Tracked

Chapter 1

I saw the glass before I heard the loud crack of a gunshot. A small hole, the size of a bullet, was punctured through the building’s window. Surrounding the small hole were large cracks that spread from the hole to the edges of the glass frame. The glass looked so fragile to break, so fragile it looked as if I applied only a little force the whole window would shatter. I was on the tenth floor, at least thirty meters from the ground.

They’ve found me. I thought. The Trackers, the people I’ve been running away from my entire life.  They hunt us down and kill us off one by one, like they did to my parents a few years ago.  I squeezed my eyes shut and slowly turned around, not letting him see my eyes. If he sees my eyes he’ll know who I am. I reminded myself. 

I was different to other humans inhumane one might call. Most humans refer to us as creatures, but we are barely different to them. We breathe, talk, eat, and look exactly like humans, well besides our eyes. Our eyes are two different colours instead of one. Revealing who we truly are. My eyes are a stormy shade of blue and a shade of green that looked like freshly picked apples. What makes us different is that our sense and genes are more developed creating inhuman powers.

We call ourselves the gifted ones while others call us creatures. I was powerful, more powerful than my parents or any other gifted one that I’d met. I have the ability to move things with only using my mind; I can invade their privacy and see people’s auras and sometimes their thoughts; but worst of all I can torture someone with only a single thought. One minute they could be walking to work, the next they would be on the ground screaming and begging for mercy. 

I heard him reload the gun. He knew. I slowly opened my eyes and blinked a few times adjusting my vision. The Tracker in front of me looked only a few years older than me. He had blonde shaggy hair and hazel brown eyes. He was wearing a black leather jacket that all Trackers wore, notifying that they were Trackers and that they were dangerous. I noticed the colours swirling around him, mixed with hot red and a dark shade of orange. The Trackers have devoted their lives to hunting us down because they believe we are dangerous and evil creatures, which we are certainly not. 

“You know, you are the hardest creature I have ever had to track down.” He adjusted his aim of the gun so it’d be a cleaner shot. I bit the bottom of my lip and my breathing became heavier. I knew that I was harder to find than most others, I was careful where I went, covering my tracks and I always wore coloured contacts on one of my eyes so I wouldn’t be discovered. I kept my eyes on him and the elevator figuring out a way to get there in time before he could pull the trigger. After realizing there was no possible way to get by him I knew it was death I’d soon be in. Maybe I could just- No! I thought in my head. I couldn’t use my unnatural powers; it would get out of hand instantly.

I looked back at the Tracker, blocking out his aura as he still has the gun aimed at me. What was he waiting for, me to go on my knees begging for him to let me live? I focused on his aura, invading his privacy. It was brown with flecks of greenish yellow. I tried revising through my head what that colour meant. “Hesitation.” I said under my breath. Why would he be hesitating, Trackers don’t hesitate. He must have heard me because I noticed his face hardened and his aura changed to a dark shade of red. He pulled the trigger and if it weren’t for my fast instincts I would have been shot through the head. 

I thought I was safe until the Tracker reloaded the gun and shot my straight through my right shoulder. The pain was unbearable. The bullets Trackers use are laced with some sort of drug that infects the body with some sort of poison. I felt like screaming but I bit my lip until the metal taste of blood touched the tip of my tongue. I was tempted to scream but I didn’t have to because a loud scream escaped from the Tracker. He was on his knees screaming. His hands grabbed fistfuls of his hair.

I forgot all about my pain and tried to focus on controlling my ability to stop torturing him. The guilt was eating me up on the inside. I took in a deep breath and remembered my father’s words on how to control it. The screaming stopped and he sat on his knees breathing heavily as droplets of sweat appeared on his forehead. I took that opportunity and ran to the elevator, clicking the down button more times then necessary while holding my wounded shoulder.

The elevator door opened, three Trackers stepped out as I took a few steps back. There was no way out now, I was truly trapped. The only way out was the elevator that the Trackers guarded. Or was there? I looked behind me towards the window the bullet hole punctured in it. I was going to regret this. I turned around and started to sprint towards the window and before I knew it I was falling.