[Dash] Character backstory, part I

Sep 15, 2008 20:57

The youth in the hooded top sprinted down Brick Lane with two of the Metropolis’ finest behind him. His lungs were burning like alembics of white fire, a sensation that gave him visceral satisfaction as he felt his muscles respond to the desire for more speed. On his back, clanging like a leper’s bell, a rucksack full of spray cans jostled in the air. He knew that was all the evidence needed to add another ASBO to his record.

He afforded a backward glance at his pursuit, revealing a glimpse of a face caught in the twilight between youth and manhood before it was once more enveloped by the hooded sheath of his jacket. He muttered a curse and drove on, hurdling over a crate strewn in his path with vital energy. One of the constables was a lard-burdened, sweaty mess playing out his time until his pension. Already he was drifting back, his run degrading into a strange mix of waddling and staggering as he fumbled for his radio between sucking, gulping pants. He was spent; it was the other, a special according to his stab jacket, that gave the youth cause for concern. Where he was trying to force a path through the crowd, ploughing through gaps and forcing his route, the special could follow in his wake. The officer was gaining ground with each unimpeded stride.

The boy paid no heed, focusing his concentration on an imaginary tunnel he visualised in front of him. The harder he concentrated, the tighter he squeezed his jaw and furrowed his brow, the more focused the tunnel became. Narrowing his eyes, the arcus glowed silvers and flash-fire vermilions as everything in the periphery became a blur and the universe drifted to rapturous void. Sound faded to a heartbeat thud. Smells vanished in the thick East End air. The world broke down to its component calculations until only obstacles, distances, heights and widths remained, with lines launching out to trace the quickest routes over, under and around them. In the silence every move was a slow-step freeze-frame subconscious reaction as his body contorted on instinct to the needed shape. First his finely toned muscles moved so that he mimicked the shape of a hurdler, then asprinter, then an acrobat as he twisted and contorted effortlessly to launch forth and drive through gaps in the bustling throng of the street that could scarcely be imagined. In this state they were easy, smooth, natural metamorphoses to make.

Then he felt his hood snag on something as he slipped between two slowly meandering tourists. The rip shot through his ears, tearing him from his reverie with the jarring shock of a momentary stumble. The pause was all the special needed. He was now only ten metres behind.

With aggravated insult on his breath the youth kicked against a lamp post and veered off Brick Lane, turning into the old Truman Brewery. The red brick buildings were in various states of disrepair, sured up only where required so that new, youthful brand name companies could take up residence in the heart of the Shoreditch Triangle. He ignored them all, intent on gaining one of the dark and foreboding alleyways. It was the passage of the desperate: a route that left the more salubrious areas of the maw of Hades and descended into true squalor; a mire of filth and detritus and walls stained with Dickensian slime that had probably been dripping down since Jack the Ripper’s heyday.

Without a second thought he made for the nearest alleyway, leaving only a string of expletives for the hound-like pursuers to trail. He was angry with himself. The police usually couldn’t catch him if they tried. He didn’t understand it, but something always told him that there was trouble about. He’d felt it only a few minutes earlier, as he had finished his latest tag on the back of the closed Shoreditch Station. Every hair had pricked up in a shiver of crawling flesh. He should have broken and run, but he’d been so close to finishing. It had only needed one last line here, and there, and a contrasting tone there, and... the temptation to display his full capacity had been irresistible. And now he was running for his freedom. Inwardly, he cursed his stupid pride.

The alley turned after five metres, crunching to a sharp bend lorded over by some tramp with an Irish ditty on his breath and an Irish whiskey in his gullet. The youth shot past, barely registering a glance. Instead his eyes focused on a heaven-sent hope of salvation. Shooting straight up from the grey of the pavement to the grey of the overcast London sky was a ten foot chain-link fence. For a second he paused to muse his ascent; then the footfall from behind drove him on. In a blur of motion he had leapt sideways, paddling his right foot against the wall to move across and upward and grappling with his left arm to vault on the top of the rim as he launched himself over the fence. His right hand hooked out for balance, correcting his trajectory as he glided down in the stunning riposte of gravity, his knees bent to absorb the impact of the landing.

He turned. On the other side of the fence the special and the tramp stood, slack-jawed in amazement at the staggering display of alacrity. He bowed, grinned affably and waved.

“Eat it, bitch!” he offered, waiting to see what would happen. The policeman snarled and made for the fence, struggling to get a foothold on the chain. Behind him the fat oaf of a regular trotted into view, still staggering from lack of breath, still hurling officious demands.

Dash shook his head and jogged away.

OOC: I apologise that this will be long. However, it's 1XP to have a backstory that everyone can read. And you'll get a whole backstory. It's just going to be long and like this.
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