Just started rewriting an old story of mine. See if you can guess which one it is by the first bit of the new version:
When you’re on the run, you learn pretty quickly that always being stealthy and hidden is worse than acting natural, acting human.
You’d think that was easy— acting natural. You’d think learning to hide in the shadows or walk without a sound would be the hardest thing to learn. But I was always skilled at that, tip-toeing around guards and sneaking into the dead of night without anyone being the wiser— no, the difficulty for me was actually learning to be clumsy. To trip over a loose stone I’d already been aware of instead of side-stepping it, to bump into someone who won’t make a scene for their pride rather than maneuver through crowds like a ghost, dropping something as I run down the street instead of having every thread accounted for, to over-apologize when I don’t need to.
However, going from city to city leaves a trail— people to talk to. People to see where I go and when, what I say and who I speak to. No matter how casual or human I seem, someone always seems to catch the scent. So I run to the wild corners of the world.
Unfortunately, the same people to search for and find the trail are as skilled at stealth as I am, with different weaknesses than I have, and can catch me unawares in my sleep whether I’m up a tree, down a river, or deep in a cave.
Sometimes.
Not that they only attack in the forests, the mountains. They don’t care about making a scene. They just want me— dead or alive, at any cost. Casualties be damned.
