She felt like she was drowning, and yet, she couldn't die. Her breathing hard as her lungs slowly expand, taking in the water. Only to contract once again, labourously expelling the fluid.

Her eyes fluttered open, allowing her to see a blurry image of shadows and light, tinged in light green colors. The girl watched. It was all she could do, as she was never able to move.

In the past, she had thought them nightmares. An incarnation of her two greatest fears. Now, it was calming. Almost meditative as she was cut off from most of her senses, allowing her to let her mind wander in a meditative state. A dream within a dream. Very unlike her usual self which was constantly looking for the next hit of adrenalin.

Today, however, was a bit unusual. The shadows were moving more hectically than ever, never staying in the same place for long. For the first time that she could remember, she could even hear some muffled sounds, almost like an alien language.

Then, it stopped. The shadows disappeared. But to the girl, it didn't matter. Long ago she had given up on trying to understand her dreams.

An alarm rang, slowly ripping Amren out of blissful unconsciousness. Her mind that had been drifting in a carefree manner slowly refocusing. She opened her eyes, only to close them to a squint a moment later, blinded by the bright ceiling lights, waking her sleep-addled brain up the rest of the way.

She slowly flipped herself over, burying her face in her warm and fluffy pillow. She pushed herself into a sitting position on the side of her bed, unable to defend her ears from the nervewrackingly annoying beeping that was her alarm.

As much as she would love to wake up to pleasant piano music, river gurgling, or the singing of birds, she had many years of experience telling her that it wouldn't work. At least if she didn't make it loud enough to wake up everyone else in the apartment building as well.

She stood up, stumbling blindly through the room, only guided by the infernal noises made by the offending machine whose only purpose seemed to be to ruin her mood every morning.

Picking her smartphone up from the desk, she looked at the display, the alarm blinking. It showed only a single word: "RUN!"

"Aww, fuck!"

Adrenalin pumping through her veins woke her up faster than the strongest coffee. She was late. And she really couldn't afford to be late. Not if she wanted to lose this job as well.

She quickly jumped into the shower, coming out not even two minutes later. Without time for makeup, not that she used, or needed, a lot of it, she quickly washed her face and pulled her black dreadlocks into a ponytail, and went to put on the clothes she had laid out the day before.

Wide camo pants with lots of pockets where she quickly stored away her smartphone, wallet, and keys, and a black crop top. Anything more being unbearable in the heat the weather forecast had promised for the day.

Putting her smartwatch on her left wrist, she took another look at the forecast before tying a thin hoodie around her waist for when it got colder in the evening.

A quick look inside confirmed that all the books she would need for the lecture later in the day were present, before she threw the backpack on, safely securing it with the designated straps. With her black running shoes completing the outfit, she went into the kitchen and opened the window.

Her Alarm had been very clear on how late she was, meaning she had to take every shortcut that she knew. The one over her neighbor's roof being only the first.

Now standing outside her kitchen window, she quickly pushed it close, causing a self-made latch to catch onto the handle. A mechanism she had built after someone broke into her apartment when she was forced to leave the window open when using this shortcut.

She turned around and started to run over the roof, vaulting over the small walls marking where one building ended and the next began without losing any speed.

The row of apartment buildings in her street, and the row in the street behind it, were built with several small gardens in between. At the same time, they were built at a slight angle to one another, making the gap between them closer and closer the further Amren ran over the roof. A few buildings further, she finally found a place where the gap was close enough, allowing her to jump right over the gap with a short runup.

Quite familiar with the route, she quickly went over to the fire-escape stairwell on the outside of the building. Grabbing the handrail, she jumped over it, hanging at it from the outside, her feet hanging maybe a meter over the handrail on the floor below her. She let herself drop.

Catching her fall on the railing of the lower floor with her feet, she went into a crouch, quickly grabbing the railing with her hands, before her body hangs once again down on the outside. Two times off the same stunt later, she was on the ground floor, having saved at least five minutes by going over the building instead of around it.

But she still wasn't quite there yet, literally. Amren quickly ran to the intersection about a hundred meters away where she took the turn to the left. When seen on a map, or from directly above, the street would be directly behind her apartment.

At the end of the short street, was a small park. Well, not exactly a park, but a playground surrounded by trees and a high wall where parents could bring their children on weekends. Not that it was ever used that way, considering that it was occupied by homeless people and drug dealers most of the time.

Once again taking a shortcut, Amren quickly ran along the path, turning sharp left when she reached the right spot, running through the bushes. There, right in front of the wall, stood a conveniently crooked tree, allowing her to jump against and push off its trunk.

Landing with her feet on top of the brick wall, Amren continued on more carefully, the dingy sheet metal protecting the top of the wall being a bit slippery. However, she didn't have to walk far, and soon the wall went right along the side of a building, the edge of its roof only about two meters far and one meter above her current position.

Turning towards it, she pushed off with both her feet, latching onto the edge with her hands and pulling herself up, only slightly hindered by the heavy backpack she was carrying.

Quickly running over the roof, she made her way towards the wall of the next building, which was a floor higher. Amren jumped, her right foot looking for purchase on the wall to push her even further up before she gripped the handrail surrounding the roof, hoisting herself up and over it.

At this point, Amren could already see the train station. It was the kind that was built like a bridge, above the street. That also allowed her to see that the train was already approaching.

Normally, Amren had pretty good stamina, but considering all the running and jumping she had done, with a heavy backpack nonetheless, she was already breathing hard.

However, now wasn't the time to take a break.

Amren went into a sprint, clearing the last few roofs in record time, and at the end was an abyss two stories high. If she fell down there, she would be very lucky to get away with a few bruises. Being right above a busy street, there was even a good chance she would fall on, or worst case, in front of a car.

But Amren had full trust in her own abilities. After all, this was what she was constantly training for in her free time. Well, not this situation exactly, but this was free running in a practical application. And even then, it wasn't her first time doing this jump.

Amren sped up, getting every bit of speed and power she could, and jumped right off the edge of the roof, flying several meters high over the street.

This was what she loved. Doing stunts, tricks, and jumps in places others would never even dare to step, even crawling on all four, for fear of injury or height. But it wasn't the inherent risk that attracted her, it was the ability to overcome that risk with nothing but her own body.

Just like right now, jumping from the roof of a building to the outside of a bridge five meters away. Not something normal people would do. Hell, they wouldn't even get the idea to do it in the first place.

Grabbing the railings tightly, Amren pulled herself up and over, landing on a small gangway at the side of the train tracks, normally reserved for the repairmen.

She quickly jogged along the gangway towards the station, the train rushing by her side only half a meter away.

___________________________________

Amren was nearly dying of boredom as she listened to the droning voice of her professor, holding a lecture on nutritional balance that Amren summarized in her notes with two words: "Eat healthily."

She wasn't exactly sure what her naive past self had expected when she applied for the sport's major of her university, but this wasn't it. If she had just taken a single closer look at her curriculum or thought about it a bit more, she might have realized that it was all about teaching sports to others, and not to bring her own to the next level.

Half an hour later, the professor finally ended his lecture and the students started to slowly file out of the auditorium. Amren was just about to join them when she heard the man say her name.

"Miss Adal, would you please come here for a moment?" the professor said.

Shit! Amren had hoped that he wouldn't make a fuss about her, once again, missing homework.

"Hi, Mister Peterson. I'm sorry about my missing homework. I will make sure that I get it done in time next time."

"It is? Then you are in luck, I still haven't gotten around correcting it. Send it to me by tomorrow and I won't mark it as missing. Though, I wanted to talk to you about something related to that. You know, there aren't many in this major who love sports as much as you do, I can tell that much. That's why I think it's a shame that your grades are... the way they are."

In other words, very bad. Amren thought. She liked the professor. Despite being a horrible lecturer. It wasn't like his lectures were hard to understand, they were just dreadfully boring. But despite that, he was a good professor by pure virtue of taking good care of his students.

Such as right now: "Please, take this." Mister Peterson gave her a small slip of paper with a phone number on it. "It's the number of a study group. Maybe it can help you."

"Thanks. I will call them when I get home." She meant it, she was really thankful to the man. After all, this wasn't the first time he had done something like this for her, or others for that matter.

However, Amren didn't think the chances that she would actually do this were very high. She knew herself well after all. She would probably end up putting it off again and again until she completely forgot about it. She tended to be irresponsible like that.

Despite knowing that it was in no way realistic, Amren just wanted to spend her time doing stuff she liked. Extreme sports mostly, but free-running more than anything else.

On the other hand, working for eight hours a day and only get the weekends free didn't sound to her like a life worth living. Most people said that they work to earn money, and they need money to fulfill their dreams. But Amren felt like she would be desperately trying to have fun on the weekends so that she stays sane enough to work even more. At least that was how she felt about her mini-jobs and lectures, which together amounted to roughly the same amount of time.

Maybe if she were to find a job she found fun, but until now, that didn't happen. The only real hope she had in that regard was a teaching job. Be it at a school or not, she felt like teaching kids parkour might be bearable. But, in the end, it would still cut severely into her own free time.

Even now, she was already on her way to her second work shift today. Despite knowing that she needed this job to survive and keep her apartment, she was playing with the idea of just not going and train some jumps instead.

As she was already on the university campus, she could take advantage of some of the spots that were around. Since a big part of the university was dedicated to arts and architecture, many of the buildings and structures tended to look unusual and strange. While other people might be able to appreciate the beauty of it, Amren could, at the very least, appreciate the endless playgrounds they were providing her. Walls to climb, gaps to jump, and roofs to run.

But no, that wouldn't happen. It had been hard enough already to find this job after losing the last few, and she did need it if she wanted to keep her apartment and live alone. And hell would freeze over before she would ask her parents for money. Not that they would give her any either way.

With a sigh, she turned away from one of her favorite spots and instead made her way towards the library, ready for another two hours of sorting books into shelves. Well, it was still better than working at a burger joint since she could sneak in a short break every now and then without anyone noticing. Of course, there was also the fact that the library was part of the university, reducing the travel time to near zero and allowing her to plan her working hours around her lectures.

Now that she thought about it, it had been Mister Peterson who recommended her for this job.

Great, now she felt extra guilty for thinking about quitting.

Hmm... Maybe that's the reason? Maybe it's all just one giant conspiracy? Maybe, in reality, no one likes their job as much as they claim, but the corporations manage to make everyone feel too guilty to admit it? Food for thought...

Still lost in useless thoughts, Amren checked in at the front desk, and put her backpack into the breakroom. She put on one of the grey aprons they used instead of uniforms, stuck on her name tag, and grabbed one of the carts full of books she would have to run through the entire library to sort back into the shelves.

About half an hour later, Amren was busy sorting an astoundingly large collection of books on ancient sexual practices back into their shelves, whose pictures were sadly just as ancient, when she heard the sound of wood sliding over wood somewhere above her. Amren looked up.

One of the many boxes standing on top of the shelves was slowly sliding over the edge, right above her head. Amren had never understood why they were there, seemingly completely unsorted, and neither had she ever seen anyone access one of them. But she knew, if that thing crashed down, she would be in trouble one way or another.

Amren jumped up from her sitting position and took a step back while stretching out her arms to the front. And she did so not a moment too late, as the next instant the box came down, falling right into her arms.

It was a lot heavier than she had expected, making her almost lose her grip on it and forcing her to take a step back to compensate. Alas, at that moment she had forgotten that the floor was still littered with books she still had to sort into the shelves. With a cry of pain, she halfway stepped on one of the books, twisting her ankle in the process.

Reflexively, she pulled he foot up, obviously losing her balance as a result, slowly falling backward. It was as if time itself had decided to slow down for the single purpose of torturing her.

She was falling backward. Her left foot on the ground, her right foot in the air, incapable of stopping her fall. Her hands were still occupied with the box, too far away and too slow to save her. Her head was slowly turning to the side to look behind her, just in time to see the shelf behind her rushing towards her head.

It was a little ironic. All that training with the sole purpose of becoming able to overcome risks. Hours spent on drilling her jumps so she would be able to confidently jump over meter-long gaps between buildings several floors above the ground. And all it amounted to right this moment, was the ability to tell that this would hurt. A lot.

Her head crashed into the edge of the hardwood board, the pain, thankfully, shortlived as she quickly passed out.

When she opened her eyes, it was to the familiar green-tinged pattern of shadows and light. However, something felt wrong.

Or rather, everything felt too right.