one ahead. Scan the windows. No one there either. Ok. Go! Ears, stay sharp. Just need to reach that dark nook over there and then check again. Made it. Wait. I heard something. I think I'm being followed. There it is again. There's the archway into the sector. I can't see anything out there. Probably just a rodent. Head through the arch and ok. Get my bearings. Which path leads back southeast around the residence complex? There, between those two buildings on the left. The lights just went out. Listen. I hear footsteps. They're definitely behind me. I have to get through those buildings. Just move. Fast. I'm still on one-way, Keet's probably beating the comm just about now. Better say something. There's a tunnel on the right, I can hide there for a bit.
"I think I'm being followed. I'm almost at the northwest branch. Shhh. The footsteps have stopped. I can make it to the security zone if I run. Almost there. Don't worry."
"She has come."
No! The voice! It's them! Too much echo. I can't tell where it's coming from. If I stay here, they'll find me. I am so cold. Here I go. Deep breath in. Surge like the flood, girl. Take the tunnel, right down the steps, and "Ahhhhhhhhh…"
K eeto
Day 25: Late Evening
I don't even recall what events unfolded earlier today. My nerves haven't come down yet from Eli's last words, echoing in my brain. All I could hear was her panting as the cold air came down upon her, and then her final scream. That's when I started running as fast as my legs could carry me, along the outside wall of the campus, begging for a break in the fence so that I could find a way to reach her, our childhood playing in my mind as painful sobs came shooting out my lungs.
The comm was still active and seemingly functional in one-way mode, but part of me wished that it had not told me the story I am about to share with you. She was being followed, that much I knew, but who or what exactly was following her still obsesses me. I heard her body hit the ground, tripping on something hard as far as I could tell, just as her shrieking voice flew out of her hand. The sound of it whistling through the darkness, reminiscent of the night we first breached the back entrance by the ivy wall, has come to represent the flare of emotions fizzling into the depths of my very soul. The echo of scurrying feet in the distance and shadows of a conversation I could barely hear paralyzed my ability to think as I tried desperately to comb the forest for a manageable climb. My leap into the courtyard would surely alert the protectors, I imagined, but the eventuality of a capture was a risk I had to take.
As I neared the perimeter, I clipped my comm to my shirt collar and dug my fingers into the knots of the closest tree, straining my ears all the while to filter whatever I could from the air. At this point, I could barely see. My eyes started to swell from the salty flood, but my hands inherently knew where to reach, leading my body and pulling me swiftly up the trunk. As I looked onto the clearing beside the Social Studies sector, the unsettling conversation continued resonating from within the confines of the arcades formed by the tunneled entrances into the square, whispering evidence of their crime. "It is done, we must leave now."
I cannot relinquish to mere words what I felt at that moment, only to say that I took your heart in mine and suffered a puncture so real as to send me clutching my chest as I slumped to the ground. Expecting the intrusion to immerse the courtyard in light, I sank to the shadows and steadied my breath. But darkness remained, and an eerie stillness took hold. The voices were leaving, their presence diminishing in the distance, as they hastily retreated into the void, and the peaceful song of the night flyers calmed my senses.
I was three steps from the main arches when I heard it move through the comm. At the time I had not attributed the soft fluttering to anything other than those winged minstrels dancing in
"I think I'm being followed. I'm almost at the northwest branch. Shhh. The footsteps have stopped. I can make it to the security zone if I run. Almost there. Don't worry."
"She has come."
No! The voice! It's them! Too much echo. I can't tell where it's coming from. If I stay here, they'll find me. I am so cold. Here I go. Deep breath in. Surge like the flood, girl. Take the tunnel, right down the steps, and "Ahhhhhhhhh…"
K eeto
Day 25: Late Evening
I don't even recall what events unfolded earlier today. My nerves haven't come down yet from Eli's last words, echoing in my brain. All I could hear was her panting as the cold air came down upon her, and then her final scream. That's when I started running as fast as my legs could carry me, along the outside wall of the campus, begging for a break in the fence so that I could find a way to reach her, our childhood playing in my mind as painful sobs came shooting out my lungs.
The comm was still active and seemingly functional in one-way mode, but part of me wished that it had not told me the story I am about to share with you. She was being followed, that much I knew, but who or what exactly was following her still obsesses me. I heard her body hit the ground, tripping on something hard as far as I could tell, just as her shrieking voice flew out of her hand. The sound of it whistling through the darkness, reminiscent of the night we first breached the back entrance by the ivy wall, has come to represent the flare of emotions fizzling into the depths of my very soul. The echo of scurrying feet in the distance and shadows of a conversation I could barely hear paralyzed my ability to think as I tried desperately to comb the forest for a manageable climb. My leap into the courtyard would surely alert the protectors, I imagined, but the eventuality of a capture was a risk I had to take.
As I neared the perimeter, I clipped my comm to my shirt collar and dug my fingers into the knots of the closest tree, straining my ears all the while to filter whatever I could from the air. At this point, I could barely see. My eyes started to swell from the salty flood, but my hands inherently knew where to reach, leading my body and pulling me swiftly up the trunk. As I looked onto the clearing beside the Social Studies sector, the unsettling conversation continued resonating from within the confines of the arcades formed by the tunneled entrances into the square, whispering evidence of their crime. "It is done, we must leave now."
I cannot relinquish to mere words what I felt at that moment, only to say that I took your heart in mine and suffered a puncture so real as to send me clutching my chest as I slumped to the ground. Expecting the intrusion to immerse the courtyard in light, I sank to the shadows and steadied my breath. But darkness remained, and an eerie stillness took hold. The voices were leaving, their presence diminishing in the distance, as they hastily retreated into the void, and the peaceful song of the night flyers calmed my senses.
I was three steps from the main arches when I heard it move through the comm. At the time I had not attributed the soft fluttering to anything other than those winged minstrels dancing in
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