I didn't even get the luxury of a slow-motion blink, the kind where the hero's eyes widen in cinematic horror and a single bead of sweat rolls down his temple like a pearl of impending doom.
Nope, the escort was on me in three bounding leaps that turned the rooftop into a blur of motion, each footfall a thunderclap that rattled the train's spine and made the steam hiss in protest, as if the locomotive itself was yelling incoming! on my behalf.
His arm whipped forward like a catapult loaded with pure malice before his fist buried itself in my gut with all the subtlety of a meteor crashing a tea party, folding my insides into origami shapes I didn't know were possible and expelling every ounce of air from my lungs in a wheeze that sounded suspiciously like a deflating whoopee cushion.
My body became a projectile, a hapless comet flung across the rooftops, rolling and bouncing over two cars in a graceless tumble that scraped skin from my hands and knees until I skidded to a stop in a heap of bruised limbs and shattered pride.
I coughed once—a wet hack that painted the roof with a delicate spray of crimson—and for a moment I just lay there, marveling at how quickly my life could turn to shit.
"Bravo on the blood spatter—very avant-garde; but next time, aim for my ego, it's a bigger target," I croaked, pushing up on elbows that felt like they'd been through a meat grinder's idea of foreplay.
Why now, of all the gloriously inconvenient times, did this hit me like a brick to the soul? The conductor was barely a blip on my radar, just an old geezer with a pipe and a talent for dad jokes, and yet here I was—gutted in a way that had zilch to do with the fist-shaped crater in my abdomen.
He'd died for me, for Dunny, for our pie-in-the-sky dream of freedom, and I'd stood there like a decorative lawn ornament, powerless as a kitten in a cyclone.
That fear clamped down on me then, cold and clammy, the terror of being nothing more than a punchline in someone else's tragedy, watching the people I pretended not to care about get erased while I flailed in the nosebleeds.
I shoved myself upright on wobbly arms before crouching low, muscles coiling like a spring wound by a caffeinated watchmaker. Every fiber in my body screamed bad idea while my brain cheerfully ignored the memo.
The escort loomed ahead, a silhouette carved from nightmares and bad decisions. Without thinking, I dashed toward him, boots pounding the roof in a rhythm that synced with the frantic jazz solo of my heartbeat, each step a middle finger to the gravity of my grief.
"Running to your doom won't honor the dead," he drawled before, in that instant, as if he'd been reading my mind and found it hilariously underwhelming, a torrent of black tendrils erupted from the escort's back like the grand finale of a fireworks show hosted in hell, writhing and snapping through the air with a hiss that promised pain and disappointment in equal measure.
They closed in on me like whips born of pure spite. In one fluid motion, I shifted, and in seven heartbeats, vanished into that liminal shadow-realm where the world dissolved into grayscale whispers.
I flipped and ducked, twisting mid-air with the grace of a cat burglar evading a room full of tripwires, dodging tendrils that whipped past close enough to ruffle my hair and leave a parting gift of windburn.
I threw the escort off his game, never once losing the momentum that rocketed me forward like a runaway shopping cart with a vendetta.
With one final vanish, a wink into nothingness, I closed the gap and reappeared behind him in a puff of dramatic timing, whipping a kick through the air with all the force of a grudge held since childhood.
He blocked it without even glancing back, his arm snapping up in a motion too smooth for something so grotesque.
The impact jarred up my leg like I'd punted a slab of enchanted granite, but before I could recoup and deliver a witty follow-up, one of those infernal tendrils snaked around my ankle with the speed of a gossip spreading bad rumors.
The damn thing yanked me mid-air before slamming me onto the roof with a crunch that managed to expel what little air I'd had left in my lungs.
The tendril clung like a possessive ex, whipping me sideways in a fit of violent nostalgia that nearly hurled me off the edge. I snagged the roof's railing just in the nick of time, fingers screaming in protest as they clamped down on the cold metal.
The hollow winds roared beneath me, a bottomless void yawning for the chance to collect what was left of my crumbling sanity.
I kicked blindly, my boot connecting with a squishy thud that forced the tendril to release my ankle with a hiss of wounded pride.
I hauled myself back onto the roof in a scramble of elbows and desperation, rolling to my feet just as the escort descended upon me in a flurry of close-quarters chaos.
His blade-like hand cut through the air in quick, surgical arcs that whistled like a kettle about to blow, tendrils weaving through the gaps like serpents on payroll.
I moved with refined elegance, my body flowing like mercury, ducking under a sweep of his hand that parted the steam like a hot knife through butter.
I spun on my heel to evade a tendril that speared toward my chest like a javelin thrown by a jealous god before vaulting back over a low slash, hands planting on the roof for a heartbeat before launching into a backflip that carried me clear of a trio of tendrils converging like the jaws of some mangled beast.
I landed light, too light, pivoting into a desperate cartwheel that carried me just out of reach of another thrust. The fight became a deadly waltz, his movements all precision and pettiness while mine teetered somewhere between acrobatics and survival instinct dressed as bravado.
Saints above, the man pressed his assault with the enthusiasm of a tax collector on commission.
"Darling, if you audit my reflexes any harder, I'll start demanding a receipt on my bruises," I sang, spinning out of an air-splitting slash like a debutante dodging an unwanted dance partner.
He snarled, tendrils writhing like unpaid invoices. "Receipts burn; your ledger's due in blood."
I gasped with theatrical shock, hand fluttering to my chest as if scandalized. "Saints above, did the abyss just attempt wordplay? How flattering."
"Silence," he growled in reply.
He fainted left, a flicker of movement that drew my balance just enough off center—and before I could curse myself for taking the bait, one of those cursed tendrils lashed out and wrapped around my wrist.
It was no use.
I twisted free with a wrenching yank that sent pain shooting up my arm like a telegram from hell. My breath tore out in a hiss through my teeth, and before my brain could invent another reason to stop, I retaliated with a spinning elbow that cracked across his jaw, followed by a low sweep at his knees.
He leapt over it with inhuman grace, countering with a tendril that whipped across my back and left a burning welt that felt like a love letter from a branding iron.
I ducked under another arc of his blade, rolling forward to come up inside his guard. My fist slammed into his midsection with a meaty thud that drew a guttural grunt from his lips, proof that even nightmares had organs worth rearranging.
From that point on, the rooftop became our private stage, a twisted theater of motion and mayhem, and I danced upon it with the desperation of a man who had a train to crash and a monster to maim.
Eventually, my luck—or coordination—buckled. I landed hard on one knee, the blow rattling bone, my palm slapping down for balance, only to yank back with a hiss as the metal scorched my skin like a skillet left on high by a chef with a grudge.
I glanced around the train to see wisps of smoke curling from its windows below, thin at first, but thickening like the breath of a dragon who'd just discovered caffeine.
Atticus's pyromaniac masterpiece, no doubt. The smoke was a warning, a ticking time bomb in vapor form, and I needed to wrap this up before...well...you know the rest.
I moved again, instinct outpacing thought, eyes locking on the escort's writhing silhouette as he reared for another strike. The tendrils shot toward me—fast, precise, merciless—but I adapted on the fly, bounding off the first one with a spring of my legs that launched me into the air.
The second tendril came like a serpent's strike, but I turned it into a trampoline, using its momentum to propel myself higher, twisting in mid-air like a circus performer with a death wish before descending in a wicked drop kick that connected squarely with his face.
Gods, the impact was nearly unbearable, reverberating up my legs like I'd stomped on a sack of angry eels.
I landed in a controlled roll, coming up in a crouch as the escort staggered, then rose slowly, turning to face me with a breath that came a little harder now, his pristine teeth caved in and splintered, black ichor dripping from the ruin of his maw like motor oil from a busted engine.
I wasn't having it, not the delay, not the mockery, not the lingering ghost of the conductor's blood still fresh in my mind.
I lunged, closing the distance in a blur, pinning him by the shoulders with every ounce of fury still thrumming through my veins. My fingers sank into the pulsing sinew of his flesh, clutching as though I could wring the corruption right out of him like poison from a wound—or toothpaste from a tube, depending on how charitable I was feeling.
The tendrils reacted instantly, snaking up my arms and legs in a vise of living darkness that squeezed with bone-creaking pressure, joints threatening to pop like corks at a victory toast. But I refused to yield. The storm inside me had momentum, reckless and divine.
In one wild, desperate motion, I slammed my forehead into his. The crack echoed like a thunderclap—or maybe like divine applause for idiocy.
Pain exploded across my skull in a fireworks display of stars and regret, but I didn't stop—again, and again, headbutting with the fervor of a man possessed, each collision mashing his face into a mangled mess of black blood and splintered tendrils.
His grip faltered, the tendrils loosening for a fraction of a second, and just then I heard it—a faint hum building to a large, resonant click that sang through the air like the chime of fate's own doorbell. The rails were being switched.
"Saint's bless that kid," I whispered under my breath, a flicker of pride cutting through the rage like a sunbeam through storm clouds.
Just then, a figure yelped from the back of the train, Dunny no doubt, leaping into the void with all the grace of a sack of potatoes.
I reached into my boot with blood-slick fingers then, pulling out Dregan's battered lighter, the metal cool and reassuring against my palm. I stood up fully, legs shaky but defiant, flicking the lighter open with a thumb that trembled only slightly.
I stared into the tiny flame as it danced like a mischievous pixie, casting flickering shadows across the escort's ruined face.
His voice rasped out, a wet, gurgling sound that barely qualified as words, "Your father would be proud."
I froze dead still, the flame wavering in my grip, my eyes widening in a moment of stunned silence before my expression hardened into grim determination, a mask forged from the ashes of old wounds and fresh betrayal.
So he knows, I thought, the revelation hitting like a sucker punch to the soul from a ghost I'd buried six feet under sarcasm. A thousand questions swarmed my mind like angry bees in a bonnet—How? Why now? Who else knows about my past?!—but I brushed them off because there, just ahead, loomed the monolith of a barrier, a towering wall of thick steel laced with rotting wood.
It stood jagged and unyielding, like the Warden's own ego made manifest, rushing toward us with the inevitability of a tax audit.
Without a moment's hesitation, I tossed the lighter down onto the escort's form, the flame kissing the oil-slick sinew and igniting in a whoosh of hungry fire that enveloped him instantly, flames leaping up like eager demons claiming their due.
Strangely, horrifyingly, he began to laugh through the inferno, a loud, overbearing cackle that bubbled up from his burning throat, defying the agony as if pain were just another joke in his twisted repertoire and he was the punchline.
Let him laugh, I thought, a cool line crystallizing in my mind amid the heat and chaos, laughter's the last refuge among the damned.
The fire spread with voracious speed, licking along the rooftop toward the smoke billowing from below like a gossip spreading rumors.
I sprinted then, a mad dash across the train's spine, pushing through curtains of smoke that clawed at my lungs like a cat with separation anxiety and steam that scalded my skin like a bad spa day.
Each footfall rang out on the rooftop—clang, clang, clang—a frantic metronome counting down to oblivion, and I could swear the train itself was laughing now, a deep, metallic chuckle that vibrated through my bones.
Ten cars to go. Eight. Five.
The heat was a living weight on my back now, pressing down like the hand of a giant who'd decided I'd make a lovely pancake. I could hear the crates below detonating in muffled whoomps, the duskmetal igniting with a sound like the gods themselves cracking their knuckles.
Three cars. Two. The edge rushed up to meet me, a narrow lip of metal jutting over the abyss, and beyond it—nothing but darkness and the promise of a very hard landing. I didn't slow. I didn't think. I just prayed.
And then I jumped.
I leapt from the back just as the train collided with the barrier in a cataclysmic embrace, the impact a thunderous roar that birthed an explosion of dramatic fury.
Flames erupted in a blooming flower of orange and red, metal twisting and screaming as it crumpled like a soda can in a giant's fist. The duskmetal crates detonated in secondary blasts that painted the tunnel in apocalyptic light, shards of debris hurtling through the air like confetti at the world's worst party.
The full wave of the blast slammed into me mid-air, a giant's hand swatting me forward, propelling me through the smoke-choked darkness before I rammed into the cool stone floor of the tunnel in a bone-jarring crash that drove the breath from my lungs.
Pain ignited across my body like a thousand tiny suns throwing a rave, every nerve screaming in protest.
I gasped once, a desperate pull of air that tasted of blood, ash, and the faint tang of victory. Then, without warning, darkness came to envelop me, merciful and absolute, swallowing the chaos in a velvet shroud as unconsciousness claimed its prize with a wink and a nod.
Somewhere, in the back of my mind, a tiny voice whispered that this wasn't the end, that I'd wake up to more chaos, more quips, more impossible odds—but for now, I was content to let the world spin without me, a brief intermission in the ongoing circus of my life.