Finding Darkness

Chapter 1 Beginnings

She moved like a shadow; the hair covering her body, blending in with the darkness. Never stopping, even for an instant, her route kept her moving straight as an arrow for the heart of the dead city that surrounded her.

"Now that you're here, girl, what are you going to do now?" The words escaped her lips without her being aware of them. With no one anywhere near her, she realized she was talking to herself. Not that she cared. Anyone who'd ever been near her already thought she was crazy.

But then, anyone who'd been with her as she grew was now dead, everyone except the one she'd wanted dead the most. The General had broken and run to her secure room. From there she'd directed the rest of her people while they'd tried to prevent her escape. Not that her leadership had done them any good.

The body count must have been close to eighty by the time she'd made it to and out the front entrance. Covered with gore from her rampage, she'd fled, and had been on the run ever since.

At last she could unwind and come to her full speed. In the facility where she'd grown, there was no true room to run, so she'd never been able to test her true top speed. Now she was running flat out. The house's nothing but a blur on either side of her vision.

This was what she was born to do, if she'd been born at all. But either way, she'd felt free for the first time in her life. With a growl of pure joy, she shot out of the suburbs and into the outskirts of downtown. The structures that surrounded her began to change shape and size, morphing from family homes to larger and larger buildings. Soon they became taller than she could see out of the corners of her vision, their bases covering entire city blocks. Yet still she ran, she had to, to stop meant something that for her was worse than death, recapture.

From a distance you couldn't tell she was that different from anyone else. It was up close that the differences became startling apparent. The rags of what once had been a uniform hid fur that covered every square inch of her body. Eyes the color of the sun, with iris's of the green of deep meadows stared out from over a tiny nose and lips drawn into a thin line.  Within her body was where most of the differences laid, her DNA had been grafted with at least six species of big cat, which meant she could run for a very long time, but even she needed rest. So with a spray of sparks she came to a stop on the remains of a concrete sidewalk, inch long claws that ended each of her fingers and toes, sent a pyrotechnic display out in front of her. Squatting on all fours, she instinctively raised her head as far as she could and took a long breath in through her nose. Holding it for a few seconds, her body quickly analyzed every scent molecule present in the sample taken.

Nothing, not that she'd have thought there would be. The men chasing her were good, very good. They wouldn't be after her if they weren't. They were driving her towards the water. Once there, they would surround her and bring her down. At least that was their plan. The General would want her back alive and mostly undamaged, mostly. But that at least gave her some advantage. They wanted her alive; she needed them all dead. It was the only way that she knew they would stop following her.

Deep down, she knew she wanted to kill no one. Ever since she'd awakened in the General's lab, they had tried to craft her in their image, ruthless, brutal, without mercy. They hadn't succeeded. She wanted nothing to do with the life they had tried to force upon her. But her dream, the life she'd always wanted, seemed so far out of reach she'd forced it out of her mind for so long she'd thought she'd forgotten about it. Being free had brought all those memories back to the surface. The one overriding image in her mind was of two glowing red eyes. They were always present when her thoughts strayed anywhere close to her dream of the life she wanted. They were alien, cold, menacing. She had no idea what they meant, but every time she closed her eyes they were there, staring back at her.