Our heightened hearing, vision, and sense of smell, in combination, gave us all the information we needed well ahead of time to avoid the numerous checkpoints and patrols.
Xandra and I took turns leading the way across yet more farms and fields and forests. The repetitive nature of the scenery around us made time slip and shorten. When I thought we had been running through the night for about an hour, the first wisps of daylight sprung up on the horizon.
Morning already? I thought.
It seemed, finally, that we had managed to outsmart and outrun the hunting dogs and the Pied Piper Task Force that had been on our tail.
Conversation between Xandra and I had been limited to brief exchanges about where to go next. It wasn't that I had intended to ignore Xandra. There was something about being in the coiled state and running at full speed, using the power to make easy work of traversing a huge amount of land in a short span of time on foot, that made it difficult to have the sense of self to spring up idle conversation.
The smell and sound of the sea had grown steadily stronger until it was incredibly pungent to my fox-like snout. Xandra and I breached one last farm and came to a stop at the peak of a steep hill filled with bushes and vines. There, at the top of the hill, we at last saw the coast, and the brownish-gray of the sea. The tide was out, leaving much more brown muddy beach exposed.
"I know where this is," said Xandra, looking around and putting her hands to her hips.
"It's Putsly Bay," she said, "I know we ran far but I didn't think we'd run this far."
"Okay," I said, "So do you know a place where we can stay?"
"Well," said Xandra, turning back to the sea, "I've not been here before, but I used to keep a list of abandoned places across the country. I know this is Putsly Bay because – look, see that?"
Xandra pointed out to sea to what looked like a small oil mining rig.
"What is it?" I said.
"It's a fort," said Xandra, "There's abandoned forts from World War Two all over the country. You'd be surprised how many abandoned buildings there are in this country."
"Is it safe?" I said, "I mean, if I were the Pied Piper Task Force the first thing I would do if I were looking for powered teenagers on the run is keep watch of abandoned buildings like this."
Xandra sniffed the air with her silly-looking, raccoon-ish snout. I felt suddenly embarrassed because I realised my nose was still adorned with a snout too. I wanted to get rid of it but I didn't dare to given how much the heightened sense of smell helped avoid all the potential dangers around us.
"I managed to hide away in lots of abandoned buildings for, like, two weeks," said Xandra, "You have to remember there are, like, thousands of teenagers like us on the run too. The Peepers probably don't have the manpower to keep tabs on all the hiding places."
My legs felt stiff all of a sudden. Although it really wasn't the time to rest I let myself drop to the grass, which was damp and cold against the butt of my jeans. Xandra flopped down too, sitting with her legs crossed. The bushes around us made for convenient shelter from the brisk wind and anyone nearby that might glance over at the hill.
"So you never got evacuated?" I said.
Xandra looked disgusted by the idea.
"No," she said, "I wasn't going to let the Peepers force me into something like that. Were you?"
"Yeah," I said, smiling mirthlessly, "Probably the biggest mistake of my life."
For the next ten minutes I gave Xandra a very broad rundown of the things I had experienced at the hands of the Pied Piper's Return Operation, including everything that happened at the Wedder Gorge Facility. Xandra listened intently, chewing on one sweater sleeve and then the other in intervals. In my telling of the events I avoided any mention of Holly, Adam, George, Sophie, Walter, and everything to do with the PUNCH program. I just wasn't ready to talk about those things in detail.
Xandra didn't voice an opinion the entire time beyond little non-verbal reactions. I could feel myself wanting to hear words of sympathy and understanding from her, but she seemed either not to consider expressing that kind of sentiment or wasn't willing to do so. This in turn made me think of Tiffany and how much easier it was to talk to her in comparison, which wasn't helping the heavy dour mood threatening to take hold of me.
"What about you?" I said, "You said you were on the run?"
"Yeah," she said.
She stopped chewing her sweater sleeves and instead brought her sweater over her legs to provide her with some extra warmth.
"And then," she said, and I could see her mood shift and her eyes watering a little.
"And then," she said again, "After I got tired of going on the run I stayed with my Aunt and Uncle for a while, but that didn't work out. So I'm back on the run again."
"What happened with your Aunt and Uncle?" I said.
Xandra chewed her lip and looked at her knees that were brought close to her chest and still hidden beneath her stretched sweater.
For a second time she refused an opportunity to connect on a more personal level.
It's fine, I thought, Most people aren't going to want to open up about their problems. Just leave her be.
After sitting in silence for a while longer I stood up.
"Well," I said, "Want to go over to that fort whilst the tide is still out?"
"Sure," said Xandra. I offered her a hand to help her to her feet but she decided to stand without my assistance. I tried not to take it personally.
The way over to the beach was quick since it was downhill for the most part. After crossing over a fence that was in the backyard of a small house, we reached a low stone wall and hurried over it.
The section of beach we were on was made up of large different coloured pebbles and shells and a fair amount of discarded plastic bottles and other unfortunate litter.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The hard strip of beach gave way to soft, muddy sand. I was thankful to be wearing large boots because the sand squelched and sucked on them hard enough that it was possible to get stuck.
"You know," I said to Xandra.
"Yeah?" she muttered, whilst also occupied with not getting stuck in the mud and having a harder time of it because of her converse shoes.
"One time when I was little my brother, Gary – he's a bit older than me – he wanted to go out to sea like this when the tide was out. I didn't really want to do it but he wanted to, so I did. Anyway, we got pretty far out and the tide was starting to come in. He was wearing plimsolls at the time. Things got pretty scary because his feet got stuck in the mud. The tide was coming in fast and I had to yank him really hard to get him unstuck. Pretty scary stuff."
Xandra didn't give much of a response to this little story of mine. The more she refused to talk the more I felt myself challenged to draw conversation out of her.
Just leave it, I told myself, Don't be overbearing.
We reached the fort and, up close, it looked to be the size of a three story building. The large chunks of metal which kept it off the ground were covered in barnacles and seaweed and lots of dark slimy rust.
We walked round the base of the fort, which took lots of sucking steps that felt more arduous in comparison to all the running we had done throughout the night.
I spotted eroded brick steps near the middle of the fort base. Xandra followed me towards the brick steps and, with her right behind me, we made our way up the steps.
There was a good deal of graffiti on the brick walls on either side of the steps, with lots of litter which, presumably, must have been left by the very same people that decided the fort was a good place to try out their skills with a spray can.
The stairs led to the middle portion of the fort which had all the charm of a drug den.
This pretty much sums up how my life is going, I thought.
"So," I said, "I guess we'll stay here until late at night. It's too dangerous to go wandering about in broad daylight."
"Yeah," said Xandra.
A quick glance around the middle portion of the fort told us there really wasn't much to see.
There were brick walls that made up the middle area, which we could likely use as some shelter from the elements, but the outer area of the middle portion didn't have walls, which meant we had a clear view of the beach and the nearby village on one side; and on the other side we could see the sea in all its miserably gray glory.
It required a rusty black painted ladder to get to the top portion of the fort. I went first, climbing the ladder and emerging onto the top. A knee-high wall, built like the top of an old-fashioned castle, surrounded the top of the fort like a rusty crown. The middle section was all drab concrete. I spotted several used needles as well as empty cigarette packets and half an old metal spoon that looked burnt.
"Charming," I muttered.
I sat myself down, putting my back against the wall.
With a similar kind of satisfaction like taking off a pair of socks after a long day, I removed all of the changes brought about by the power to my body. All my heightened senses reduced to normal, and my taller, broader self went back to the much skinnier, shorter me.
Xandra had just finished climbing the ladder and stopped, wide-eyed, at the new, albeit original, me.
"Is this what you really look like?" she said.
"Yep," I said, raising my arms which caused the baggy flannel shirt sleeves to fall down to the elbows, "I didn't mean to make it a surprise."
Xandra shook her head as if a bee had just buzzed by her ear. Her nose returned to normal but otherwise she remained unchanged. Her eyes in particular were still uncannily large.
She fixed her gaze on me and I realised I had been staring and looked away.
She crouched low, rubbing her hands for warmth.
"Are you cold?" I said.
"Yeah," she said, "It's fine."
"Well there's two things you can do," I said, showing two fingers, "First, you could use the power to reduce your body temperature to match your surroundings. Or, you could turn your hands into human lightbulbs."
Xandra smirked.
"Lightbulbs?" she said.
"Yeah," I said, "Watch."
I bulbed up my right hand, though not too bright since I didn't want to turn the fort into a lighthouse. The warmth radiating from my closed fist felt really nice.
It was then I remembered Jay and how creepy he had looked with his arms covered in frost, and how Amar had looked with his eyes flashing like strobe lights. I removed the bulbing from my hand as if that kind of mindless addiction to the power was infectious by memory alone.
Xandra sat nearby with her back against the fort wall and practiced bulbing up her hands to entertain herself. She became lost in the challenge of getting her hands to bulb brightly, and quickly got the hang of it.
With the soft gold glow of her hands on my periphery, I reached into my pocket and took out the cheap old-school mobile phone Donald had bought for me, as well as the two hundred pounds Sienna had given me.
The light from Xandra's bulbed hands died out all of a sudden along with the slight warmth they provided.
"How much is that?" she said.
"Two hundred pounds," I said, "And I've got a phone with some credit to make calls."
Xandra's eyes searched the floor in thought.
"Have anyone you want to call?" I said.
She shook her head, "No," she said, and didn't elaborate any further.
I thumbed the power button on the side of the phone and watched as the screen lit up in a shade of green. The phone was very similar to the one my mother had when I was around eight years old. A quick look on the phone showed that it even had the game snake on it. I dug my hand into my pocket and found the little black wire which I would be able to use to charge my phone.
I wonder if I could just make electricity to make the phone charge? I mused, but decided it wasn't worth potentially frying the phone with my power to find out.
I went to the contact menu on the phone which brought up Donald's number, and the number belonging to my brother Gary's workplace. It had been the only number I had been able to find to have a way to get in touch with my family. It was Saturday, but that didn't matter because my brother often worked Saturdays at his job working for a perfume company in London.
My thumb rubbed the button that would start the call. For some reason I found myself hesitating.
"Who are you going to call?" said Xandra.
"I was thinking of calling my brother," I said.
"Why?" I said, "Do you think I shouldn't?"
Xandra shrugged.
"I just need him to tell my Mum that I'm okay," I said, "She's got to be worried sick about me."
Xandra just looked away.
"Don't you want to get in touch with your family?" I said.
"No," said Xandra, with more force than I expected.
The day dragged on and neither Xandra or I had much to say. Whilst not physically tired, I did feel an acute mental exhaustion which made it nice to simply lay against the wall and let the increasing sound of the waves lull me into a half-sleep.
I had decided not to call my brother just yet. It could wait a little longer. I just didn't feel mentally up to the emotional toll such a call might have.
The tide crept in throughout the morning until, much later in the day, the only way back to the shore for Xandra and I would have been to swim. It felt good to have the extra layer of safety the sea provided.
It was just a little after midday when the desire to talk became too strong to ignore.
"Do you ever see stuff that isn't there?" I said.
The question sounded a lot more random than I intended. Xandra, who was leant against the stone wall and looking back to shore, whipped round all of a sudden, looking the most unsettled I had seen her since we first met.
"Why?" she said.
"I mean," I said, trying to keep a conversational tone despite the hostile way she was looking at me, "The other day I saw this baby fox in the kitchen. But when I asked the people that were with me if they saw it, they said they didn't."
Xandra's eyes narrowed and then she took a deep breath.
"I haven't," she said.
She didn't sound very convincing.