My only thought was of getting out of the trees alive. The darkness was heavy in the late hour and all of the trees were rooted together. It was difficult to run more than a yard without having to maneuver around large twisted trunks. But I didn't even notice the difficulties. I only bypassed them as quickly as possible to get away. I had to get away.

The only thing I heard was her voice, screaming in agony, desperate for someone to help. Crying my name until her lungs gave out. I tried to shake it but if anything it only grew louder. But the worst part of it was that I'd never seen this girl before in my life. All I had to go off of was a tattered photograph of her and her boyfriend, holding each other, smiling affectionately.

But I had to save her. If she died, I'd die.

I couldn't stop screaming. I was squeezed in the corner of the dark, cold cell screaming at the top of my lungs. Slowly, with difficulty, my screams became whimpers and then just shudders and ragged breathing. It was so dark. I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face. And cold. Ice cold. I was wearing a thin sweater that I had pulled tight around me. But the dark and cold didn't cause my screams. I was screaming because I knew he was coming. The man who kidnapped me was coming back to kill me. I was sure of it. All I could do was hope that Eric got here first.

All I had to go off of was the photo of her with her boyfriend and her name scribbled on the back. Natalie.

My grandmother's name had been Natalie. She was dead though. I was four at the time so I have minimal memories of the times she spent baby-sitting me while my mother worked. My father had been MIA since he found out I was to be born.

I ducked under a low branch.

BANG!

I tripped, startled from the sudden noise, and flew headfirst into the muddy leaves. I didn’t even bother wiping off the muck. There was no point in trying to look good. My only mission was to find Natalie. Find her, and save her.

BANG!

In seconds I was back on my feet, rushing through the trees, wind whipping my face.

“Eric, m’boy!” the low growl broke through the air roughly. I nearly fell again. “You won’t make it in time. The girl’s already dead, and you know it!”

I disagreed, but didn’t answer. He was just trying to get to me. Well it wouldn’t work.

I had the feeling that he didn’t know exactly where I was, so I took a sharp turn to the right then straightened back east towards the dawn that wouldn’t come fast enough.

I extracted Natalie’s picture again as I ran. Glancing at it frequently while running as fast as I could encouraged me to keep going despite my aching legs. Although she wasn’t facing me, I felt as though she were smiling up at me. She was looking at me with her bright green eyes and dark brown hair whipping wildly in the wind. She looked so happy… but so did her boyfriend. I didn’t know his name, all I knew was that he was fairly handsome and probably loved Natalie like no one else could. With this thought my mind drifted to another young lady…Sabrina. Her dark stare and warm touch always sent me on a whirlwind to nowhere but…I forced her eyes away and stuffed the picture of Natalie back into my pocket. I picked up my pace considerably.

I knew I had to pull myself together. I’d been in this cell for hours. If Eric were coming at all he would’ve been here already. I needed to stop hoping for a brave rescue and start thinking logically about how to get myself out of this prison. As much as I didn’t want to, I stood up and put my hand against the wall, searching. Searching for anything that might help me escape.

Using my hands and feet, I went over the entire cell. I figured that the room was about five by seven feet, not really that big. I had been shoved in there through a huge stone door that, when closed, you couldn’t even feel the seams. That probably meant the room was airtight. And since my examination of the room, without the use of my eyes, came up with nothing but bare walls and a floor of stone, I was most likely running out of air.

Just the thought made the air feel thinner than before. I was starting to freak out again. I was coming up on the borderline of hysteria. “Calm down!” I told myself. I needed to think about this. I’d been in this cell for hours. It wasn’t that big, which means I should’ve run out of air by now. Air had to have been circulating from somewhere, but where? I quickly searched the room again. Nothing. Still nothing.

Then it finally hit me. Duh! The ceiling! It was too high for me to reach, even by jumping. Yes, that must be it, I thought. Comforted by this discovery I settled back down on the floor to wait for my rescuer. Or at least try and think of a plan.

“Oh, Eric, where are you?”

The vein in my neck twitched. She must be in trouble, I thought. Or just freaking out. I wanted to think the latter and forget about the girl who kept drifting into my mind.

I had…well I guess you could call them visions. Natalie was in one of my most recent ones and up until this morning I had no idea how to help her.

Apparently my dead grandfather also had mind abilities and there were more like us, but not all of us could see the things to come. We were all different.

I met such a person this morning.

He called himself Gunn, but I knew that wasn’t his real name, just something to make him sound cooler. His power, as we called it, was telekinesis. He could move anything just by concentrating on it. I was very impressed.

But he wasn’t visiting me to show off. He had heard of my breakdown at school. The time I had the vision of Natalie.

Everyone thought I was dead or something. I had gone completely rigid and the vein in my neck was more pronounced than ever. The light color of my skin turned even paler, paler than anything according to my best friend Finn who came to visit me in the hospital. After that I was out cold. It was the most intense vision I’d ever had. And so far the most frightening.

Natalie was trapped. The air had been cut long ago. She was choking and gasping for air, screaming my name….

I was so confused.

I woke up in the hospital early in the morning, unable to make sense of it. I had no idea who this girl was or how she knew my name.

So here I was, running. Running into who knows what. Gunn had told me that they were looking for him, Natalie and me. We were special, according to the secret military force Gunn had told me about. We had to be kept safe.

I didn’t know whom to believe. Gunn, a complete stranger with even stranger abilities, or the military. Since I had never heard of the force, the SFU, I chose Gunn’s side, for now at least.

“Now I know the air is getting thinner!” I said to myself. It really was harder to breathe. It wasn’t just my imagination working overtime. I was going to suffocate in a cement box. Where the hell was Eric? I had to force myself to calm down once again. Panic was not the answer. Panic meant freaking out and hyperventilation. Not a good thing in a room with a limited amount of oxygen.

I had to think about something else, anything else…or anyone. An image of Derek filled my mind.

“If only you were here.” I whispered to no one. Sweet memories flooded my mind’s eye. Me and Derek at the prom, dancing dangerously close to one another. Me and Derek sharing our very first kiss, feet dangling off the end of the dock, moonlight shining off the water. And finally, our very last moment together. Me and Derek, and a man pulling me by the waist away from the bars that held Derek. Our fingers reaching for each other, desperate for one last touch.

I couldn’t take it. The images hurt too much.

I was exhausted. My mind, body, and finally my spirit were completely spent. I felt totally drained. Drained of energy, of love, and of life. I lay down on the floor and cried myself to sleep.

The trees were thinning finally. I whipped around trunk after trunk seeing the clearing ahead filled with grass shining green in the moonlight, very much like Natalie’s eyes. Grabbing a thin branch, I pushed off of it giving myself a moment of speed. Then I was out, free of the wrath of Red, the hunter who was chasing me out of the woods. Gunn has forgotten to mention him.

Collapsing on the grass I put a hand over my heart, feeling it beat uncontrollably and my breaths come unevenly. Hopefully Red will give up on me and leave me alone to complete my mission, I thought, though not really believing it.

At the thought of Natalie a sharp pain pulled on my vein. I touched the line growing on my neck before the pain spread to my head and I was sprawled out on the ground.

“Ah,” I winced as my head throbbed and my vein started to feel huge on my neck. I knew what was coming. Another vision that pained my body, mind, and soul more than anything. My limbs were stiff, my muscles tight. I couldn’t stop it now that it had already started. It was too late. Sweat covered my face, neck, back, my entire body. It was too much. My blood boiled, racing through my body at top speed. I was certain that my heart couldn’t take it.

I didn’t have a chance to think. I didn’t have a chance to fight. I only had enough time to see Red emerge from the trees, shotgun held tightly in his dirty hands. Then darkness stole over my eyes , all my abilities weakened and I remembered no more.

I jerked awake from a restless sleep. Something caused me to wake up. A noise. A very loud noise. I hadn’t had much experience with guns, but that was exactly what it sounded like. A gun being fired. That was definitely not a good sign. What if he had caught Eric? The thought horrified me.

I started to pace. Whenever I was extremely nervous, I paced. I just kept walking around in circles inside my little box. Eventually it calmed me down. My fright and hysteria gradually wore off. Replacing them were anger and frustration. I knew almost certainly that no one was coming to rescue me. No Knight in Shining Armor to save the Damsel in Distress. Not happening. This Damsel needed to save herself. If only I had a clue as to how to do it.

“ There must be another way out of here! “ I yelled in frustration. I practically threw myself at one of the walls, slamming my fists against the hard stone. To my utter surprise, it moved, ever so slightly.

A section of the wall about the size of a door shifted about an inch away from the room. I pushed it even harder and it moved more. Then it stopped, like there was something on the other side blocking it. There was a space off to the right of the door about a half a foot wide. I turned sideways and squeezed through it. I had to force down the cry of excitement building up in my throat. I was finally out.

The downside, because I’ve never been all that lucky, was that I didn’t know where I was, who was here or which direction was the way out. But I hardly cared. I was out of that accursed cell. I pushed the secret door back into place and took a good look at my surroundings. I was in some kind of hallway with walls made of smooth stone painted a deep, dark red. There were small, dim lights on the floor running along both walls, each about a foot apart. I picked a direction and set off into nothing that I could see … yet. Eventually, I came to the end of the hall where there was a set of narrow stairs winding up into darkness. So I crossed my fingers and started to climb.