The guards reacted quicker than I'd expected. I was no more than a hundred feet into my escapade when the sirens went off.

"CODE BROWN. BRAD WU HAS LEFT THE PREMISES. ALL PERSONNEL REPORT TO THEIR STATIONS."

Oh shit. Three spotlights honed in on me instantly. They didn't do much, since it was daytime, but it was the thought that counted.

"Brad Wu! Stand down this instant!" belted a loudspeaker wielding loud speaking mercenary.

"Never! You're all gutless bastards, each and every one of you! You'll never take me alive!"

"You have five seconds to comply! We can and will hurt you!" The barking of bloodhounds cemented his claim.

I turned to look the man square in the eye. "How 'bout you suck my cock and balls!" I'll never respect those cowardly mercs. They don't have the balls to take me down.

"FIVE!" I broke into a low sprint towards the woods. If I could get into the cover of the trees, I'll be able to lose them. I was too close to freedom, I couldn't give up.

"FOUR!" Whew, running was a lot harder than I'd imagined. The Olympics make it look easy.

"THREE!" My lungs burnt, my legs melted, my body was on fire. I hadn't exercised this much in my life. Just need to push a bit longer...

"TWO!" The forest was so close I could smell it! Just a few feet more...

"ONE! FIRE!" I threw myself to the ground, soil erupting all around from thousands of rubber bullets fired from Gatling machine guns. They weren't lethal, of course, but still stung enough to potentially take me out of commission. By some miracle, I managed to pull myself behind an oak without getting tagged. Trees exploded and fell all around under the rubber barrage.

"THERE IS NO ESCAPE! SURRENDER OR DIE!"

The forest provided decent cover from the Gatling guns, but there were still the bloodhounds and trackers to worry about. Behind me, mercenaries chased on foot with their dogs yapping like beasts out of Hell. The moat was just ahead of me- if I could somehow ford it, the mercs wouldn't dare follow. But I'm winded, my legs were lead. Maybe I should give up. Freedom wasn't worth dying over, right? Luckily, before my head was filled with such nonsense, a nearby explosion knocked me back to reality. The laughter of rubber flamethrower toting mercenaries echoed through the woods. That's right. I've never doubted myself up to this point. I'm Brad Wu. I know what I want, and I always get it, burning lungs or not. Putting one foot in front of the other, I trudged on slow but steady. But it seemed that nature herself was bent on stopping me. The woods, dehydrated from the drought, lit up faster than uncle Travis on four-twenty. I was fucked.

According to an ancient Canadian proverb, our unconscious minds bar us from using 100% of our strength. If not, daily life would be exceptionally inconvenient, and handshakes exceptionally deadly. However, in moments of dire need, our inner powers manage to surface. Thus, the stories of moms lifting cars from their crushed babies. My moment came when I caught on fire.

"AAAAUGH HOLY MOLY THIS STINGS!!" I felt my true power course through my limbs, rage through my body like wildfire, burn my heart with passion. In that moment, I ran faster than I ever had in my life. Like a graceful gazelle that was also on fire and hounded by mercenaries and bloodhounds. Thin twigs whipped my skin to shreds and the smoke in my lungs tore up my chest but I didn't give a care. I was too absorbed by freedom, but mostly by fire.

"MY FACE OH GOD I CAN FEEL MY FACE MELTING!!" Looking back, I can now feel grateful for the pain. It's true that pain is necessary for us to grow, develop, and change as people. For example, the moat, just moments ago thought to be unreachable, now seems not only likely but inevitable. The mercs and their dogs were slowed by the fire, obviously too weak to succeed in this new, volatile economy. I would've berated them for this weakness- "Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, you lazy bums!". But I didn't, because my face had melted to fuse over my mouth.

What mercenaries flame-retardant enough to follow me through the wildfire were stopped by my diving into the family moat. The moat, ordered by my father when his vocal chords were still intact, served both as a display of ludicrous wealth and bravado, as well as an initial barrier of defense. The hippos that swam its waters were ordered after Dad saw one crushing a whole watermelon in its mouth on the discovery channel. Parts of my skin and flesh peeled away on impact with the water, but most of my afferent neurons were gone by that point so it was all good. So gross and desiccated was my body that not even the hungry hippos dared approach it. All according to plan.

Doctors would later claim my survival and recovery as a "medical miracle" or "cruel cosmic joke." It seemed that I alone recognized it for what it was: an example of true grit, a classic story of the underdog surviving against all odds in a ruthless and cold world. I will concede, however, that in the moment, things looked pretty bad. As I sank deeper into the freezing water, I felt nothing but a strange warmth and a pleasant sleepiness. So why not take a nap? I'd worked hard enough, I certainly deserved a break. So, I drifted to sleep twenty feet below the surface.

And woke in the helical city of Ras Tanukha. All around wound the impossible spires of the impossible city, and I stood on the tallest of them all- the helix tower, which winds closest to the sun.

"Brad Wu." I turned to face the Elusive Empress, who sat on her elliptical throne. She was beautiful, in an entirely indescribable and altogether terrifying way. Her eyes gleamed like pools of disembodied eyeballs, Her hair fell like a waterfall made entirely of hair. Her skin, smoothly rough, was as ebony black as alabaster.

"Am I dead?", I asked.

"What? No." An disappointed look creeped across Her face at my question. "Why do you people always ask me that? Do you feel dead?"

"Um. Not really." Weirdly enough, I felt amazing. Better than I had in minutes. I looked at my hands, expecting to find a maddening lump of melted flesh but saw two healthy-skinned hands instead. Weird.

"Exactly. Now shut up, I have something important to tell you."

"Oh. Okay."

"Shh. Listen, Brad, I called you here for a reason." A wag of Her perfect finger gestured me to come closer. As I moved, I felt the universe move with me. The sun and stars shifted with my perspective, resulting in a wholly disorientating feeling. She continued in a low whisper, "Know that forces are moving below us. Soon this world will be taken by a darkness not seen in centuries."

"Oh. That's not good." I paused awkwardly. "Is there anything I can do about it?"

"Of course not. It's way too late now." She paused as if lost in thought. "I'm sure your death will be particularly torturous. Are you hungry?"

"Starving, actually. I could eat a horse."

"Want a sandwich?" And She produced from behind Her what looked to be a grilled cheese sandwich.

What a sandwich. My lord. It tasted like the tears of angels, like the flesh of God. Tasted like a pretty good sandwich.

"Hey, this sandwich is pretty good," I said.

"Thanks, I made it myself. Anyways, know that nothing awaits you but horrible, agonizing death. Not only will your death be hideous, you will die alone, either hated or forgotten by everyone and everything you ever loved or held dear. All your striving will be in vain, all your hopes will be for nothing, all your dreams will be broken. You'd be way better off if you kill yourself right now."

"Um. Thanks for the heads up?"

"Anytime. You should go."

"Oh. Okay."

"Goodbye."

"Bye."

I awoke on the opposite bank, alive and dry. At first I tensed up, waiting for the horrible pain and nausea I'd grown so accustomed to while on fire, but nothing came. Then I looked down at my hands, expecting to find a maddening lump of melted flesh, and finding a maddening lump of melted flesh. Turned out that while by some miracle my wounds had completely healed, their scars remained. My beautiful face now looked like the child of a bridge troll and an avocado. But I always knew to look on the bright side. That's what made me so strong. Sure, I might look and feel like shit, but it's what's on the inside that matters. And I know that someone with as much personality and kindness as me would shine regardless of what's on the outside.

Speaking of the outside, by the time I woke up, the forest fire had burned itself out. What was once a picturesque home to various endangered species, uncontacted tribes, and this one super rare spicy pepper that didn't exist anywhere else in the world was now a barren wasteland of ash. Like, actually. There's nothing left, just ash. Like a desert, or a kitty litter tray without any poop in it. It's scary how burnt the area was. It must've taken weeks and multiple firebombings to achieve that level of ungreenery. I had no idea how long I was out, but it must've been days. Not a single mercenary was in sight. They'd probably given up the chase. I was safe.

Tomorrow I would conquer the world. I would shake off the chains of captivity and truly embrace freedom. I would dazzle the world with my wit and skill and intellect, and the world would fall at my feet. But that night, I was tired. I lay on the green, unburnt grass on the side of freedom and watched the stars. I didn't have a choice, since my eyelids had burned off, but I think I would've done so eyelids or not. My clothes and backpack were burned or lost in the fire, and it was cold, but I didn't care. The stars were too beautiful to care. I drifted to sleep.