Beyond the Sky

The runner sped through the splotches of light, which shone and swirled and whirled around him.

He did not look back. He had chosen to run.

So he ran.

Until finally, finally, with the utmost certainty, the runner realized he was ready to die. It was a realization most runners come to, if they can dig deep enough. He was no longer afraid. He had a fate to face, and he would face it.

He did not glace over his shoulder. He planted his feet and pivoted to face what came.

But nothing came. No beast pursued him. Confused, he realized the splotches of light were not indications of oxygen debt but stars. He wondered, idly, why he had stopped panting.

He realized his feet rested, not on snow and ice but atop a ribbon of the Aurora Borealis. He wondered, idly, how the light generated from Earth's magnetic field could support him.

The world unfolded beneath him. The stars sprawled above him. He realized he had run clear off the edge of the earth and into the heavens. He no longer had corporeal form, it seemed. He wondered, idly, at the larger implications of his actions. He wondered, idly, why he could only wonder idly about things.

He looked down at his feet, where the wolf had bit him, and saw a wolf's tooth lodged in either ankle. He wondered why it didn't hurt. Perhaps, without corporeal form, he did not feel corporeal pain.

He picked the teeth from his ankles and held them in his hands. He wondered how he had continued to run with them in his feet. Perhaps, without corporeal form, he was unbothered by corporeal physics.

As he held the teeth in his hands, they turned to spears. He stopped wondering here, and started accepting. He held two magical spears in his hand which he had won by outpacing a wolf. He stood atop a road of dancing ancestors. In front of him shone stars, millions of light years apart, that formed the shape of a bear, the Great Bear Spirit which, like him, had run clear off the edge of the earth.

It probably had feet he could borrow, and now he had two spears with which he could ask politely.

He found, lacking corporeal form, that he lacked corporeal fatigue. He hoisted his spears and, with the speed of a wolf, he ran towards the Great Bear Spirit.