The sense of weightlessness Theon experienced was at complete odds with the psychological pressure he felt under. Time slowed as adrenaline pumped through his veins, but still, the ground seemed to be racing towards him. He knew if he hit his head, he would probably die and if he suffered a severe injury, then the wargs would eat him.

Since he had leaped from the window he was traveling in somewhat of an arc towards the ground. That wasn’t the issue though, the issue was that he was starting to flip forward, meaning he would land on his head.

There were two choices, either he try to complete the flip, or he could try to reverse it. He didn’t have time to puzzle out which would be better, so he went with his instincts and pushed his head down and brought his legs up and around.

He almost managed to make a complete flip before he hit the concrete. His body was at a forty-five-degree angle from the ground and he managed to make his legs land first. He heard a loud snap accompanied by a sharp pain in his right ankle before rolling forward once and coming to a stop in the street.

His body hurt everywhere, but mostly his right leg. He looked down to see his foot twisted at an angle from where it should be, it looked like the break was at his ankle. His legs and arms had bloody cuts and road rash all over them too.

He looked back to the window of his apartment that he had jumped out of. He could see the flames inside and he was both thankful and worried that he couldn’t see the orcs or wargs. They would probably have to backtrack to find another way down.

Theon got on his left leg and looked to the police car, it was about fifty feet away. He hopped and crawled as fast as he could towards it. He could see the door was open and he could hear the purr of the engine, thankfully.

The cruiser was about fifteen feet away when he heard wargs coming from the apartment building. He didn’t even look in its direction, totally focused on the cop car he could now see inside of. There was a dead cop sitting in the driver’s seat. It looked like the wargs had gotten to him.

The growling and barking was getting louder now, and Theon was full on hopping, the sound urging him on. He grabbed the door and pulled himself inside just in time for a warg to ram the door and slam it closed.

He didn’t even notice he was sitting on the dead cop as he stared through the glass into the wargs maw. Theon could see that it had two rows of teeth as they scraped the glass. It didn’t seem to realize there was glass there. Then it backed up and Theon could see the intelligence in its reptilianesque eye as it glared at him.

Theon pushed the dead cop’s legs out of his way with his good leg and put the cruiser into reverse. The tires squealed as he punched the accelerator, then there was a thud and the sound of shattering glass before the car bounced twice and then he saw the orc he’d hit dead in the street in front of him.

He kept the pedal down as he watched the orcs and wargs chase after him down the middle of the street. After he had a block distance from his hunters he stopped the car and put it into drive. He took off in the opposite direction from his hunters, keeping an eye on them in the rear-view mirror until they vanished around a bend.

Then the pain in his leg came back in full force and he knew he had to get to a hospital. It was a bad break, he could lose his foot.

He took a moment to take stock of his situation as he headed for the local hospital. Nothing else seemed to be broken but he hurt all over. He saw the HUD in the top left, it showed his health was about halfway down, but it was slowly ticking back up while his mana was ticking down.

Theon saw all sorts of creatures and beings as he headed towards the hospital. There were little goblins, a huge troll, packs of wolves, a walking skeleton, little imp devils and other demonic looking creatures. He even saw a wood elf with a bow, and a space marine type guy in some sort of black space suit with what he guessed was a laser rifle.

After finding an empty stretch of road he pulled over on the wrong side of the road. He needed to search the car for a weapon of some sort, and it was difficult driving on top of a dead cop. He waited a dozen quick breaths to be sure he wasn’t going to get ambushed before he pushed the now bent and squeaky door open. After nothing came out to attack him he pulled himself out of the car.

All the cuts and minor wounds he had on his body seemed to be mostly gone now, leaving just a layer of bloody grime. He wiped some of it off to be sure, and beneath the dirt and blood was just smooth skin.

He looked down to his right leg, it still looked bad, but it was at the appropriate angle now. His health bar showed three-quarters full, but his mana was empty. He focused on it and it grew larger showing zero of 140. He focused on his health and it expanded to show fifty-seven out of eighty. He thought it was odd that he had different amounts of each, but he tossed the thought aside and readied himself for what he was about to do.

“Sorry, man,” he said to the dead cop as he pulled him out before dropping him on the sidewalk.

Theon knew that he was probably someone’s dad or husband. He didn’t know, but he knew that the dead cop probably had someone who loved him and would miss him.

The lights on the cruiser were still flashing as he checked the body for weapons or anything he could use as one. The gun holster was empty but there was a small can of pepper spray, a Taser gun, handcuffs, a flashlight, and a magazine with bullets in it. He put the Taser gun in his pocket and shoved the flashlight in between the elastic band on his pajamas and his hip, it was heavy and could probably be used as a club in a pinch.

He got back in the car and after a few slams managed to close the door. Right away he could see the shotgun between the two seats. It was mounted on the barrier between the front and back of the car. In the back, he saw a crude sword buried amongst the glass from the rear window.

Theon surmised the orc he’d ran over on his escape must have attacked the police cruiser with the sword as he got rammed.

He wasn’t about to get in a sword fight though, so he left it and went for the shotgun. It had a half dozen shotgun shells attached to its left and right side. After fooling around with it for about a minute he managed to unclip it. It was heavier than he expected, but he felt considerable safer with it.

He didn’t know anything about guns, sure he knew which end the bullets came out of, but that was about it. He had to make sure it fired when he needed it to, so he leaned over to the passenger side and after a quick look around, rolled down the window.

He pointed the shotgun out the passenger window since he doubted the driver’s side would roll down, and if it did, it probably wouldn’t roll back up. He aimed it at the building on the other side of the street and pulled the trigger.

There was a loud click, but that was it. He pulled the barrel back in the car and started looking for the safety. It didn’t take him long to find it and he switched it off. There was also a pump action on it and he pumped it once just in case that was the issue. A shell flew out and landed on the passenger seat.

He took aim at the building again and pulled the trigger. The sound was deafening, and he dropped the shotgun to cover his ears. He remembered seeing videos of people shooting guns and remembered they normally wore ear protection. Now he knew why. The good news though, was that it would reliably shoot if he needed it to.

He picked the shotgun up and pulled it in his lap just in time to see someone run out of the building he’d just shot. The guy was about middle-aged wearing boxers, a tank top and an open bathrobe with slippers. He was shouting something at Theon, but with his ears were ringing he couldn’t hear it. He could, however, see the man waving a wireless phone before he stomped back into his house.

Theon looked around, he was in the middle of a neighborhood and had just shot at someone’s house. All while sitting in a dead policeman’s car with the dead body right outside.

Theon leaned closer to his window to make sure the cop was dead from wargs, and to reassure himself he wasn’t crazy. With a sigh of relief, Theon leaned back in his seat and set the cruiser in drive. He was about to take off for the hospital again when he heard someone to his right.

It was the same old guy with the bathrobe, but this time instead of holding a phone he had a revolver, and it was pointed at Theon.

“I said get out of the car!” the crazy guy yelled.

Theon didn’t even think about what he was doing, he just ducked his head down and slammed his foot on the pedal. It was the injured foot though, and he felt the bones in his ankle grinding together and stabbing into the muscles.

The tires screeched at first, then he started to drift forward as he switched feet. He peeked over the steering wheel to see where he was going. Not hearing a gunshot, he sat up slowly as he put some distance between him and the old guy. He looked in the rearview mirror to see the crazy old guy standing in the middle of the street, other people were starting to gather outside now. In the distance though, he could see the orcs and wargs running down the street.

His first instinct was to take off and try to outrun them. Those people who were in the street now that he had woken them would get slaughtered though. He pressed on the brakes with his left foot, it was awkward trying to drive like this, but he didn’t really have a choice.

He had to brace himself against the steering wheel as the cop car skidded to a stop. He looked to the dials and knobs sticking out of the dashboard, trying to think of what he could do to convince them to go back inside. He started pressing buttons randomly in a hurry to see what they did. The overhead lights went off with one, there was a loud buzzing noise with another switch. There was a radio and he picked it up and tried talking in it to see if he could use the loudspeaker on the cop’s car.

“Hello?” he could hear himself say through the loudspeakers.

He turned the car around and started driving back towards the old guy. When he got close enough that he figured they could easily hear him he got back on the speaker.

“Get back in your houses! They’re coming right behind you!” Theon said as he hunched low in the cruiser.

The people in the street seemed to be alarmed that he was coming back, and there were quite a few people around the dead cop’s body now. A few of them started looking back, the orcs were running full speed and they were only about a block away now with the wargs in the lead.

“They killed the cop, get back in your houses now!” Theon yelled.

People were starting to get back in their houses now, but it was way too slow. The wargs were starting to pull ahead of the orcs at full speed and it wouldn’t take them long to get there. There were four wargs and six orcs, it was way too many.

Theon gave one more warning for them to get in their houses before the wargs got to them. He was hoping they would ignore the people and just focus on him. The wargs didn’t seem to be able to pass up such easy prey though. They split up and started taking people down one after the other. The crazy guy with the revolver managed to actually kill one but another took his hand off as Theon watched. Theon flipped the sirens back on and got on the speaker.

“Hey! Over here fuckers!”