Geoffrey
What's the point? Even if I make it out of here, Ever's going to kill me this time for sure. Jeff wasn't exactly in a laughing mood right now, but he'd yet to find something he couldn't joke about. He was determined that if he was going to die here, it would be with a smile on his face, and a laugh on his lips.
But that was only if he did die here, and he was pretty determined not too. Unfortunately, it was seeming more and more likely with every moment.
Jeff pushed his leaden legs on, urging them to carry him as fast as possible. But God did it hurt. Don't think about it. Just keep running. His right arm was wrapped tight around his stomach, covered in blood. It soaked through his clothes and ran down his arm, wet, hot, and sticky. C'mon, keep going. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. His breath was ragged and shallow, each rasping snatch of air painful and hot. At least I'm still breathing. His vision was dim and hazy, too dark to make out the ground properly. That's not my vision, it's this place. Just gotta keep running and I can leave. He could hear footsteps behind him, and a strange skittering. They were growing more and more distant, but were still much too close for comfort. Nope, not going to think about it. La la la la la.
Suddenly his right leg gave way, buckling under him. He hit the ground heavily, pain lancing through his body. He forced himself onto his knees, hot, angry tears blurring his vision. Try as he might, he couldn't stand up. He had pushed too hard, and now his body was giving out on him. There was a moment of panic. He could still hear the footsteps and skittering, growing louder, but when he glanced back there was no sign of his pursuers. He breathed a sigh of relief. Good. He'd put enough distance between them.
Focusing what little energy he had left, he reached out. He reached and reached and reached, across boundaries that separated entire worlds. But he found what he was looking for. He'd warped there so often it was like a second home. His pursuers could feel what he was doing. He heard a little shriek of rage, and the speed of the footfalls approaching him grew. But before they could reach him, he was gone, slipping through space.
Warping is a strange sensation. It's like taking a step in a whole new direction, somehow sliding sideways and forwards and up and back and down all at once. The world around Jeff seemed to melt away, sliding out from around him. Suddenly, he was in an entirely different place.
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Lazy afternoon light wafted through the window, nearly gone as day drew to a close. The room was warm and friendly, looking every bit like part of a cozy little inn. Not a spot of dust anywhere, it was a fresh, clean room. It even smelled fresh, with the smells of the forest and horses leaking through. He, on the other hand, did not.
Jeff actually didn't want to think about what he smelled like. Suffice to say, words would never do the stench justice. Blood was already seeping into the clean sheets of the bed that he had warped onto, and his clothes hung off him in ripped, tattered ruins. His body was laced with cuts and bruises of various sizes, and dirt and sweat mingled over his skin. Breath came to him painfully, and everything hurt. His right ankle was swollen, and his left shoulder had been dislocated. But all of this could wait. More pressing was the blood seeping out of his stomach. A stab wound, it wasn't particularly wide, but it was deep. If someone didn't see to it soon, Jeff knew, he was going to die.
On the other hand, if Ever saw the state that he had gotten himself into, she might just go ahead and kill him anyway. The first couple of times that he had shown up at her door injured, she had helped him out. She asked what happened, but he couldn't tell her. Still, she kept helping him. It eventually got to the point that she had set aside this room for him, so that whenever he needed help he'd warp in here and no one else but Ever would need to know. He'd even worked out a way for Ares to sense whenever he entered this room, so that he could tell Ever.
Speaking of Ares, where the hell is he. Normally he's much quicker about fetching Ever. Another spasm of pain lanced through Jeff, and it was all he could do not to cry out. Hurry up Ares...
Last time he warped in here, Ares was much quicker. Ever almost immediately, but said that unless he told her just what he was doing to keep getting hurt, she would stop healing him. Jeff had called that bluff when he tried to get up and walk off on a broken leg, and Ever sat him back down and tended to the leg. But she hadn't been happy about it. She wanted him to swear not to get himself hurt again, but he just told her that that was a promise he couldn't make.
And now here he was, not just hurt, but dying. He hated doing this to Ever, he really did. Whenever he popped in this room she would drop whatever she was doing, and come heal him. I hope I'm not interrupting anything this time...