I reached the top of the slope and stopped, my lungs making sounds I would not describe as healthy, my vision dimming faintly at the edges, a warning I had ignored back when I ran one hundred laps. And I remember how that finished, with my face down in the dirt.
I could not use Quickstep, I knew that the moment I pushed it, I would stop being a person running from Corruptors and become a person lying in the dirt near Corruptors, which was a much worse problem.
Sense was gone, even thinking about it made the pressure behind my eyes feel worse.
Switch was what I had left, limited to whatever my eyes could see, no extended reach, the basic version.
Behind me the Corruptors kept coming up the slope, not fast, not coordinated, but moving on instinct, and their instinct was fixed on me.
