Flicking the screen aside, Jack sprinted away, past the row of food stalls and towards a smaller brick cube.

It had steps before a green metal door, and a sign on top with a picture of a man, a woman, and a disabled person.

Pulling a twenty pence piece from his pocket, he aimed it at the slot next to the door. He checked the occupation light.

It was green.

“Excuse me,” came a voice from behind him, “do you have a license for that sword?”

He whirled round, attacking the man with a glare.

Something stabbed his torso.

He was tall, with a square jaw and perfect teeth, dark choppy hair shifting over his eyes; he wore a cheap suit of rough grey fabric.

“Hold on,” said Jack, narrowing his eyes. “Don’t I know you?”

He pulled a leather wallet from his pocket and flipped it open, showing the plastic card within. “DC Harry Pullman.”

“Oh yeah.” He scrunched up his face. “You look different when half of you isn’t covered in turtle spit. D’you get promoted to traffic detective, then?”

Snorting, Pullman eyed him. “And what’s with that expression? Not happy to see me?”

“Of course I’m not, you’re blocking me from the sweet mecca that lies beyond this door!”

“A toilet?”

“Exactly!”

“Whatever. Will you show me your license or will I have to arrest you?”

Descending the steps, Jack rifled in his jacket pocket. With a growl, he produced a plastic card, frenzied eyes boring into the detective.

Pullman analysed it.

Dull pulses rippled from his abdomen, and he grit his teeth. “Would you hurry up?”

Nodding, Pullman handed it back to Jack with an almost disappointed sigh. “That seems to check out. Have a nice day.” He walked off.

“Yeah, and I hope the Tower stomps on you, dickhead!” Jack turned back around, casting his gaze for the door. It creaked and slammed shut.

The light turned red.

Falling to his knees, he howled. His intestines’ attempt to twist was thwarted by their bulging contents.

“Don’t despair,” said Razor, sniggering, “you’re in a park, surrounded by nature. Bears shit in the woods; why can’t you shit in a bush?”

He readied a retort, but it felt pointless. Like throwing water in a puddle to check if it’s wet.

Instead, he waddled to the nearest hedge, rubbernecking until he was satisfied no-one was watching. He dropped his jeans and squatted.

“Oi!” said a crabby voice, “what the bloody ‘ell do you think you’re doin’?”

“Sorry,” said Jack, straining, “but do you have any toilet paper?”

An invisible force hoofed him away, sending him flailing through the air. His heart rose and dropped as he did, the adrenaline outweighed by the feeling of lead hardening in his gut.

Tears welled in his eyes.

His face sliding on the grass, he edged to his feet, walking onward while clutching his torso.

Something was coming.

“Don’t you mean ‘winter was coming’?”

No, and stop reading my narration!

Bringing up the status screen, he wondered if it could give some insight to how long he had before critical mass. He bristled. He needn’t have bothered.

[Status: Needs More Fibre]

With a snarl, he took off. He ran for the nearest exit, paying no mind to the confused looks of the people he passed. To them, he appeared as a blur, some superhuman entity on the way to its greatest battle.

In a way, he was.

As he recalled, a café lay around the corner. Pelting across a wide road and drawing an orchestra of honking, he came towards a white two-storey on a residential street; it had wide windows and metal tables outside, the aroma of fried food wafting out.

He approached, but for some reason, the door was blocked. Oh well. Asking the group to move was no big deal.

There were four of them in a circle, two men and two women, one of the women kneeling down to check something on the floor.

The chatter amongst them sounded frantic and anxious.

Jack drew closer, and his jaw dropped when he saw what she was attending to.

It was a corpse.

A man lay in the entrance, his eyes wide and white and empty, mouth hanging open. Crumbs littered its corner. One of the men held a circular pie tin half-full of something purple and sweet-looking.

“Why?!” he lamented. “Why did he have to go and use alien berries for the pie?”

Stumbling toward them, Jack groaned. “Excuse me, could I get past please?”

The man turned to him, wrinkling his nose. “Have some respect! Can’t you see a man’s died over here? His heart just exploded and you want to get past?”

“His heart already exploded,” said Jack, twitching, “but my asshole’s gonna explode any second now!”

His cheeks reddened, and he huffed before tossing the pie away. “Get out of it, you bloody wretch!”

“How does he know your adventurer class?”

Shut up, I’m not an adventurer!

As he turned, he spotted what could be his salvation: across the road, a pub sat proud and firm. Its sign read ‘The Crown Jewels’, hanging above double doors set into a large brick construct with narrow fenestrations. The plaster-work had seen better days.

He skipped over the road, careful not to catch himself on a cloud, lest he float away. Finally, his nightmare was over.

Something shiny fell from the sky.

In the pub’s doorway, a fat man in a flat cap stood smoking, his yellowed fingers wrapping around his cigarette like it was his final hope at life.

It wasn’t. It was, however, his final experience.

A disgustingly purple confection arced down at him, catching him full in the face in a splatter of jam. He writhed, falling to the floor and convulsing down the step amongst a field of pie shards; another man exited, face dropping as he noted the shaking body.

Jack’s cheeks went ashen, the tension leaving his legs.

“What the fuck?” said the man, reaching into his pocket. “Help! Somebody help!” His gaze ran around, resting on Jack and pleading with him to come relieve him of responsibility.

Jack held it for a second before his belly rumbled, the creature within roiling in its escape attempt.

There had to be another door.

He ran around the side of the pub, ignoring the cries from behind him. This downhill road was all houses, but he didn’t care—in front of him lay his prize. A mercifully unblocked entrance. It was a few feet away. Could he make it?

Something was poking out, and it was more than just a head: half the turtle’s shell was present, too.

His vision was blurring; it was a race against time.

Speeding up, he allowed elation to spring him towards the sky. He was almost there.

“Oi, mate, watch out!”

The cry came from behind him, so he snaked his neck in time to see a skateboard rolling down the hill toward him.

With a yelp, he jumped, trying to avoid it, but his foot caught as he landed and his skeleton left his skin behind.

He almost fell. Waving his arms, he fought to maintain his balance, eventually reclaiming it as the board raced downhill.

His breaths were ragged, the feeling in his midsection alternating between dull agony and adrenaline-fueled fluttering.

He screamed.

There was nothing to stop him, and he had no idea how to brake. Was this how it ended?

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

Stop reading my narration!

“Still, this is rather exhilarating, isn’t it?”

Like hell! This entire thing is your fault!

“I don’t think pointing fingers is going to get you anywhere.”

No, this runaway skateboard is about to get me somewhere? Dead!

“Then perhaps you should have listened instead of assuming that one awful attempt at magic meant you knew how to channel.”

What was that about pointing fingers?

“I’m in your head, I don’t have fingers to point.”

Oh, shut up!

His eyes shot wide as a group stepped out of a building in front of him. He regarded it. It was an ancient stone construction, with stained-glass windows and arched doorways and a pointed roof reaching for the sky.

A church.

Leaving the grounds through a gate in a spiked fence, a congregation carried a long wooden box between eight of them.

Their tones were hushed and mournful, and the air around them felt heavy.

At Jack’s speed, he couldn’t miss.

As he approached, time seemed to slow; jaws dropped as the pallbearers noticed him, their suits and dresses rustling as they flinched. He clenched his teeth, wondering which would come first: his shallow impact with the coffin, or a deep impact in his trousers.

Whichever, it was only bad news.

Thunk!

The skateboard continued its course, but Jack felt the air evacuate his lungs as he was driven off. He hit the ground, rolling on and landing at the feet of a shocked pallbearer.

The coffin had flown from their hands, and lay open on the ground—a middle-aged man was inside, looking peaceful in his fine suit.

Looking up, Jack’s eyes threatened to overflow.

Air hadn’t been the only thing evacuated.

The pallbearer gnashed his teeth, his glare cutting him to ribbons. “Can’t you be a bit more careful? You’ve just sent a dead man flying into the street!”

“Sorry,” said Jack, refusing eye contact. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Whether you meant to or not, you still did it! What have you got to say for yourself, eh?”

“Well,” he said, voice quivering, “since he’s dead, he won’t be needing those trousers anymore, will he?”