They're here. I can feel their presence among the crowd of people. Frantically I look around, seeing only the faces of people I know pressing in around me. Which one? Which one will betray me and drag me off away from this place I love? I feel a hand on my wrist and turn to see who it is, my heart thumping loudly in my ears. I see a chubby blonde guy staring back at me. I know you don't I? We stare at each other for a few seconds, then I turn and follow him out of the crowd.
We're in some kind of
neighborhood. It's a cross between a
military base I lived on as a child, and the
innercity. Somehow that seems contradictory, but this is how I perceived it. The buildings around us are tall, but there is plenty of open space between them. Empty lots of dirt where nothing will grow are vast in this place.
I look behind us to the crowd and see a man breaking away and following us. His features aren't easy to make out, we've already traveled a good clip from them at our fast pace. I can feel a wave of irritation coming from him and my fear increases. Why can't they leave me alone?
There are others like me out there. I can feel them just as I can feel our hunters. When I close my eyes I can see a girl with long wavy brown hair and large violet eyes filled with innocence. I don't like to close my eyes.
We turn a corner and stop. There are more of them infront of us. They walk steadily towards us, the streets feel strangely empty all of a sudden. There's no one around we can turn to for help. It's up to us. We dart into the nearest building and head for the stairs. We climb ever highter, running now. We must get to the top, only there will we be safe. The sound of our own laboured breathing is all we can hear as we abandon the burning in our legs in search of safety.
On the roof we look over the edge of the building and see our hunters below, staring up at us. They hadn't even attempted to enter the building. It's always possible there are some we hadn't seen in the building climbing the stairs, but we know there aren't any. We would feel them if there were. We lock arms with one another and close our eyes. That girl is there again. Why won't she leave me alone? Go away, I can't help you now! Suddenly I feel a wave on nausea and my body feels lighter. I can't feel his arms beneath my hands, or his hands gripping my arms any longer. I know better than to open my eyes, that would be dangerous. There's a sudden burst of cold all around. Everything is silent, but then again everything was silent before. What's different? Oh yes, I can't hear my heart beat anymore.
After a few moments the nausea passes, the cold is replaced by intense heat and my feet feel firmly planted on the ground. A squeeze on my arm tells me he is still there, and that he too feels the ground. Opening our eyes we find ourselves at the school yard several miles from the building. I'm never sure if we just float off the roof to our destination, or if we disappear and reappear. Since we close our eyes I've never observed myself doing this, and there aren't many of us who can achieve this feat.
Then I noticed something was off. No longer was it the chubby blonde boy gripping my arms, it was the the violet eyed girl. Panicked I stepped back and looked around for my missing partner. He was no where to be found. She stared at me calmly, never speaking. As I looked into her eyes I felt myself drawn to her, falling into her somehow. Yes. This feels better.
Then we run. We must hide. They will know by now where we have gone, and they will be on their way. Where can we go if they always know where we will be? What can we do? The sudden sense of the futility of running washes over me, and I know it's coming from her. No! I will not give up! I will not let them take me! I jerk her along behind me as we run.
skip
It is too late. They have caught us. I don't know how we stumbled straight into their waiting arms, but we did. Now they are forcing us into their building. One of them is staring at me, I can feel the menace behind his calm demeanor. Why is it I feel no fear of these people? I should feel fear, yet I don't. My instincts tell me that I can get away from them, they aren't all powerful.
I struggle against them. They are unhappy with my failure to comply. They want me to do something but I won't. She did. My violet eyed companion caved and did everything they told her. I can't help but resent her for that. I struggled more, letting my disdain for them streak out of me and flood their senses. I knew they were Empathic just as I was. Afterall, they made me.
The stern one clenched his jaws and yelled something at me. What was it? Why can't I hear their voices? It strikes me suddenly that no one has spoken to me until this point, and I have not spoken aloud to anyone. Maybe I'm mute. Maybe I'm deaf, as well. But no, the sound comes rushing back into my head again, and I hear his command to do what I'm told. Everything will be alright, and I will be safe. There's nothing to fear from them.
I curl my lips in contempt and I close my eyes. She's not there anymore. I am alone in my head again. My skin begins to tingle and I open my eyes. I can see him staring into me, he knows what I'm doing and he's not stopping me. I turn and walk away from them, slipping past the two at the door who just stare around the room in surprise. I walk carefully, if I run I'll stir up dust. They'll know where I've gone. But I'm invisible, so they won't see me if I walk carefully.
The minute I'm visible again, when I think I'm safe, I feel his hands on my arm. How did he know? I turn and he's staring at me, gentle amusement in his slate grey eyes. There's no way I can get away he's telling me. But I know differently.
I walk back with him as I formulate my plan. There is a way to escape..I know it. We did it once before, that's why they've come for us now. How did we do it? Why can't we remember?
skip
Sometime later I made another break for it, this time I was successful. They were coming for me, but they didn't know where I was or how I had done it. That was why they had come for us, they wanted to know our secret. What they hadn't anticipated was our lack of memory concerning our first escape. Somehow I had managed to break through the cloud that kept me from remembering that other life. And now I was free!