The boy ran. As fast as his legs could take him. The bakery was in sight. The cake was there, waiting for someone to snatch it away. All he had to do was grab it and bite, savor the taste of grain for the first time in his life. 

He was getting closer. The people around him started backing off, scurrying aside from the tattered bedsheets. He could hear the lady’s footsteps getting louder. But the cake… It was so close. The frosting, the strawberries… He could name all the ingredients because of his inner records. He could only imagine the flavor, the sugary sweetness of the pastries. He could even taste the thought of chomping down already satiating his growling stomach. And when he was finally in range, he swiped—

His hand went straight through the dessert.

What? His eyes twitched; a chill ran down his spine. He could almost feel his legs losing strength. No. Please, no! He swiped at the other sweets—the apple pies, the macarons, the beautifully powdered mille-feuilles. His hands passed straight through all of them as if they didn’t exist, flickering like illusory lights.

Dread gripped his throat. It was a lie, a hallucination. The cake, the bread… Everything was a lie. They were fake, holograms! They weren’t even real!

A hand burst through his peripherals and grabbed him by the shoulder. It was iron tight. Unbreakable. The boy jumped. It was her—the woman from before. He struggled, moving in every which way. He pulled at his arm, and for a second, he thought her grip had weakened, but that was also a lie, imagined up in his mind. 

Her blank eyes stared like the void. A creeping fear crawled up his back—a fear that it wouldn’t end well for him if he didn’t escape now. He needed to break free. No, he had to, so with all his might, he pulled. Then again. And again. Until finally…

He was free. 

The boy ran. Again. Faster this time, with more speed. His legs tangled with every step. He fell, scraped his knees clean, but he kept going. Where was he going? He didn’t know. His only goal was to get as far away from her as possible. He couldn’t let her catch him. 

He ran towards the inner city, pushing past all the people who hadn’t yet noticed him. He was bumped around and jostled, but he kept his balance steady. He kept running. 

There! A dark alleyway! He immediately changed directions and stumbled through the ominous corridor. Common sense had told him to do it. It told him it would be less populated and quieter. He’d be more unseen, out of sight from all the dangers of the world. He could hide here. Somewhere… 

He looked around. A dumpster, a few trash cans, pipes, and an old air conditioning system… A dead end. But he had to hide. Where? There was nowhere else to go! 

Dumpster! It was common sense! Common sense was telling him to do it! 

He jumped into the dumpster and closed the lid. There were bags torn open with smelly, almost unbreathable garbage—fish bones and streaks of dried condiments. Metal rods poked out through plastic and used containers, but he still felt like it wasn’t enough. He dug deeper—as deep as he could go. He swam underneath all the gunk and held his breath. He waited, listening to all the noise outside. 

There were sounds of people shuffling through the sidewalk—the occasional yelling and shouting of kids, the roaring of construction equipment. It was quiet. Other than all that background noise, it was silent…

Then the ground started to rumble; the dumpster heaved upwards. One by one, the bags of trash disappeared. Popped like soap bubbles, gone without a trace. And in seconds, he was exposed in all his grimy splendor.

He was sprawled out on the asphalt surface half-naked with only a bed sheet in hand. The dumpster was gone; the bags of trash had all been poofed out of existence. 

Standing in front of him was the woman. Her hand was outstretched and glowing ever so slightly. Then the glow disappeared and she stared. Again, motionless. As if time had simply stopped. An ambitious thought crossed his mind—

Did I stop time?

But he already knew the answer to that. There were still people moving in the distance, engines roaring in rough vigor. Of course time hadn’t stopped. 

For what seemed like an hour, both of them stared in silence. Common sense had already given up. He couldn’t run anymore. He was starving, tired, and out of breath. There was nothing more he could do to better the odds of escape.

But then, without a single word, she turned and left—walked out the alley as if he wasn’t even there. 

Just like that? He was confused. Why had she gone after having cornered him? And as if to answer his immediate thoughts, a new figure approached him right as she turned the corner. Sharp, narrow eyes almost immediately speared him down. 

A man dressed in all-black stood before him. Unlike the woman’s unusual celebratory attire, he looked more kempt—well suited, well dressed. Like some sort of businessman. That was what his records stated. But his entire get-up was oddly unfitting for the environment. He stood out a little too much. And his face and eyes—they were sharper, more alive, dangerous. If he had to pick a creature from his records, the man looked like a desert horned viper. 

Then the man spoke. 

“As I thought,” he said, “a natural born.” He held out his hand. “Come. Don’t make this any more difficult.”

The boy hesitated. Common sense told him not to trust this man, and it was obvious that he wouldn’t just grab the hand of somebody he had never seen before. Especially not somebody like him. No, it wasn’t just common sense. It was more of an instinct, a gut feeling. This man was dangerous; he was not to be trusted. 

“Alright. Let’s try this again,” the man said. “Food. Would you like some food?”

Food?