My heart beats loudly in my chest as the creatures clicking grows closer.
"What's it doing?" Asks Amy.
"Echolocation, it's trying to find prey. That's why we're hiding in here. This is our best chance of not being found."
Explains Elizabeth.
We continue peeking out and onto the street, searching for signs of movement. We see nothing.
All sound stops.
My heartbeat continues pulsing in my chest to the point of pain.
"Why did it stop?"
Asks Amy.
Elizabeth slowly looks at me.
"Do you feel that?"
She asks.
"Feel what?"
Her eyes grow wide.
"It knows where we are!" She shouts.
She stands up and hurls off the lid of the large garbage can, and leaps out.
I help Amy out before leaping out myself.
"How?" I ask.
"How does it know?"
She stops moving and throws her back against the wall of the ally we took shelter in.
"It can hear your heartbeat."
She says, peeking around the corner. She leaps forward, narrowly avoiding an armored tail that rips through the brick. Her frizzy red hair Waves around as she looks at Amy and I.
"Run!" She shouts as she unslings her weapon. I cover Amy as we run.
I turn and I finally see the creature.
Tendrils jutt from its back and wave in the air like long black dreadlocks.
It's lower jaw splits in two as it screams. I pull my rifle off my shoulder and open fire. It stands there and watches as Elizabeth and I unload our weapons.
It's eyes flare red before it makes its move.
It stomps towards us and growls a low guttural humm.
It smashes the buildings on either side with its muscular tail.
Small spikes run up the length of its back in the form of upturned scales.
"Look for weak spots!"
Shouts Elizabeth.
"Where?! This things so armored we might as well be shooting a tank!"
After another moment of shooting and running, she finally decides what she wants to do.
I notice Amy falling behind. She pants heavily, I know she won't make it on her own.
I reach down and scoop her into my arms.
"Amy, I want you to close your eyes, okay? Can you do that for me?"
I ask. She reaches up and covers her eyes as I run.
"We're not gonna win this!"
She calls as she jogs beside me.
"But I know how we can get its attention off of us!"
She yells over the sound of its lumbering footsteps.
"Well tell me!"
I shout back.
She looks at me, and grins a mischievous smile.
"Lets give those guys something else to shoot at!"
I look down.
"What...we can't do that! Their just people like us!"
"Come on, they were trying to kill us! They deserve it!"
She says.
I shake my head.
"No, that's not our choice, Elizabeth!
Not to mention, they tried to kill us because you pissed them off somehow."
She ignores my moral standards.
"All I'm hearing is 'That sounds like a great idea Elizabeth!'"
I shake my head.
"Are you really being sarcastic right now?! There's literally a Kaiju chasing us!"
"Yes, I noticed!"
She grins.
I look at Amy, who still covers her eyes.
I crane my neck, to see where the monster is, but it's no longer there.
Slowly, I stop running.
"What are you doing?"
Elizabeth asks calmly.
"It's not chasing us anymore."
I answer.
She raises her rifle.
"Where is it?!"
She sounds more angry and annoyed than anything else.
The building in front of us rains glass upon the street as the creature slowly climbs down the side. Something hits it and explodes.
I'm thrown on my back by the force of the explosion.
"Are you okay?"
I ask Amy.
Elizabeth sits up.
"Peachy."
She says, rubbing her head.
I look up. The monster turns around and begins screaming at its assailant.
Another mortar shell crashes into it.
It covers its head as the flames rage around it. Machine gun fire emerges from the smoke and rains down upon the beast. I rush Amy to her feet and begin sprinting in the opposite direction. Amy cries in the wake.
The monster screams as it fights against an endless onslaught of gunfire.
Elizabeth comes out of nowhere and grabs my hand.
"This way!"
She leads me into a sewer drain, where I pull the manhole cover back over the street. We hear it's thundering footsteps as it stomps around furiously trying to escape the flames. Dust falls from the rattling sewer ceiling.
The three of us sit in a corner, waiting for either death, or silence to fall.
Either one is an eventuality.
Amy sniffles and cries in fear. She lays her head on my shoulder as I stroke her hair, keeping her safe from harm.
It's colder down here, and Elizabeth still hasn't even shivered.
"So, now do you wanna tell us your story?"
She looks at me.
"You got anything better to do?"
She shakes her head.
"Have you heard of the Catalyst?"
She asks.
My mind immediately floats back to the note in my back pocket. The man who spoke of the virus that empowered certain individuals with abilities, and then killed them off months later.
"Yes."
"What do you know about it?"
I hit her with a simple answer.
"Everything." She turns to Amy, and whispers.
"Don't freak out."
She winks, and then...she's gone.
Amy stands up immediately.
"She's one of them..." she whispers quietly.
I stand up, not believing my eyes.
"Pretty cool huh?"
I spin around and step between her, and Amy. With my rifle in my hands I watch as she stares down the barrel of my gun.
She instinctively raises a stolen pistol to my head.
"Woah what's going on?!" She asks.
"Get away from us." I growl.
"What's your problem?"
I shake my head.
"You are. Your one of them! One of those...Cats or whatever they call them!"
She looks at Amy, who inches behind me slowly.
Elizabeth notices the fear in Amy's eyes, and lowers her gun.
"Okay, it's okay, see? I'm putting my gun down."
She lays her weapon on the ground, my rifle follows her the whole time. She kicks it over to me, and now it's just me with a gun, and her and her powers.
I fight myself internally to lower the gun, but I do. I grab the gun from the floor, and slip it into my back pocket.
She eases up after I put the weapons away.
"They call us 'Empowered'"
