Zoe stood outside her house, shrouded by darkness, as a torrent of rain poured down onto her. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she looked back toward the only place she had ever lived. I have to go... I don't have a choice. If I don't, then they'll never let me be free again. I don't want to be stuck into whatever that facility place is or be forced into being a tool for these people to use.
She pulled the hood of her jacket down as much as she could to stop the stinging rain from pelting her in the face. It was colder than average tonight for this time of year and Zoe had to cover as much ground as possible before morning. I'll never get to see my family again; not that they'll even remember me now, anyway. Overcome with the grief of those thoughts, she sat down onto the wet ground and curled herself up into a ball, holding her knees tightly against her chest as she cried even harder while reflecting on the events of the past few hours.
Kyle had walked her to her front door and explained to her parents that she would be going to a boarding school starting tomorrow and how it was such an honor that she had been accepted into the program. Somehow, they accepted his story without any objections. Zoe had known Kyle could block her abilities, but he seemed to have something else up his sleeve as well. He had gotten her family to invite him to stay over for the night and while he was talking to them she grabbed the heavy vase from the bookshelf next to them and smashed it over his head. Luckily, he was knocked out by the unexpected blow to the back of his head.
She had worked quickly after that. She told her parents that she needed to talk to them in the other room about Kyle, and that he wasn't what he seemed to be. She changed the memories of all of her family members and sent them out of her room to do normal things while she worked on tying the man up and gagging him. Once she was done with that, she deposited him into her bedroom closet and closed the door after retrieving her phone as well as his and placed them both into airplane mode. She grabbed some supplies and her stash of saved money and stuffed everything into her backpack. The last thing she had to do was deal with her family.
Zoe knew that she would never be allowed to be with them again, and thought of how painful and horrible it would be for them to think she was missing or worse, so she did the only compassionate thing that she could think of: she erased herself from everyone's memories. She spent well over a dozen hours in the mindscapes of her family members meticulously sifting through their memories and altering or erasing anything involving herself. The entire process was heart-wrenching and she almost couldn't bring herself to do it. When she was done, she shoved all of her personal belongings into her closet, leaving her room bare, and snuck out her bedroom window.
She pulled herself back to the present and managed to compose herself a little. I need to go. If he gets loose, then they'll be after me right away. She knew that it would be unwise to trust the roads; at least for tonight. If she could just get far enough away before they started looking for her, then maybe, just maybe, she'd have a chance. If only she had been more discreet when she found out about her powers, then none of this would be happening. I'm going to hike to the top of rattlesnake mountain and then head down into the next town over. I will probably have to sleep out in this, but it's better than being a prisoner. I still don't know where I can run to after that, but for now I just need to keep moving. If only I had saved my money better... I could've had a car to escape in and ditch a few towns over or something. I could've stolen one of my parents' cars, but somehow that just doesn't seem like the right thing to do.
Zoe knew that there was no point in worrying about that now, however. She knelt down and patted the head of her golden retriever, Thor. "Ready to go, boy?" The dog wagged its tail and tried to lick her face. At least I won't be completely alone.
She made her way toward the outskirts of town utilizing shadows as much as she could in order to avoid the possibility of anyone seeing her. Worse case scenario would be if someone tried to stop her and she'd have to use her powers on them. She trudged along silently in the rain with Thor. Ideally, she could've erased herself from her friend Kim's memory as well, but she couldn't spare the time to go over there and couldn't risk using her phone. She knew that what she had done might have been rash and not well thought out, but it was too late now.
I did the right thing. What else could I have done? At least this way, they can be happy and live on like nothing happened. Hopefully the agents will leave them all alone and they'll be safe if they don't have any information about me. She bent down and gave her dog a hug. He was wet and smelly, but she didn't care. "You'll stay with me forever though, right, boy?"
The dog nuzzled her and she continued walking at a brisk pace. I have to keep moving. The best I can hope for is that he stays tied up for the whole night until the other agents come looking for him. I just hope that he hasn't managed to free himself already and is coming after me.
Main street was pretty dark this time of night and there were only two street lights along this part of main street and she couldn't avoid going past one of them from where she was. She intended to cross the street and into the alleyway by Steve's Delicatessen. From there, she could gain access to the residential area on that side of town and get to the trail-head that lead up rattlesnake mountain.
The street light closest to her flickered intermittently and made a buzzing noise. She stood in the shadows of a dark alleyway wedged between the town laundromat and a local clothes shop. She poked her head out and peeked around the corner. I hope that none of these places have security cameras that can see me outside. She pulled the hood down again to obscure her face. All this sneaking around was nerve-wracking and her heart pounded within her chest. A million different emotions and thoughts were running through her head. She just had to get across this street and past a few more houses and she'd be safely away from civilization in the woods.
There weren't any cars on the street and in a small town like hers it was rare to see anyone out past 9 anyway; especially in this weather. The rain continued to pour over her and she was thankful that she had good clothes on. It was a little cold, but she could manage. Gathering up some more courage, she dashed across the street as quickly as she could with Thor in tow and hid in the shadows next to the deli. I made it! she panted. Her nerves were shot, but she was probably in the clear now. She stomped through the puddles that were now all over the place and made her way to the street behind the deli.
All the houses were dark and a quick glance at her phone told her that she had been walking for almost an hour already. Being sneaky and taking all the back streets instead of a direct route really slowed me down. This rain didn't help much either. It was now coming down so hard that she was having a hard time seeing very far ahead of herself. The fact that it was now starting to get foggy wasn't doing her any favors either, but she still knew where to go.
She ignored all of these things as much as she could and concentrated on getting to the base of the forested mountain. She paused for a moment when she saw a light on in someone's house and people walking around. She quickly ducked behind some shrubs in the neighbor's yard and waited for the people inside to be out of sight before she moved again. It took a few minutes, but she got her window and dashed past their open window.
A couple minutes later, she had arrived at the base of rattlesnake mountain. There was a trail-head here that hikers used to get to the pacific crest trail. The trail spanned a vast distance and went all the way from the Mexican border to the Canadian border along the west coast. She didn't have any intention of going on that trail, however, and just wanted to go over the mountain to the next town. She had hiked this trail a few times with her family on weekends, so she was familiar with the route; albeit that she had only done the hike during the day and in good weather a few years ago.
At the base of the trail there was a large wooden board with a map on it and some forms to the side that people were supposed to fill out if they intended to go out into the wilderness in case they got lost. There was a map on the board that showed several trails and their lengths. It was hard to read the thing in the darkness and although she had a flashlight with her she didn't dare use it until she was in the woods. Instead she took out her phone and used the dim light that it provided to make out the lines and names on the map.
There were two trails that branched off the main rattlesnake trail; Cottonwood loop, which as its name implied looped around in one big circle around a small pond, and the other trail which connected to the pacific crest trail near the Oregon border. The trail main trail that she wanted to stay on would get her to the next town and it was a 15 mile hike apparently. No wonder that took us all freaking day when we did this a few years ago.
She adjusted her pack and patted Thor on the head. "Here we go, boy. We're on our own now, but it'll be okay, you'll see," and with that they began the trek up the mountain. The forest was dark and foreboding around her and the only sounds she could hear were the crunch of gravel beneath her shoes and the rain pelting the ground. She was using the flashlight she had snagged from the garage and just hoped that its batteries would hold out for the night. It's just a little walk in the woods, nothing to be scared of, right? At least I have Thor with me, if some animal tries to attack me, he'll be there to protect me I hope.
She could hear the hooting of an owl to her right off somewhere in the darkness as the they continued walking up the steep incline. Gigantic, full grown pine trees crowded the trail as she continued and provided a small amount of shelter from the rain. After a short while, her leg muscles began to burn with the effort from all the walking she had done tonight. She had no illusions that she was anything of an athlete, but she had never considered herself to be out of shape either. Zoe forced herself to press on; reminding herself that she needed to be far away from any town if they came looking for her tonight. "We'll stop and find a place to rest once we get over that little ridge, okay, boy?" The dog just wagged its tail like always. She was sure that he was actually enjoying this excursion.
After what felt like forever, the rain finally started let up and slowed to a small drizzle. More importantly, however, the clouds had started to clear, revealing the full moon that provided some much welcomed light beyond the small pool that lie in front of her due to her flashlight. It had gotten far colder now that she had gained some elevation and she could see her breath in the cold night air. After another half hour of walking the trail split and a sign that read, "Cottonwood Loop. 3 Mi." pointed off to the left.
Zoe panted with exhaustion and decided this was as good a place as any to stop for a rest. She walked over to a large pine tree that seemed to be at least a little dry at the bottom and sat down on a bed of pine needles with her back to the trunk and turned off the flashlight; there was enough moonlight to see by for now and she might need to conserve batteries. She wrapped Thor's leash more tightly around her wrist so that he wouldn't be able to run off into the darkness and opened up her backpack. She took out a bottle of water and a small bag of trail mix and ate it. Thor sat in front of her begging. He didn't care that nuts and dried fruit weren't exactly a food he'd really want to eat, all that mattered to the dog in her opinion was that there was food being eaten and he wanted some. She reached into her bag again and tossed him one of his rawhide treats. He began gnawing away at the thing immediately while she lost herself in thought for a while.
What in the heck am I going to do? I have this power, but I need to be careful how I use it. Maybe I should try to leave the county. The only options are Mexico or Canada and I don't think that my one year of Spanish is going to cut it if I go to Mexico. That means my only option is going to Canada or maybe finding a way to get to another English speaking country. Would they keep chasing me even beyond the US border?
She decided that she would head south into California and then head east through Nevada and make her way across the country. She didn't know much about Canada, but knew that Toronto was a big city and she figured that she could hide in a huge place like that. She went to stand up and saw a large shape move in the darkness. What the hell is that? A grunting noise came from the darkness. She pointed her flashlight over in that direction and her heart sank when she saw the form of a big bear rooting around about 100 feet away. Thor let out a low growl. It must've smelled my food!
She closed the Ziploc bag that held her trail mix and tossed it back into her bag. She thought back to what her dad had told her about bears and she remembered that he told her to appear as big as possible and to calmly talk to the bear while walking away slowly and sideways to appear non-threatening. She stood up and continued shining the bright light at the bear. "Okay, mr. bear, I don't want any trouble, and neither do you. Thor and I are just going to go away now and you can go about your business."
The bear stood up on its hind legs and sniffed the air staring at her and the dog. Thor continued growling as she dragged him back toward the main trail. After a moment the bear dropped back to all fours and ambled off in the opposite direction. Zoe let out a long breath that she had been holding in for the past few seconds. That was close. I don't think it wanted any trouble either, thankfully. Her phone showed that it was now getting close to 11. I need to keep going. "Come on, boy. We've got a long ways to go still." She stretched her legs and pointed her flashlight back at the trail before continuing onward into the darkness.
