The crackling and booming of thunder may make some feel frightened or small as they sit huddled in close next to their loved ones, but for me? It feels like the skies are calling for me to come home. The repetitive white rapid flashes might be the ideal scene in a horror movie for most but they feel apart of me. I feel as though the swift flashes of lightning remind me every time it strikes, of what true beauty looks like.
Then the heavy rain that pelts the tin roof of the warehouse I'm currently occupying, rendering a soothing lullaby, finally makes me wholly relax. I do not think of the men chasing me, I do not think of my mother and father, nor do I think of Aunty Amanda, not even the uncomfortable rocks digging into my lower back. Every muscle is no longer stiff and tense or alert, and my brain is no longer thinking one hundred thoughts per minute. I am completely at ease, despite my circumstances.
The shabby metal beams and tin above me make a temporary shelter in the abandoned warehouse I'm in, but just barely. With every gust of wind and boom of thunder the abandoned warehouse shook, scaring me slightly that it might collapse on top of me.
I shift the makeshift pillow -my backpack- into a different position under my head and clutch the blanket I stole from someones clothesline closer to my small body. The advantage of being short, my limbs are easily covered by my blanket to protect me against the cold and practically any clothes fit me, all the ones I'm weary are pretty baggy and loose.
Sighing, I move onto my side and tuck my hand under my head to cushion it from some hard object in my bag. I tuck a strand of hair that was tickling my nose behind my ear, feeling the dirt that covered my face in the process and cringe.
The last time I saw my reflection I was in a public toilet, I just finished having a shower when I looked at myself in the mirror. Bruises from my hardship littered my body and muscles have grown due to living on the run. At the time my thick wavy brown hair stretched just above my ribs, I didn't have enough time to brush it for a while so it was a permanent tangled mess. I got annoyed and ending up cutting all of it off, it was beginning to be a liability anyway. That was a while ago, and my hair has grown slightly below my ears since then.
Finally as comfortable as possible lying on the concrete floor with a thin blanket and a full backpack as a pillow, I drift off to sleep, letting the lullaby of the storm carry away my consciousness.
Four hours later I wake to the sound of a stampede of footsteps. I'm fully aware of my surroundings within seconds and snap my gaze at the dirty window on the far wall. The storm has passed but there is still a slight drizzle of rain.
I hear someone whisper yell some commandments and I jump to my feet quickly. No time to pack the blanket I was using I scoop up my backpack and go to sprint out the door to my right, the door opposite to the door I heard voices from, slipping my backpack on in the process.
However, I hesitate when I reach the door knob. A feeling at the depths of my gut tells me that it won't be as easy to run this time. I take a step away from the door and look around for any source of escape. I feel something wet drop onto my nose, then my forehead and then my cheeks. I look up, and my prayers were answered.
One of the windows higher up are open, letting the small droplets of rain I felt earlier fall within the warehouse. I rush out of panic, and begin to climb a beam that travels up parallel to the open window. When I am two thirds of the way to the window the door - the one that I heard whispers from - busts open making me momentarily pause.
When I snap out of my frozen state I try to move faster than I was before, running off adrenaline and fear for my life. In my peripheral vision I see about ten men scurry through the door following their group leader, and their guns raised as they scan the area.
The door below me hurdles open as well - like I had predicted - and I tuck myself into the beam, attempting to hide my figure. I try to make myself blend into the dark as much as possible and hold my breath from making any sounds. Another group of around ten people jog through the now open door in the same fashion group one did.
When I see they have passed I let out a small, quiet breath but my whole body is still as stiff as a board. If I make too much noise now they will hear me and shoot me down, I have to go slow and steady, as stealthy as possible. As I start to move up the beam voices yelling 'clear' below makes me still out of curiosity.
Curiosity kills the cat, curiosity kills the cat, curiosity kills the cat. I repeat in my head over and over, but to my dismay my inquisitiveness wins my logic over. I peek over from behind the beam and make sure to hide as much of my body as possible.
All of the soldiers are gathered in a circle around were my blanket is, on high alert and scanning the area for any trace of movement except for three. They are all dressed in a black body suit, and no doubt bullet proof vests, black boots, black helmets and matching gloves. The three in the centre of the circle are dressed the same but have a white stripe on their helmets, probably to discriminate them as leaders to all of the rest.
One of the three is squaring down next to my blanket and he holds it up slightly with this gloved hand. The other two are somewhat observing my blanket from standing, hard to tell considering their faces are covered by dark masks and a helmet and goggles. Since I don't know their names, I'll call the one squatting down Josh, the one standing with his arms crossed, George and the last one in the middle, Stanley.
George shifts forwards and says something I can't quite hear, whatever he said got the attention of Josh and Stanley though. Josh nods his head and goes back to looking at my blanket.
"She's definitely long gone." Stanley stated to the other two, then muttered something angrily to himself that I can only guess to be a curse word.
"Way to state the obvious, dumbass." George says agitatedly to Stanley. Stanley flips him off and rips his mask down, revealing his face from his nose down. He's facing away from me so I can't make out any of the revealed facial features though.
By the way George and Stanley are acting they sound pretty young, I was expecting them to be middle-aged men but their maturity makes me second guess.
"What are you doing? Don't take off your mask!" George exclaims madly to Stanley, Stanley just shrugs nonchalantly which seems to make George even more irritated. "Do you really want another punishment from Sarg. for endangering yourself?"
It was a rhetorical question but Stanley answered anyway, "Whatever, I'm not endangering myself, she's gone and we're practically immune to radiation. So, I'll be fine."
'Immune to radiation'? What? But that would be impossible, one cannot just be immune to radiation. Everyone is affected by radiation one way or another, these guys must be mental. Then something clicks, everyone is immune to radiation... except me, because I'm practically a living breathing radiating source. Does that mean there are others like me? No, I doubt it, if they were they would have used their powers to catch me. Am I really one of a kind?
They continue to quarrel as my mind races, but I notice Josh hasn't said a word the entirety of their argument, I switch my eyes to look at Josh but almost lose my grip on the beam when I notice his head is turned in my direction. Panicking, I fling myself back tightly against the beam, hiding myself fully once again. I didn't realise however, that another beam was on the other side of me until I banged my shoulder against it. I couldn't stop the curse coming from my mouth as a shot of pain rushed through my shoulder. I inwardly curse myself for being so clumsy and loud. I hear quick shuffling where the soldiers are stationed and know that they know I'm here.
I look at my shoulder and bite my lip to quiet down another curse when I realise its dislocated. Knowing the jig is up I climb the beam as fast as I can to the window, although its not as fast as I'd like because every time I move my shoulder and use it to hoist myself up I feel like screaming. In my peripheral vision I see Josh shouting orders at everyone to catch me and I climb through the pain faster. I almost reach the window when a deafening 'bang' sounds through the warehouse, I instinctively halt my movements and push myself into the beam even further, turning my head I see the bullet hit the wall a few inches away from where I am. What the hell? So they do want to kill me.
I climb even faster and almost reach the window, ignoring all of their warnings for me to stop. Completely determined to escape and utterly terrified I reach the height of the window, I gather up courage to jump when I here a velvet smooth, deep voice.
"Hey! Woah, woah, wait! Wait! Listen, I know your scared but you have to trust us, Elle." I hear a male voice say, I look down and see Josh jog up to the beam below me. Trust them? Trust them? I'd rather take a shot in the torso than trust them, wait, how the hell does he know my name?
"Trust you?" I say incredulously, and loud enough for them to hear. Deciding to speak my thoughts. "Trust you. Sure, I'll just climb down and give whoever shot at me a handshake." My voice filled to the brim with sarcasm, what do they expect me to do? Jump into their clutches with open arms?
"We can, help you, Elle. All you need to do is come down from there and come with us." He tries to reason, key word try, I'm very stubborn when I want to be.
"Did you not here a single word I just said?" I mumble to myself, "Forgive me for not wanting to go with you people when all you lot have done is chase me, shoot at me, try to capture me for god knows what reason and somehow stalked me enough to know my name." I hiss venomously, I scoff at the nerve of this guy.
He curses to himself about how difficult I was being. Me? I'm the one being the difficult one? I feel rage burn within me and a new storm brews over head. "If you want me so much you'll just have to catch me, and I promise you I won't make it easy."
With the last word I fling myself off of the beam and through the window, mid jump, gunshots follow. I almost make it through when a sting pain shoots up my calf, I tumble onto a nearby building and curse loudly and hiss from the pain. In the warehouse I hear Josh yelling angrily at the men that fired the shots, but that just confuses me more. Why doesn't he want them to shoot me? Maybe to keep me alive whilst they torture me through experiments or something.
A trail of blood begins to flow down the wound and it throbs excruciatingly. I tear a piece of my shirt and quickly tie a makeshift bandage around the wound, the rain above me mixing in with the blood and stains my leg red. Once the material is tied well enough I roll onto my hands and knees and attempt to stand.
I lean all of my weight on the leg that wasn't hit, and begin to limp off to the edge of the building. Each step is more painful than the last and my shoulder is still dislocated cruelly, with each limping step my anger rises. I can feel the air around me crackle with electricity and I see in a puddle of water near me, that my eyes are lighting up an unnatural light blue, like always when my power gets out of control.
I hear voices on the ground below me and my adrenaline spikes, I have no way out. No where to run. I search frantically for an escape and my gaze locks onto a Power Pole nearby and my hope raises. It's a couple of meters away from the building I'm on but I could make it. I've only done this once but its worth a try.
I back up from the ledge, the anger and adrenaline temporarily numbing the pain in my shoulder and calf. I sprint with a slight limp to the edge, the shouting below growing louder and my eagerness to get away from this place growing. My backpack thumping on my back as I run with as much of my remaining energy left as I can.
With one more shout to stop from Josh, I jump.
**************
So how was that? Hopefully good enough for you readers out there! I don't have an updating schedule because I don't like pressuring myself to write so it might be a while before chapter two comes out. Not too long though! Probably just a week or so.
Their names aren't actually George, Stanley and Josh by the way. Elle just hasn't figured out their names yet and it's way to hard writing and you have to not include their names. So these are just temporary names Elle came up with until she properly meet them :)