“Noise heard in kitchen, suspect possibly hiding.”

The moment she heard this, her heart sank.

Tess held her breath, hand over her mouth, eyes wide in fear as something sharp was stabbing into her leg. Staying as quiet as she possibly could, she listened as the footsteps made their way closer and closer.

CLICK, CLACK, CLICK, CLACK

She knew from how close the sound got, the man was standing right outside of her hiding spot. Heart racing, blood pumping, fear, so much fear. She heard the man lean forward and go to open the cupboard she was hiding in. 

In that moment she slammed outwards as hard as she could, smacking the door directly into the face of the man who was about to find her, she immediately bolted to the door, closest door, closest exit.

She heard the man she just knocked over slowly get back up and report “Subject located, fleeing west side entrance”

She ran and ran, as fast as possible, as quick as possible, adrenaline pumping. She didn’t even notice the trail of blood being left behind from her wounded leg.

Hiding in the woods nearby, she was behind a bush when she saw 4 figures in full gear following the trail of blood. Distracted by her hunters, she failed to remember there were 5 of them initially.

CRACK

She heard a stick snap behind her, turning around at a very fast pace, she noticed the final and fifth soldier was behind her. When he saw she noticed his presence, he ordered her.

“Hands in the air, comply or be shot”

Tess was about to take a gamble. She was going to use her powers, she barely knew how they worked, only that she could make things stop by saying stop, and it only worked around 10% of the time, but she had to.

Tess slowly raised her hands in the air, standing up, being held at gunpoint.

“Subject located, move in on my location”

The four other soldiers approached their location, getting closer by the second. She was not going to wait any longer. It was now or never.

She opened her mouth and yelled “STOP”

Nothing happened….. She messed up, it didn’t work, so desperately in a last ditch effort, she yelled again “STOP”

As the word left her lips, everything stood still. Tess knew she had no time to waste, so she punched the soldier next to her in the gut as hard as she could, before sprinting off in the other direction.

As everything resumed, it wasn’t as if the man she punched got punched by anything normal. Mass X Speed = Force. If everything looked frozen, that had to be a lot of speed. The instant everything went back to normal, the soldier she punched went flying. Chest plate shattered instantly.

Tess didn’t notice this as she was too busy running, but not before long the others found where the incapacitated soldier was and they were authorized for lethal force. 

Over the comms someone, probably mission control said, “Subject has been confirmed to be anomalous, lethal force is authorized if necessary”

Loading lethal rounds into their guns instead of rubber rounds, they announced “Weapons hot”

While all this was happening, Tess was running. She made it to a clearing, she immediately realized that was a terrible place to be. But it was too late, the soldiers caught up to her and she was cornered.

Backing into the field she saw one of them report something to the comms, she couldn’t hear what though. The four remaining soldiers were aiming fully automatic rifles at her, with an infrared laser and night vision goggles.

She didn’t exactly know how or why, but she could tell exactly where they were aiming on her body. One was aiming at her left leg, another the right, one was aiming at her head, and the final was aiming in the middle of her stomach.

In a booming voice one of the soldiers declared “Stand down or you will be killed”

Right as they were saying that, she heard a helicopter in the distance, and as it neared their location, she was detained by the soldiers.

Zip Tie cuffs, nigh impossible to get out of, that combined with guns aimed at her body, she fully gave up. She couldn’t do anything to fight back. Boarding the helicopter, she noticed the fifth soldier was there, armor and gear completely wrecked.

She wondered to herself ‘How did that happen?’

She was forced to sit down on a seat, they buckled her in and made sure her hands were securely restrained. They flew silently for around an hour or two. This gave quite a lot of time to think to herself.

She didn’t know why any of this was happening, well…. She had an idea of why, not that she liked it. She thought they possibly went after her due to the one guy who took a picture of her on the street.

She soon found that the air in the cabin of the helicopter smelled… odd, she noticed all the people who detained her had gas masks on, realizing too late as she passed out from the sleeping gas in the air.