PHOENIX

𝚃𝙷𝙰𝚃 𝙳𝙰𝚈, 𝙾𝚁 𝚆𝙷𝙰𝚃𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁 𝙿𝙴𝙾𝙿𝙻𝙴 𝙲𝙰𝙻𝙻𝙴𝙳 𝙰 𝙳𝙰𝚈 𝙸𝙽 𝚃𝙷𝙸𝚂 𝚆𝙾𝚁𝙻𝙳, Phoenix grew tired. What time had it been? Was this the equivalent of two in the morning, or was it only a few minutes into the evening? Did the twenty-four-hour clock mean nothing now? Rubbing his eyes with shaky hands, chafing annular red marks into his skin, he yawned. Conforming to Shadow's advice—and while not easy, it made Phoenix feel a lot safer—the two took off towards the Spiral. The metropolis seemed to be infinite, lifeless, and without connection to the routine of everyday life back on Earth. Back there, hundreds of hover-cars would dominate highways all hours into the night, appearing as faint blue lustres in the coruscating lights of St Anderson's City. And while not perfect, Phoenix would have much preferred it over the hellish unreality he'd already experienced here.

  Great, thought Phoenix. I have to sleep through the day, look for water, reach a destination infinitely far away, and worst of all, kill everyone that tries to stop me. And there'll probably be a lot to kill. I really hope this is all some fucked-up experiment carried out by the government, and everyone will be able to go home at the end of it. But if that's true, why did Shadow say I was new? That's right: he's been around for a decade! God, this game's been going on for that long? Can simulations actually do that?

  The trouble with the world being a simulation was not without precedent back on Earth. People had tried creating the perfect world for years, each project becoming just as bland and unsophisticated as the last. The closest thing Phoenix ever experienced to a realistic simulation was an old horror game from three years ago where the main objective was to escape the killer.

  And then there was the problem with the game being run by a god, or by God Himself. Although plausible, God would never do this, not now, not ever. Phoenix knew a bit of religion himself despite being a hardcore atheist—and, yes, that served a great part in his disbelief towards the game being designed by anything remotely resembling the omnipotent. Maybe God was code for something, and the true goal was to discover the meaning behind it. And maybe these powers were all illusions, and the people that inhabited the world figments of the human psyche.

  Whatever the case, Phoenix believed there was something deeper. There had to be.

  "You think a lot, don't you, Levin?" asked Shadow strongly. "You're staring off into empty space."

  They'd been walking for a couple hours now. At no point did they stop to drink from a fire hydrant like Phoenix had done, because Shadow kept a bota bag tucked in his inside trench-coat pocket. He didn't share it with the teen because he found pleasure in watching Phoenix all dry-tongued and fatigued. Shadow told him they were close to the next division, and that he had been journeying through this one for the past few months.

  "Levin?" Phoenix's eyes widened as he spoke. A feeling of discomfort punctured his body. "Wuh-what? What does that mean?"

  He must have been joking, because by the time Phoenix finished his sentence, Shadow started chuckling. "It means lightning. It's what I'm going to be calling you from now on." Lifting his shoulders, he stuck his hands deep into his pockets.

  Phoenix said nothing for a time, thinking: Why would I need a nickname? After the silence grew too heavy to bear, he asked, "If you have the ability to teleport at will, why don't you just teleport to the end? Or really far in?"

  Scowling, Shadow pointed to the sky. "Do you think I or He hadn't thought of that already? Do you think some people possess powers that let them bypass each division and make it to the end? Do you honestly think that would be fair?"

  "Then how does it work?" Phoenix said, louder. "If we have these powers, why can't we use them to escape?"

  "What did I tell you about escaping? That's not the point of you being here. And the faster you learn that the longer you'll survive." Shadow halted in the middle of a dusty street. On either side were edifices, similar to the ones from ten miles back, with enough differences to make them seem entirely new. Shadows stretched over the roads as thorough patches of night, taking the form of rectangles, bending sideways like rhombuses undergoing sensational growth spurts.

  Raising an ebony-clothed arm, Aaron formed a dark pocket. "You see this? This is an antimatter gateway, there are three known people to ever possess this power, and right now I'm one of them."

  Phoenix nodded, wiping an invisible tear from his eye.

  "And you're wondering why I can't teleport farther? Well, it's simple: I'm not strong enough. Right now, I can only travel about ten acres, and about a building high. Specifically, these buildings. Any higher and I come back down weaker than when I took off. And you"—he pointed at Phoenix's right arm—"are no exception. Keep abusing your power and you'll find yourself unable to fight back or, in some cases, use it ever again. Now, I'm not sure how powerful your ability might be, and if the legends are true, you should be in the upper echelons of strength. But that's only if you use it correctly; many a person have travelled this world unable to utilise their power to its full capability, and do you know what happened to them?"

  Phoenix shook his head, brow creased. "No," he said, almost whispering.

  "I killed them. I killed them merely for the satisfaction of knowing they wouldn't live long enough to have someone else kill them, because trust me, there are a lot of dangerous people out there. People with much more than winning on their mind. You understand?"

  Phoenix's throat felt savagely dry. It was really beginning to bother him. Ignoring the question, he asked, "Can I borrow some of your water?"

  Shadow disfavoured Phoenix with a glare. Seconds later, he removed his ski goggles and mask. Underneath had been a grin of the most enticing sort. "Of course, Levin." He pulled out the bota bag and tossed it into the antimatter gateway. Immediately, it fell onto Phoenix's dry, paintbrush afro and slipped down over his shoulders. It almost made it the whole way down when Phoenix snapped an arm forward and clutched it firmly.

  "Lightning-quick reactions, too," said Shadow. Swiftly the dark pocket disappeared, and with it his smile. Taking its spot was an intractable line.

  Corking the bag open, he gulped down the contents, making sure to stop himself three-quarters of the way through. Panting, he extended his arm to hand the bag to Shadow. But he shook his head and said, "That's all right, you keep the rest. You'll need it."

  Shadow reached into his pocket and withdrew a small circular object. Raising it into the air, he inspected it under a diffused golden ray beaming through a clearing between two buildings. Squinting, he said, "We're almost there."

  Phoenix swept a gaze over the object. It was difficult to make out, what with the skylight pouring evenly over the land, creating silhouettes like how artists create divine portraits. Nonetheless, hearing Shadow speak those words produced a relieving sensation within him. "What's that?" Phoenix asked.

  Unhurried, Shadow lowered the circular black object, inspected it once more, and placed it under the skybox gleam. A glint bounced off the glass and spat into Phoenix's left eye. He raised a hand to shield himself.

  "A compass?" said Phoenix. "But isn't the world horizontal?" Eyes peeling open, he swept a sheen of sweat from his brow.

  "Not entirely, no," said Shadow, straightening his posture. "This isn't a compass, you see. It's a map. At least, that's what I've come to know it as." He flicked open the top piece, revealing a pocket mirror. The needle was spinning pell-mell, not settling even for the smallest fraction of a second.

  Phoenix thought it would fly off the centre had it spun any faster.

  "You see the way it's spinning like that?" said Shadow.

  A nod. "Yeah."

  "That means the electronic field is reversing. It happens whenever we approach a border; in this case, it's going really, really quickly because the next section is just over the horizon. And if you look close enough—" He paused, still squinting, and pointed off towards the Spiral, leaning closer to Phoenix. "—you'll be able to see a differently coloured sky—red should be next. Do you see it, Levin?"

  He thought he could: a line split through the sky inches above the horizon, painting a small section in a ghostly grey undertone. It bled into the overcast sky like paint on a canvas.

  Phoenix dropped his hands, nodded, and said with excitement, "Yeah! Yeah, I see it! Just beyond the horizon, or just on it, I suppose."

  "That's where we're headed," said Shadow, "and I don't know if I mentioned this to you, but not every section is a free ride. You're gonna have to get used to some noticeable differences."

  "Differences?" questioned Phoenix, averting his gaze from the Spiral to Shadow's steady hunched-over posture. "What do you mean differences?"

  "It's complicated, most of the time an area won't let you bypass for free, and if it does, the next area is probably a deathtrap."

  Phoenix looked muddled. His eyes warped into slits and his hands slowly rose in question. "I'm not following you . . ."

  Shadow scoffed. "It's probably best you don't—for now. You need to learn some things by your lonesome, and without some veteran by your side the whole time. I've only known you a short while, and trust me, you're not someone I'd like to travel far with, nor do I expect to, but if someone with a power of your calibre is actually here, in this world, then I don't see why I can't guide you for a little while. But get on my nerves and, as I said, I'll have no problem killing you where you stand. Do you understand, Levin? I'm not the type to make friends."

  None of this changed Phoenix's opinion of him. He still found him to be a sensational character, especially the kind whose principals are driven mostly by clouds of anger and competition. This made him, in Phoenix's opinion, easier to trust. "I understand," he said.

  "Good, I don't want to have to babysit someone that not too long ago thought I could teleport to the end."

  Phoenix stifled a chord of laughter, though he could tell Shadow wasn't joking. Could tell by the way his lips never moved from their initial straight position, could tell by the way his eyes didn't blink once the entire speech, the way his tone sharpened and his breathing remained calm. All of that seemed a recipe for I'm not bullshitting, I will kill you if need be.

  As Phoenix thought about this, his sight trailed from Shadow's menacing stance to the distant spiral, glimmering with a vibrant cyan-green aura. It twirled slowly at the centre like a sinkhole.

  "Anyway," Shadow continued, inhaling deeply through his nostrils. He held his breath for a moment. Finally, he relinquished it and said, "We should be there in a few hours. How many exactly I'm not sure. It shouldn't matter. As the old saying goes, 'Sometimes the journey is better than the desti—'"

  THWAP!

  Blood. Dripping. Gurgling.

  Phoenix's eyes broadened. A small sharp-edged object had whizzed across the street and struck Shadow directly in the neck, causing him to choke and gargle. Realising what happened, heart thumping wildly, Phoenix reverted his gaze to the road behind him. Among the concrete stood four figures dressed heavily in white clothing. In the middle, leading the group, was a woman wearing a bandanna and cashmere scarf. Beneath was an open cardigan showcasing six distinct ab muscles. Black hair tied back into a sheaf, she ghosted a glare through Phoenix. Her stance matched that of a ninja's, with one star-shaped blade held aloft and another across from it at a diagonal.

  "Aaron Kessler," the woman said, voice velvet, lifting off into the air like a feather blown across a junction. She lifted her forearm and flexed. "Did you really think you could get away from me?"