1. A Bizarre adventure

The Chase
*
The Hidden Man
*
Spotlights

Sylvia's running, Luciel is a few paces behind her. Three shots ring out and Luciel collapses in a heap. Sylvia dodges the other bullets flying overhead and manages to shrink behind a tree. She steals a glance at Luciel, his dark hair is matted with red seeping from his temple, his expression is blank. He's dead.

...Probably anyway.

There is a pause; the shooter must be reloading. Taking the opportunity, Sylvia takes a deep breath, twists round the tree and fires continuously at the six foot skinhead; whose guns had now morphed into - she glances out of the corner of her eye for a better look - high pressure water pistols.

It doesn’t really matter, Sylvia thinks to herself. Either way, Luciel will be back, and when he is, boy will Sylvia have words with him.

Sylvia strikes the shooter in the shoulder, the force of the bullet is remarkable. The skinhead topples over backwards in a remarkable feat of acrobatic manoeuvrability and melts into a little pool of toothpaste.

It is entirely the fault of Luciel’s own incompetence, Sylvia thinks to herself as she cautiously walks out from behind the tree, gun cocked in case there are more of them. Sylvia stands over what was Luciel and surveys the damage, hands on hips. She sighs emphatically as she notices his choice of attire. She has told him time and time again that wearing fashionable camouflage is bound to get you noticed, which entirely defeats the objective.

There is a sound coming from behind her. Raising her hands, she listens carefully. There is a tinkling of an ice cream van in the distance, reinforcements must be coming. Sylvia drops the gun, well, it isn’t a gun anymore, more of a candy cane, and fighting sugar with sugar gets you no-where, except a visit to the dentist. This always happens when she gets distracted, and at the most inconvenient times as well. Sylvia runs through the woods as fast as she can.

She isn’t really paying attention enough on the surroundings to notice it - being chased by a swarm of urban youths can have that effect - but at some point, the forest merges with the corridors of the boarding house, until the trees are gone altogether, replaced by rhythmically recurring wallpaper patterns. Sylvia takes a quick glance at the options, two dead ends, and mounts the staircase. She ascends two floors and peers over the banister to see if they are following her. She distinctly remembers there only being 3 floors in the boarding house, so where the other five below her have appeared from is a mystery. The ice-cream van won’t be able to fit through the corridors of the boarding house, they are too narrow, so there will be no tell-tale tinkling to warn her of them.

She looks upwards, three more flights of stairs to the roof. The boarding house she remembers has a terraced roof, but it is entirely possible that this could have changed with the development of five other floors. Sylvia continues on up the stairs but the roof didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Surely you needed planning permission, she thinks to herself between breaths as she sprints up the stairs, or something to build extra floors at such a rate. She tries taking them two at a time. The roof begins to get ever so slightly closer.

She reaches the landing of the top floor. People don’t come up here often, not since the older kids out, or at least that’s the case with the orphanage she remembers. The wallpaper is peeling to reveal glass walls all around her. That’s certainly a new development. Through the glass, she is relieved to see, the roof is still terraced. Unable to find a way to access it, since the door has apparently disappeared, Sylvia kicks a hole through the glass. The force shatters the glass which crumbles into a pile on the other side, fragments still cling to the wall by shreds of wallpaper. Sylvia squeezes her way through it. In reality she should probably be bleeding quite badly at the moment, but she doesn’t have time to worry about that at this point, and if she doesn’t worry about it, it won’t happen.

*

She stands in the centre of the roof and searches. Where is Luciel? He should be back by now. Sylvia freezes. There is a tall figure standing on the roof with his back to her. Sylvia squints to get a better look. He has mid-length blond hair, so unless he’s wearing a wig, he probably isn’t one of them. Sylvia turns back to the boarding house. She doesn’t have time for this, she can hear them downstairs, and it won’t be long before they reach the roof. She runs over to the edge of the roof and peers over it. The earth must have suddenly developed a new tectonic fault line within the last week because there certainly wasn’t a great chasm with a lake at the bottom off the south side of the building last time she was up here, and she is up here pretty often.

“Feeling brave?” The figure asks. Sylvia looks up, he’s still not looking at her. Sylvia wasn’t used to talking to the back of people’s heads, and she finds it rather impolite of him, so she isn’t about to respond. She walks round the building, looking over the edge at the chasm, which seems to extend all the way round the building. Maybe they’d built a moat here recently or something. They’re always complaining about security issues and protecting the children from trouble with the town, although this seems a little extreme.

“You’ve got two options,” the head continues, “you can either jump, or you can-” There is a sound of heavy footsteps coming from below which sends a shiver down Sylvia’s spine, not even 10 pairs of footsteps make that kind of rhythm. “OK, you’ve got one option.” Sylvia peers over the edge of the building again. The drop has become further. There has to be a limit for how many floors one can build on a building. Still without turning round, the blond man tosses her a hat which spins towards her like a Frisbee. Sylvia reaches out and catches it. It is an old bowler hat, scuffed round the edges, brown in colour, with a starched rim.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Sylvia yelled as the skinheads storm out of the building. Much to Sylvia’s dismay, the broken glass has disappeared. She’d hoped this would have held them back a while.

“Put it on.” Replies the back of the man’s head. Sylvia is about to ask him how that is supposed to help her when the man walks off the edge of the building. Sylvia runs over concerned and peers over the edge, but he has entirely disappeared. Sylvia turns back to the gang. In place of guns they now are carrying what looks like a combination of giant hairdryers and tubas. Sylvia isn’t going to stay around long enough to find out what is coming out of THEM.

Stubbornly, she jams the hat onto her head and purposefully strides over to the edge of the terrace. She takes another look over the edge, one last look back at the skinheads, who have started chewing furiously, and takes a running jump over the edge. Not a moment too soon, as she hears fireworks flying over the top of her head. The apparent use of the hat is lost on Sylvia as she is still falling at high speed towards the moat below. She tries holding the hat above her head in the vain hope that it will act like a parachute. In some other warped reality this might be a reasonable thing to do, but apparently not in this one.

Sylvia hits the water with a thunderous splash, and the hat becomes dislodged from her head. She feels herself sink a few metres into the water, opens her eyes to the vast aqua depths, empty, except for something moving below, and decides that staying there probably isn’t the best course of action. She kicks her way to the surface again. Her head breaks through the water and she looks for some land to swim to. She discovers that the hat, unlike most other which shrink when wet, had grown a sizeable amount. She paddles over to it and clings on for a while, before she spots the something moving below her again and decides to climb into it. She sits there for a few seconds, with the intention of waiting for her clothes to dry, and looked out over the side of the hat.

The hat is currently floating along a tributary leading away from the moat. She can still see the skinheads on the top of the building. The hat lurches suddenly and Sylvia can feel herself falling. She curls up inside the hat waiting for the impact, and feels a dull thump. The moat has entirely disappeared and the hat is perched between two rather large branches of a tree. Sylvia appears to be back in the forest again. Sylvia climbs over the edge and drops to the ground. The hat shrinks back to its normal size and falls to the ground. Sylvia picks it up, she might need it later. Seeing that there was a path through the woods, she decides to follow it.

The path branches. In one direction she can see the path she was running on before she ended up in the boarding house. Luciel’s old body is gone so he must be somewhere. He’d better have chosen some more appropriate camouflage, she isn’t going to put up with him dressed like that again. Deciding not to risk reencountering the skinheads, she chooses the other path.

The path gets darker and darker, until all she can see around her is black. She reaches out her hand and it hits something solid. Feeling her way along blindly, she finds herself turning a full circle. She pauses to consider the physics of the situation. A door opens in the blackness. Sylvia shields her eyes, a silhouette of a tall man is standing in the doorway.

“Luciel?”

“Can I have my hat back?” The silhouette asks.

Sylvia squints. She still can’t make out the face of the man. Grudgingly she passes him the hat. He grabs her wrist and pulls her through the doorway. Sylvia trips and falls through. She looks up and sees the man, now on the other side of the doorway. His hat is tipped downwards hiding his face. He waves at her and then closes the door. Sylvia scowls and fingers her way along the navy wall searching for a crease, but there is no evidence that a door has ever been there.

*

Suddenly a spotlight falls onto Sylvia, another follows it. Sylvia looks around. She is on stage, there is a whole audience watching her, expectant. She is the only. There is a rake on stage. Sylvia walks over to the rake, picks it up, and begins pretending to sweep leaves on the stage. The audience applauds. She can hear a noise to the wing; she looks up, and can see the skinheads, dressed in clown costumes, advancing towards her. Sylvia can confidently say she has never seen anything more disturbing in her life. She drops the rake and runs through the navy back curtains. She can see a light towards the back of the room and makes her way silently towards it. She reaches for the door handle, opens the door and walks through it onto an urban back alley. It is dirty, and there is rubbish strewn everywhere that has been dumped there, and then pulled apart by strays looking for a meal. Sylvia makes her way through the alley into another.

Suddenly there is another bright light; Headlights. They are shining straight at her. The skinheads have surrounded her, with cars. They are wearing official suits this time. The skinheads raise their guns - they are real guns this time. Sylvia closes her eyes, partly because the lights are blinding her, partly because if she doesn’t see it happen, it doesn’t matter. There are sounds of shots being fired, which slowly die away. Sylvia opens her eyes again. The back alley has gone, the skinheads have vanished - not even a trace of toothpaste remains like the last one.

There is nothing but the night sky above and the blackness below. Sylvia peers through the darkness. She can make out something in the distance, a trail of glitterings. On closer inspection, she sees the moon is highlighting a brick path on the empty ground. There is something moving in the distance. All around her in nothing, above her are the stars, only in front of her is the path. She has no choice but to follow. Her feet click rhythmically as she walks along it, the glitterings dancing to the music of her stride. The motion at the end of the path is continuous, turning full circle. The moonlight strikes it with each turn of the sail. A wind turbine, and beneath it is a figure.

Sylvia starts to run. The figure hears the music and looks up. Even in the harsh light of the moon, casting shadows onto even the most creasless of surfaces, she can see he is quite young. But not young enough. Sylvia slows down, hesitating. It’s not Luciel. The blond mid-length hair is almost white in the dilute wash of silver. He sees Sylvia, smiles, and mouths three phrases.

“The Chase, the Hidden man, The spotlight.”

He smiles once more, raises his fingers as if for prestidigitation, and elegantly snaps them. Instantly, the silver light is extinguished. Sylvia opens her eyes, the room is dimly lit, her face os half covered by the duvet, and light is streaming through the curtains. Sylvia turns over in her bed. Useless, Luciel was absolutely useless. The exact details of the dream are fading from her mind, but she will certainly have words with him later. Sylvia turnd back to face forwards. Someone is standing over the bed.

“Zack wants to play hide and seek, shall we have some fun today then?” He asks

Sylvia shoots him a death stare and buries herself under the covers again.

“Well I must admit that’s not exactly the good morning I was expecting!” says the figure, pretending to be offended.

“Useless” she says curtly.