He's tearing through the woods, clutching the object wrapped in his sweater, branches tearing at his pockets as he darts around low, pokey trees. He stops behind the massive trunk of an oak for a moment, trying to listen for pursuit, but he can't really hear past the blood pounding in his ears and his lungs heaving air in, out, in out.

He dares open the sweater-bundle for a moment to peer at the faintly warm, pearlescent sphere within. It seems to swirl.

"Oy! He's that way!"

Alasdair hastily bundles the sweater back up and starts running again.

His foot snags on a tree root and he's falling, hard, on a rock, and he hears a sickening crunch as he lands on top of the sweater bundle.

There's a painfully brilliant flash and his vision goes white.