Ei tea veel nime

“Run faster, run, run, run,” was all he could think about. He knew his body should have collapsed from exhaustion a long time ago, but the fear of death kept him on the move, more agile than ever.
The hall- and stairways he passed seemed to be endless. It was as if there was no escape, like the building itself wanted to keep him hostage.
He dared not look back, for he was afraid to see the sad truth – that there really was no escaping them. But he could not help it when he was turning to go down the stairs. He saw shadowy things coming down from the stairway, across the ceiling and on the walls.
“Only a few more floors and I'm outside, safe from the darkness,” was the thought that comforted him. For a second he actually felt a ray of hope, dim as it was. He even deluded himself into thinking that he could really survive to live another day.
He could see the lobby through the glass door that separated the stairway from it. Salvation was so close at hand, but right before he managed to open the door, a shadow slipped past and materialized in front of him.

That was when Ren woke. He was trembling all over and was covered with cold sweat. His heart was beating so fast it felt as if somebody was trying to rip his chest apart.
Had it been a random dream or another one of his visions, he could not tell. He could only be certain that it had not been his own future he had just seen.
He flipped the light switch which was located just beside his bed. He had moved the bed near it to be able to get rid of the darkness at any given moment.
Ren looked around to make sure he was alone. Being sure of it, he sat up, put on his slippers and started walking towards the window. He passed a mirror on his way. He was startled at the sight, for what was looking back at him, wasn't him, at least not entirely. He saw a tired, old face instead of a young, careless one, full of joy. His body was still in shape, except for the fact, that his muscles had begun to get a bit saggy, for he hadn't been to the gym for almost a year. He didn't even stand up straight anymore, but was a bit hunched – nothing too serious though. He didn't stay in place for more than a glance.
When he got to the window, he saw a starless night sky and started to wonder where it had all gone wrong for him. He had had a happy, carefree life : a paying job, a girlfriend, no troubles to speak of. But since powers had begun awakening, everything had gone downhill. He couldn't believe that actually a year had gone to pass. A whole year living in fear and danger – that was certainly not the life he would have imagined for himself before.
Ren had always believed that human powers could not have been limited to the mediocrity of everyday life, but since there was no proof saying the opposite, he could not have hoped for greater power himself. At first, they were frightening and uncontrollable – enough so, to try and ignore them completely. But he had learned to live with them, to use them.
The vision was still troubling him. The place where it had taken place was awfully familiar, but he couldn't pinpoint the exact location out no matter how hard he tried. He tried to remember if he had been thinking something in the vision, something to give away the identity of the location or the person owning the thoughts – he had come to learn over time, that when he had one of his visions, he was another person, experiencing everything his vessel was, as if they were the same soul, but the one thing he could not do, was to control the vessel.
Nothing particular popped in mind. The only thing he could remember was constant fear mixed with the will to live. Ren knew, that if he were to help the person out, he had roughly a fortnight – his powers allowed him to see visions of a possible future to come, if he did not intervene.
He glimpsed at his alarm clock – it was already five in the morning. He decided to try and get what sleep he could and hoped to reach a better conclusion of the situation in the morning with a clearer mind.

*

It was a day like any other, living in the rut that had been his sanctuary for the past decade. When his workday in his little office box ended, Voren walked out the building, sat in his car, went to the supermarket, went home, heated up some frozen food and sat down in front of the television. No sign of a wife, no social network to speak of – that was just the life he wanted, safe and without trouble; or so he liked to believe.
When he woke the next day, he didn't feel rested at all. He had had the strangest of dreams, he knew, but he could not recall about what it had been, not even in the slightest.
He made himself a cup of coffee, just like every day, but this time something felt different, something that could certainly not be labeled under sleeplessness. After finishing his coffee, he started getting ready for work, disregarding the feeling totally.
While driving to work, Voren had a strange sensation of someone keeping watch over him somehow, but the streets were empty; he put that thought aside.
He finally arrived to work, parked his car and went into the building. He got into the elevator and adjusted his tie, having seen it was a bit off from the mirror inside.
When the doors opened, he heard a familiar voice, shouting somewhere. It belonged to his boss, he knew. He had almost made his way to his box, when suddenly something grabbed his shoulder.
“Late, are we now?” a loud, angry voice asked him.
He turned around, only to see what was expected - his boss staring at him angrily. “Unfortunately so, sir.,” he replied in a voice as neutral as possible.
“Our company does not tolerate such things. Even the likes of you must surely know that!?”
“I'm deeply sorry, but there was an accident on the corner of 83rd and 6th, so I had to take a little detour.” It was an obvious lie, but he knew it would calm the boss down and leave him some space to breath.
“Very well then. Make sure it won't happen again, though, or there might be consequences.”
The little discussion made everyone who watched grin. That only for the reason that Voren was a big man – one that had to have his suits custom made - with a gruff voice. His face lacked emotion most of the time, almost making people think that he was unable to smile. His beard and head were always shaved, daily. Whereas his boss was a smaller kind of man, also bald, but not because he liked it so. But despite his appearance, Voren was completely harmless – friendly and helpful, the type that would never even hurt a fly.
After that little incident, he sat down at his desk and started another dull day at work, except it was somewhat different.
Usually, he did everything automatically, never giving anything a second thought – his mind totally blank through the hours of work. This time his mind wandered though, to places it had never been to before.
He had never thought of anything remotely supernatural, but today, his mind was full of fantasy. He had been perfectly fine with the lifestyle he had led until that day, but it seemed that whatever he had seen in his dreams that night had popped some kind of switch in him.
He was happy with his life, so it could not have been that he was trying to escape to some imaginary universe. The most logical explanation was that it had been just a fluke, something his body had needed to do, for he had lacked real dreams for so long.
The thoughts were overwhelming. Even thinking that all he had believed in could crumble down like a leaf made him dizzy. To imagine that life could be full of mysterious beasts and magic, demons and angels – it was way more than he could comprehend.
Hours flew by as his mind gave birth to countless fantasies; his working day seemed to have passed in a blink of an eye.
When he got out of the building, it was already pitch black outside.
While driving home, Voren felt more like his usual self, only wanting to get to the comforts of his own humble abode.
The road was full of shadows cast by the tall buildings standing on the side of the street. It had always been like that in the ghetto neighborhood from which he had to drive through almost every single day of his life.
He was almost out of the dark streets when he saw something pop out on the road right in front of his trajectory. He turned his wheel as hard as he could and hit the breaks with full force. He lost control of his car and spun around a bit before he crashed in to a lantern. The impact was hard and made him hit his head against the dashboard even though he had worn his seat belt. He was extremely dizzy and was loosing his vision. He was on the verge of passing out. Had he managed to evade whatever he tried to evade or not, he was not sure.