Pandemonium

Chapter Three

   Pandora crouched underneath the tree, in a little cave embedded into the bark. She’d be safe here for the night.

   She was soaking wet, as rain had started pouring many hours ago and it had taken her at least some of it to find a suitable place to camp out for the night.

   She fell into a troubled sleep.

   The girl and the boy shivered in their slumber. Paige and Phineas looked over them, at the audience. “Adam is dead. We found another sample of Pandora’s DNA. We decided,” Phineas looked over at Paige, “to create Cain and Abel.”

   “Cain is the female. Abel is the male,” Paige continued.

   “They both have the powers of their mother, Pandora, and more. They have a short lifespan, but they do pack quite a punch.”

   This caused laughter from the audience.

   “They are more stable than their mother. The Incident shall not be repeated with these two,” Paige nodded down at the two children.

   A hand is raised.

   “Yes?” Paige asked.

   “And what of the girl? Pandora?”

   “SWAT has been dispatched, and they are following her through a tracking device in her upper left arm.”

   A low murmur escaped through the crowd.

  Pandora was running, with blue tranquilizer darts following her every movement. She ducked behind a tree, desperate to keep her breathing silent. She closed her eyes, and when they opened again, they glowed green. She duplicated herself and sent it running. Even through death, she would still be able to escape.

   Pandora waited until the SWAT members passed her tree, then took off in the opposite direction.

   How could she be so stupid to fall asleep? In the middle of what seemed like a war?

   Pandora continued to run until she collided face first with someone. A boy.

   “Sorry!” she cried.

   The boy didn’t speak.

   Pandora blinked and cocked her head. He looked about her age. Maybe fourteen. He had floppy brown hair that covered his eyes, which were a pretty emerald green. His face was smooth and he was tall, perfectly capable of towering over Pandora if he just wouldn’t slouch.

   “Hi.” Pandora held out her hand. “I’m Pandora.”

   The boy looked at her outstretched hand, then gingerly shook it. “Porter,” he said.

   He looked up at her eyes and smirked. Pandora walked around him, studying him. Cautiously, she laid a hand on his back, then his stomach, pushing him up so he stood straight. “You’ll hurt yourself,” she said quietly, “’cause standing like that is bad for you.”

   Porter turned to face Pandora. “I like your name. How come your parents named you that?”

   Pandora looked down at her feet. “’Cause I’m the first.”

   A tranquilizer dart whizzed past the both of them, causing Pandora to swear. She took Porter’s hand. “We have to go!”

   They took off running.

   It was like a movie, where the couple was running in slow motion—the girl in a long, flowing, white dress, the boy in a button-up shirt and trousers with suspenders. Being chased by invisible people, off-screen.

   But this wasn’t a movie, at least not for Pandora. Porter, on the other hand, was having difficulty keeping up with the short girl that looked as if she were running for her life.

   “Why are they chasing us?” Porter cried. Pandora was silent, she was too out of breath to answer.

   Soon, they were cornered. Porter, being older, pushed Pandora behind him, to protect her. Their attackers, large, burly men dressed in SWAT uniforms, pointed guns at them.

   “Let the girl come forward,” one of them said. “She’s dangerous, boy!”

   “She has yet to prove that,” Porter said, but he was nervous. Why did this girl have the SWAT team after her?

   “Porter, let me talk to them.”

   It was Pandora who spoke, and Porter looked down at her. He let Pandora stand in front of him; he let her take charge.

   “I have a right to live,” she began.

   The man who spoke before laughed. “You’re a danger to mankind! You’re not human; therefore, you have no human rights.”

   “I’m dangerous?”

   The man laughed again. “Girl, why do you think we’ve been chasing after you all this time? You’re supposed to be dead tomorrow.”

   Porter raised his eyebrows.

   “Well,” Pandora started, “if I’m so dangerous, you shouldn’t provoke me.”

   She targeted the man’s veins, blinking so her eyes glowed green. She held out her hands in front of her—her left on top, her right on bottom. She made fists, causing the man to cry out. Then, with a smirk, she threw her arms apart, causing the man’s body to rip into two pieces.

   The other men fired.

   She took each of their bullets and let them hang suspended in the air until they ran out. “One.”

   Porter looked for a way out. This girl was crazy!

   “Two.”

   Porter began climbing the rock wall behind them.

   “Three.”

   Pandora let the bullets loose, killing each of the men. Then, she grabbed Porter’s shirt and jumped, no, flew, up the wall, landing carefully on the grass above.

   She let Porter fall, and he collided with the ground, kicking up dirt. He stood. “What the hell are you?!”

   Pandora began to walk away, but Porter grabbed her arm and pulled her to face him. She glanced at her arm, then looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “I highly suggest you let go. Now.”

   Porter loosened his grip, but didn’t let go. Pandora sighed and looked down at his feet, encasing them in dirt. “Don’t follow me,” she said before moving her arm and walking out of his line of sight.

   It was hours later that he was able to dig out his feet to free himself. He thought about going after the girl, but he thought against it. Tomorrow was his fourteenth birthday. He had better things to think about than some stupid girl that had weird powers and was being hunted down by the police.