Even as the dagger sliced through the air, it remained eerily silent. The scar left in the air made no sound, only hanging with a shimmering glow. Cutting the box took a bit more force, but the blade passed smoothly through. Almost immediately, tendrils of green leached into the streak, crawling out from the wood. By the time Alius recoiled, the golden ends had shrunk to nothing, and the cut oozed emerald on the wood. As Alius watched, the wood began to lose something, the effects spreading out from the gash.

Slowly, the box turned blurry, the once sharply defined edges and corners softening, until they crumbled away. Alius gulped, but reached inside the box. The first item to be grabbed and pulled out was a disk, built out of a dark wood, and with a segmented ring of glowing emeralds on the rim. Alius put it to the side to admire the second object. A bluish-green rock.

Unfortunately, it was a cube.

When Alius reached out to touch it, his hand passed through a field about an inch away. Tingly snakes wound their way further up his fingers the closer he nudged them to the cube. Once he finally settled the cube in his fingers, the current jumped back to the cube, where Alius could feel it dancing on the cube with his fingers.

The sound of someone clearing their throat behind Alius made him turn.

“Alius! Great to speak with you again.”

“Elder Darius! Ha! Got past your cryptic-”

“I hope you enjoyed the stairs. If you skipped those, at least I got you with the door.” The voice sounded from the wooden disk which Alius had placed in the ashes of the box.

Alius started sweating, and looked back at the street. No one was there.

No one saw, no one saw. I’m okay.

Alius wiped his forehead of the sweat and started listening to Darius again.

“By now, Ditus should be walking your way. Even if you rushed straight here, right into this alley, and managed to break this box by looking at it, you only have about…”

Darius flipped his wrist up.

“...a minute left. So yes, time’s up.”

“So, I’ll do this fast. Thank me later. The cube is not, in case you were wondering, the rock you’re looking for. If you roll it, Ditus will stop moving for somewhere between ten and sixty seconds. The disk will broadcast your location every sixty seconds. I’m sure this couldn’t be used to your advantage.”

Alius could almost hear the eye roll.

“But, don’t think of ditching it in a random alley. If Ditus gets the disk, he can use it to either stop you from moving, or to make everyone in the area swarm you faster than you can blink. That’s all, so I suggest you get moving.”

The voice abruptly cut off, so Alius picked up the disk, sliding it into the non-knife pocket. The cube was dunked in there too, leaving only a pile of dust and a still disintegrating box in the alley as Alius ducked out.

____

Alius kept to the edge of the street, frequently going into alleys to get a look at the black and white roof. It was the only differently colored one around, so he figured it was worth his limited time.

Once again, Alius had to back into an alley to get a sense of his direction.

“This is taking far too long.” Alius thought about the time he had spent so far, and although he had moved as fast as he could, it had been at least ten minutes.

Alius gritted his teeth as he looked up at the black-white roof. Definitely close enough.

Alius stepped out into the river of people, tuning out their mindless chatter. Hopping into a sprint, he shot down the street, the people around him blurring away, creating a pocket that centered itself around Alius.

One. Two. Three.

Alius legs started to burn, but he kept a consistent pace.

Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

Straining to keep the same sprint, Alius continued, the voices of the crowd fading to absolute silence.

Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve!

At the last count, Alius stopped on his foot and flicked left, bouncing into a jog, then slowly walking forward. He couldn’t see anything in the crowd, but kept walking. The crowd looked exactly the same wherever you went.

Then, Alius came into an empty area. One second, he had been surrounded by a forest of people, and in the next, they were all behind him. There was a strict rectangle of no people around the entrance of this building.

Phew. Luckily I didn’t get lost. All thanks to the afternoons of timing my fastest sprints.

Alius almost had to crawl up the steps to the building. Even after taking several breaks on the side, he was drained from the all-out sprint. But it was worth it, because that was the only consistent speed Alius knew.

Alius was panting again when he reached the doors.

“Ugh. Why?” The doors maintained the same, just too tall to jump up and grab build that was very quickly becoming annoying. “Okay, fine. Just- hoo- let me catch my breath.”

Alius leaned on the doors for a moment before stepping back. He pounced at the wall, but took a moment too long to bounce off, and his foot slid and he ended up crashing to the ground.

Groaning, Alius pushed himself to sit against the door. Looking at the wall of people, Alius saw heads of hair, brown, black, red, white, blonde. But he also saw the little heads parting around something that was rapidly approaching. Alius squinted, wondering if the fall had messed up his eyesight, but the patch of no people just continued to advance towards the stairs.

Quickly falling into a panic, Alius staggered back to a standing position, but still managed to see the figure that emerged from the hodgepodge of colorfully-clothed humans.

Ditus gave Alius a wicked grin.

“Gotcha, boy.”