She was running. She was trying to run faster than she had ever run before, but her feet just couldn’t take it much longer. As she ran, she could feel each footfall. The dew-soaked grass froze her feet, but she had to continue. She tried to crouch behind the hill as she ran, but it was proving to be much more difficult than she had actually imagined. She could feel every heartbeat. She became aware of each breath she took. In the distance, she could hear the calls of the birds. It brought her back to a time when she would go out to the trees and just listen. She shook her head. She had to stay focused.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

She could feel her breaths becoming shorter. She couldn’t stop now though. In the distance she heard the screech of tires. She froze. She looked around. She had been running along the edge of a roadside that was built into a small hill. There were some trees nearby, but too far away to make it to before the car could see her. Her only choice was to lie down and hope that the grass could hide her. She felt the car getting closer.

As she waited for the car to pass, her thoughts flitted back to a time before she had started running. Life seemed much simpler then. She had lived in a small house with her 3 closest friends, all of them attending the nearby university. She had no idea what she wanted to do with her life, so she just took a few classes that interested her each semester so that she could tell her mum she was being productive. Funny, she thought. All of that seemed so pointless and long ago. Now she lived from day to day, and as for her friends… she preferred not to think about it.

She heard the car pass overhead and breathed a sigh of relief. She was safe, for now. She waited a few moments and poked her head out of the grass. Then, she froze. The car had turned around and was heading back to where she lay. She knew that it had to have been too good to be true. She hadn’t reacted quickly enough; no wonder she had been spotted. She had about a minute before the car reached her, so she grabbed her backpack and ran for the trees. She didn’t stop running. She knew she should have tried to make it to them earlier.

She could hear the car door slam and the sound of footsteps. She had to get away. She knew she couldn’t keep running, so she found a tree and hurried up it.

Then, she waited.

It didn’t take long for the people in the car to walk underneath her. She could make out the voice of both a man and a woman.

“I think she went this way” the woman said.

The man neared the base of her tree. “No, it was definitely this way, I swear”

The woman sighed. Clearly she was tired of these hunts. “Can’t we let it go, just this once?” She pleaded “You know once we lose sight of one of them, they disappear. They’re Changelings. That’s what they do.”

“You could get fired for saying that” The man sounded stern.

Katarina watched from the branches, trying hard not to make a sound.

“Ha! That’s the last thing I’m worried about. Look, let’s just go back to the car and not include this in our report. What they don’t know won’t hurt them. We’ve had an eventful morning anyways. Striker will be happy that were able to get a lead on that Runner he’s been so bothered about. How do we really know if this was some sort of Changeling anyway? We don’t.” The woman sounded rather annoyed.

“That’s highly unlikely” he muttered under his breath.

“You didn’t really see what the person looked like anyways. Nowadays anyone could be afraid of cars. It could just be someone who lives in the forest. Or maybe you were just excited and thought you saw something. It was probably just a deer”

He knew what he saw, but he also knew she was right. Once they were out of sight, you could never find them. “Let’s at least have a look around. There’s no harm in that, is there?”

The woman didn’t appear too happy, but she agreed and they looked around for a few minutes and headed back to their car.

Katarina waited a long time after the sound of the car faded before climbed down. She decided to continue on, but slowly. She kept her pace at a walk and stayed under the cover of the trees. She had much to think about, and couldn’t risk getting spotted again.