiar wreck of his apartment complex, he was trembling head to toe.
