I hear a twig snap on my left, far away, and although I am not yet suspicious, that is strike one. Being extremely cautious is a trait I have had to gain, not only because I am on the run, but because I am a mother protecting her son.

I listen for any natural sounds, like birds and crickets chirping away, and my heart starts to pound when I hear nothing but a slight breeze whistling through the canopy of leaves above me, caressing them like a gentle lover. Strike two. This is enough to send me back to the little temporary camp I have created in the mouth of a cave. I hoist Eric to my hip from where he was playing in the undergrowth, then turn to the sound of heavy boots pounding on solid ground. Strike three: if I do not move, I am out. The same feeling pervades my body every time I hear them coming for me: nausea, dizziness, but above all, hatred. I am sick of finding new places to hide myself and my little boy, but I know that there is no way I can face them just by myself.
I do not have much to carry with me, just a backpack containing a small amount of food, spare clothes, ammunition, first aid kit and a few throwing knives. I have one long knife, serrated near the handle, tucked into my belt, along with two pistols in holsters next my ribs. I know it is not much, but I can shoot the dust off your boots at fifty paces, and throw a knife between your eyes at thirty.
I carefully place Eric in the baby sling I had strapped to my front – he is getting a bit heavier now, which is good, the least I can do is provide one of us with enough food – grab the backpack and kick some dirt over the coals of the fire I had been warming myself next to earlier.
I never stay in one place for too long; Kelly's men always find me pretty soon, though I do not know how. The cave that I chose to stay in has two entrances, just in case I had to make a quick escape. In case, I thought to myself, those bastards track me down again.
I travel about twenty metres away from the entrance, and deliberately rip a piece of my shirt to leave it sticking on a branch. It is white, so they should be able to see it well enough, but I just hope they do not see through my ruse. Not wanting to waste any more of the precious seconds before they catch up with me, I head into the cavern without hesitation.
I checked out the whole area before I made camp, just so I knew my way around when I was inevitably found again, but just in case I put on the night-vision glasses that I stole when I escaped The Institution all that time ago. Though I could navigate quite easily, staring at the fire had robbed me of any vision in the dark, and this cave was really dark, a complete darkness from both the enclosed area and the pitch black of night outside. I can see some bats on the roof of the cavern, and some glow worms shining their hello’s down at me, but I pay little attention to them. It is funny (not funny ‘ha ha’ but funny ‘weird’) how even in dire situations, such as running for my life, I can still take notice of so many things. It does not make sense. I should be overrun with emotion trying to escape from these people. I guess escaping Kelly's men has become second nature to me after all this time, and taking notice of the environment around me is that only way I can stay on the front foot.
Well, I may not be overrun with emotion, but the feeling of wanting to throw up is coming back again. The worst part, though, is the place I am in. Echoing, desolate, abandoned, damp; almost a perfect replica of the inside of my heart and like a cold slap in the face. If I did not have the need to get Eric to some place, any place that will keep him safe, then I probably would not bother continuing: I would just let them take me away and do whatever they wanted to me. Even if I could remember what they were doing to me before, I probably would not want to.
The footsteps behind me are getting louder, so I break into a run as I burst out of a narrow crevice down the bottom end of the cave. I am surrounded by dense forest, with roots and thorns swarming up beneath my feet like a malicious animal threatening to trip me, but I have had much practice in evading them. Eric seems oblivious to anything, cocooned tightly into my chest as we dodge through the forest; I feel sad that he has become used to this and that I have not been able to give him a proper childhood so far. I just want somewhere where I can completely let go, where I do not have to worry about losing him, where I can just sit for hours holding him like a mother should always hold their child.
I am beginning to pant after a while and finding it difficult to keep going. I know I must, though – I could never give up without a fight. As the forest begins to thin out, I turn to see my adversaries are – unfortunately – closing in on me. Frankly, I'm surprised they haven't started shooting yet, I think to myself. As if on cue, the first shots ring out in the silent night. They are nowhere near as good a shot as I am, but between the 15 of them, their shots range between two metres to a couple of inches from my tiring body. Every bullet that thwacked into the surrounding trees caused a storm of splinters to shoot out and rain down on me, tearing ruthlessly through the trunks with the me as their ultimate target. One of them narrowly missed the top of my head and I actually felt its power rush past me in a gust of wind and heat (it really was that close). It always shocks me at how much power can be put into such a tiny object, and how much damage it can cause, but I do not really have time to ponder that now. As I break out into an open plain, I realise I am in trouble: there are no trees to block their shots, just pathetic tufts of grass here and there.
“Bloody hell!” I yell at my self. I then whisper down to Eric, “You didn’t hear Mummy say that.”
I have luck on my side, though, which is so unlikely it is not funny these days. Up ahead, there seems to be a moderately busy road, which is surprising considering it must be past midnight. I shake my head as I continue forcing my heaving body onwards. After all this time on the run, I have grown sceptical and paranoid – I cannot trust anyone, or anything. Only Eric.
Speaking of Eric, I look down to check on him again. He seems fine, juddering along to the beat of my steps, but sometimes I really do wonder how much of an effect these attacks do take on him.
That is another reason I need to find a safe haven, so he can have a normal life, make friends with other kids his age, play around, without the constant threat of abduction, or worse, hanging over us.
“Hold on, little man!” I mutter down to him, as I hurdle over a barbed-wire fence. Time slows down as I realise that in my haste I have not jumped high enough. A shriek escapes my body as the wire tears through the tissue in my trailing left calf. I feel the blood pour, hot and sticky against my skin on this crisply cold night – strange for mid to late autumn (as I judged it to be) – as I land on my right leg and continue running, though at a slower pace. Eric, thank goodness, was protected by the padding of his baby sling. I do not have time to make a tourniquet, even if I did it would not stop the pain shooting up my leg.
The road is just a quick sprint away, but I am starting to feel the weakness from my wound set in. These hiking boots are not helping either; they really are not well suited to mad midnight dashes. I would like nothing better than just to lie down and have a good sleep with Eric, but of course I cannot do that in the middle of a one-sided gun battle. I take a few deep breaths, calm myself and push onwards, through the pain that is causing stars to flash up in front of me and through the tiredness that weighs me down like lead.
I reach the road and let out a moan when I see it is devoid of traffic, just an derelict black ribbon stretched across the lanescape in front of me.
“F***! Oh, crap, you didn’t hear that either.” The bullets are still raining down around me, and I almost laugh because none of those lazy bastards have managed to hit me yet. I mean, they are professionally trained in battle situations like this, I should be holey-er than Mary! They are only fifty metres away, though, so it could not be long before Eric and I are riddled with holes.
Looking left and right I am dismayed to see the lack of vehicles, until a motorbike crests the hill to my left. Score! I think, and sprint towards it. In the dark night, the bike's lights burn through my night-vision glasses, so I tear them off and shove them in the pocket of my khaki pants. The rider slows the motorcycle when he sees me, which is his downfall. I coat-hanger him as he goes past, knocking him backwards off the bike, then run around it and leap onto the seat. It only takes a fraction of a second for me to adjust to this bike, as I have had to escape like this on at least one other occasion I can remember. I start to take off when I realise he is still clinging onto the side of the bike, the metal of his boots screeching along the tarmac like a bat out of hell. He has his back towards the oncoming men, and if I had my way I would have made him let go so he could stay out of this. He was stubborn, though, holding on as though his life depended on it, which it probably did. I got him halfway up and was about to swing him around the back of me when I felt his body heavily convulsing. I felt horrible knowing that I had just used him as a meat shield to keep me alive, but he is not the only person that has been sacrificed to save me. When things are quiet I really wonder how many lives it is worth to lose so that I can stay alive. How many people can I think so low of that I let them die for me when I do not even know them? Am I so pretentious as to think that I am worth the lives of five, ten, even twenty other people? Or more?
No, I know it is not that. It is just survival. Keeping my child alive, keeping myself alive, until we can find some way of fighting back or discovering a place where we will be safe for longer than two minutes without having to turn around and see these horrible people chasing us again. I am reaching the end of my emotional tether, I can feel it. I know I cannot keep up this cat-and-mouse game forever; there has to be an ending somewhere, if not immediately in sight, but just over the horizon.
“I'd make it up to you if you weren't dead, sorry,” I say, as I yank the helmet off his head, revealing his twenty-something face, blood dribbling from his mouth into his dark beard. Another innocent person to add to my kill list.
After tugging on the helmet, I do not stop to say goodbye to my new friend. Shoving him away – geez, that is an ugly way to put it, I am not that careless with someone who has just died in my arms, but I cannot think of any other way to say what happened – I clutch Eric as close to my chest as possible, and, gaining speed, shoot off past Kelly's men and over the crest away from them.
The chill night air would normally keep me sharp and alert, but I am driving the motorcycle with a great deal of difficulty, mostly because I am so far beyond fatigue that I can barely form thoughts in my foggy brain. I am still gulping copious amounts of oxygen into my lungs, but it is not having any effect. I feel almost certain that I am about to pass out, but that is not exactly advisable whilst on a motorcycle at 150 kilometres per hour. I could not stop even if I wanted to, I was still too close to Kelly's men for me to be comfortable with having a break and calming down.
Calling on strength I did not even know I had, I manage to stay on the bike for another two to three hours, judging by the movement of the heavens above me; then again, I was so far out of it that it could be anywhere between one and five hours. I do not even know where I am anymore. I have been on the run for roughly two years now (being outside all the time you can easily tell the change in seasons), traversing from one end of this god-forsaken lanescape to another. I do not know what country I am in, but I would guess either somewhere in Australia or somewhere in England. It is extremely vague, I know, but I do not often go near towns of any sort unless my needs are dire and even then it is a hard decision for me to make.
Where exactly I am is not at the forefront of my mind right now. I do not know what year it is, let alone the day. When I first escaped, I used to mark off how long I had been on the run in a random note book I had scrabbled into a backpack during my breaking out of that hell-hole, but after a while I gave up because it seemed so pointless.
When I escaped from the institution, all I remember was going to the armoury, grabbing as much stuff as I could, then busting my way out with Eric, who was only just born. Everything else I have I picked up on the way: clothes, toys, the first aid kit. I only have flashes of memory and they pop up in front of me every now and again, seemingly out of the blue; running hazily down a long and plain corridor with red lights flashing everywhere; the sound of twisting metal screeching away from the walls; the heat of flames all around me, searing into my skin; and Eric screaming at the top of his lungs, his face red from the exertion to voice his distaste.
Surviving out here with just the two of us has been really tough, and I mean really tough.
I have been getting food through my guns and throwing knives (mostly my knives, if I used my guns every time then I would have run out of ammunition a long time ago), killing any animal that crosses my path, also foraging greens, nuts and berries when I can. I only kill out of necessity, though, the idea of shooting for sport does not appeal to me at all, probably because I feel like an animal running from hunters most of the time. Eric has probably had it the hardest, having to eat next to nothing and even then only what I can easily acquire. Not that I wouldn't mind something nicer every now and then, but sometimes I would search for hours and not find what I want, so it is generally a waste of energy that I need to preserve for other purposes.
There are so many blanks in my mind, especially from my past, so many things that I know without any knowledge of how they got there. For example, how I can shoot so well, or how I know which berries are edible and which can kill you, or even my ability to run for longer, jump higher and lift more than what I know I should be able to. To be perfectly honest, plenty of other women out there would be stronger than me right now, but that is to be expected because of my lack of adequate food, and sleep deprivation, and constant physical exertion. I do not want to continue listing the things wrong with me; goodness knows I could go on for a while, and it certainly didn’t make me feel any better.
So much about me is extremely strange, I am not going to deny that, but behind that part of me is the raw instinct that I have had ever since I escaped: Kelly and his men are not looking to do anything good to me should I be recaptured, so I have to stay away from them at all costs, if not for my own sanity but that of my child. It seems that everything always comes back to Eric, but he is the centre of my world, the core of my being, the apple of my eye - I would be lost without him here with me.

I am driving through a small, out-of-the-way town when I finally concede I can carry on no further. My injury needs tending to, anyway; I imagine the loss of blood makes my skin look akin to that of a ghost. I pull up on the edge of the little community, not wanting to make my self conspicuous, and push down the kickstand to park the bike. I allow myself to let out a sigh of relief, dropping my head from complete exhaustion, then removing Eric from my front. I will be damned if he was not smiling up at me, after all that happened. I smile back down at him, kiss him on the head and starting limping away. As I creep around the back of a particularly dingy shack, I notice a tap which is the perfect way to clean my wound. Really I should be doing a full search of the place before making myself at home, but it looks pretty derelict so I decide to leave it this time. Having sat Eric down next to me, I plonk myself on the ground and swing my leg around to get a good look at the cut. It is not a bad one, I will say that much: a ruler's length of my leg has been slashed open jaggedly, but not so deep as to cause major bleeding. Still, it will need stitches, which will be a b****. I unzip my backpack and dig around until I pull out a pretty banged up first aid kit. First things first, though, and I turn on the tap to wash off my leg. Initially I get only rust rattling onto the hard packed earth, but after a while clean water starts to flow. Water is not a hard thing to come by right now, it is food that is the real scarcity.

Just as I am about to set to work, I catch a brief reflection of myself in the puddle of water I just created. My gaunt features from lack of food are a stark contrast to my previous self, but my black hair, green eyes and high cheekbones still make me beautiful – I would like to think so, anyway. I see Eric as well: his baby fat still keeping his face well rounded, though now he is growing up it is starting to fade, and his wispy blonde hair as a baby is changing to a dark brown.

To stop myself from yelling out and possibly alerting my presence to others, I wrap some fabric around the handle of my throwing knife, stuff it in my mouth and clamp down as I work a ragged row of sutures into the cut. God, it would've been quicker if they just shot me, I think, but of course I do not want that. Who would be left to take care of Eric? I toss the needle aside, but I know I will have to retrieve it later, because I can't afford to discard things that are still usable. This is life for me – waste not, want not.

By the rosy-pink colour extending across the sky and the fresh smell of dew alighting on the grass, I can tell it is around 4am, and my stomach is rumbling. My eating pattern has gone all out of whack, I just eat when I am hungry; Eric is always hungry, so it suits him just fine as well. Speaking of Eric, he is becoming restless, so I definitely decide to break out some of the food we have. There was a nice patch of strawberries where we stayed last; I slice up half of them and feed them to Eric while I peruse the backyard of the tiny shack.

Basically it is just a small area of dirt with some grass trying, in vain, to grow. There are a few little kids toys strewn around, and I decide that I will take some of those for Eric, but other than that there is just a pile of chopped wood for fire when the nights get cold, and a makeshift clothesline strung between the support beams of the patio. Past the small wire fence that lines the back of the yard is another plain that leads into forest similar to the one that I was in before, and I think I can just make out a wild dog at the tree line before it flees.

“That's enough for you, little man,” I say, my voice warm with affection as I see Eric's hands and face covered with the sticky red juice of the strawberries. As I wipe him down with a cloth and some water, tickling him with the fabric and making him giggle, I reassemble my backpack to incorporate the toys I chose: two little racing cars, a helicopter, a digger and a Lego man. It is not much, I know, but it is more than he has had so far, and better than what I have been able to weave from wild grasses on my travels. The last thing I do before I leave is fill a small container with fuel from the motorcycle before dumping it in some bushes – waste not, want not. I make my way over the back fence and pad through the waist-length grass into the woods at a slow pace, with the morning sun warming my back.

*
*
*


I am always way too tense after one of Kelly's attacks on me, so I try to keep myself moving freely and optimistic about my current circumstances, if not for my own sanity then for Eric's.
I know today is one where I need to start stocking up on some more food, because all I have left are some strawberries, a few pine nuts and a bit of cooked squirrel meat. For breakfast, I find two rather large bird eggs in a marshy area, which would be perfect after I cooked them, but they wouldn't be too bad if we just sucked the insides out of them. Of course, Eric would do a good job of getting the egg all over himself, just to show he enjoys it, so I probably should cook them.

Getting food is one of the greatest challenges that I have encountered in my life – the life that I know now, that is. Water is never really a problem, because you can dig a hole easily enough, and there are plenty of streams in the forest-y areas I go through. But food is tricky. Nuts and berries are good enough to eat, but if Eric and I don't get meat into us every few days, there can be serious health consequences.

I know this all too well. It was during my worst time, when I had just escaped from the institution and was fighting my way through some hellish jungle which was, for all that it mattered, in the middle of nowhere. Despite my greatest efforts, I had only been able to get food that wasn't moving. I was still woozy from all the machines that those idiots had me hooked up to, and the tranquillisers that they used to try and stop me certainly did not help. Soon, both Eric and I were anaemic, fighting fatigue and weakness, and having trouble breathing. The only thing that saved us was the half-eaten carcass of a deer that we found whilst I was stumbling blindly through another God-forsaken woodland. Circumstances forced me to start Eric on solids too early, but I'd mash foods up as best I could before giving them to him.

Whilst ruminating about the troubled times past, I spot a deer on a rise above me. As quietly as possible, I unstrap Eric from my front and pull out my two throwing knives. I have twelve in total, and I do not plan on losing any of them, because they are my primary means of sustenance. Each blade is around fifteen centimetres long – not including the handle - and completely silver in lustre, with holes along the handle for aerodynamic balance.

I assume a light tread, moving at a slow pace towards the young buck, not wanting to scare him off. He looks at me with what appears to be an inquisitive gaze, so innocent; his antlers were only just coming through his tiny skull. I simultaneously lift my arms and unleash two of the knives at the buck. Both hit exactly where I intended – one straight through the neck, one into the heart.
The prone deer keels over, landing on the knives and pushing them further into its now lifeless body. Leaving Eric at the tree, I move forward to retrieve my knives. A little blood is on the ground, but not much, so I must have just missed the heart. I've become a bit of a slack shot, I think to myself. Now, I crouch down and rock back on my heels, wondering where to start with this monstrous kill. I decide I will skin it first, which takes about ten minutes in itself, because this really is the biggest kill I have had in a long time – and I'm a little rusty. As I wipe the beads of sweat off my brow, flick my hair back and have a short break listening to the birds.

I hear Eric squeaking and protesting, and turn around to see a wild dog pup has grabbed the sling and started to drag him away. It's because of the meat, I think straight away. What am I doing just thinking about this? Adrenaline shoots into my legs and, forgetting the kill, I sprint off towards Eric, fear coursing through my veins.

The run feels like a marathon. Did I really leave him so far away from me in these dangerous woods? Am I that careless as to leave my little boy so unprotected with wild animals roaming freely? As I get with in five metres, the dog realises it should not cross my path, drops Eric and high-tails it into the woods in front of me. That's not right, wild dogs usually fight for their kills. Another thought buzzed through my mind: pups are never far from their den or their parents.
Though that was at the forefront of my mind to start with, I quickly banish it to be replaced by pure concentration on my crying child. It is one of the worst sounds I have ever heard, cutting me to the bone and stripping back all my prejudices or hates in the world, leaving me with the task of just comforting my poor Eric. I gently rub his back, cradling him against my shoulder and allowing a single tear to roll down my own cheek. I really cannot keep this up much longer.

After another two minutes, Eric has started to settle again, looking deeply into my eyes, as if trying to say something but failing to form the words. I kiss him on the forehead, gently, and lower him back into the sling. I hoist him back onto my front and retrieve my backpack, then head on up the rise just in time to see my kill being dragged away by another three wild dogs.

It takes a few seconds for my brain to process what is happening, but when my neurons actually start firing and I make the connection, I sprint up the hill after the biggest meal I could have for another year or more. This really is not my day. I decide to pull out one of my guns just in case, but I will only fire in an extreme circumstance because I need to save my ammunition for when I really need it. I take a quick glance down at Eric, who is bouncing along with my quick strides as though nothing is amiss, looking this way and that at all the objects blurring past him. Wiping the last tear from my cheek, I continue sprinting up the rise.

I am closing in on the dogs when I just decide that I am over running, so I throw knives at the first two dogs, hitting them at the base of their skulls and instantly killing them from their severed spinal cords. This action causes them to trip the third wolf, but it quickly jumps up to glare at me, snarling and bearing its teeth with as much aggression as it can muster. I can see it readying itself to lunge at me, so I quickly unstrap Eric and place him on the ground. This sudden action startled the wolf into moving, because just as I bend over it takes a humongous leap over the deer with its mouth wide open, ready to sink its teeth into me. I raise my gun quickly, shooting it squarely between the eyes when it is about thirty centimetres from taking a chunk out of my stomach.

It's body is still flying at me though, and the force of both its speed and weight knocks me to the ground. I'm instantly winded and smacking my head into the ground did not help either. I lay on the ground feeling dazed for probably five minutes, when I hear scrabbling next to me, seeing the Eric has managed to free himself from the sling and crawl to me. I sit there and let him laugh and play with my hair, smiling along with him, before pulling him into a fierce hug and tickling him until he is nearly as out of breath as I am. I take a deep breath then sit up, sitting Eric in my lap, whilst shrugging off the body of the third wolf from my prone legs; the pins and needles were annoying me.

We both survey the mess of bloody bodies in front of us.

“What do we do about this, mate?” I ask, as though he will give me an actual answer. He looks at me with his deep blue eyes and frowns, as if he is trying to form a word or two, but just blows a raspberry and throws his arms up in the air. Frankly I felt like doing that myself, because I really do not know what to do with all this meat. Three wolves and a deer that will not last long in this afternoon sun. I am about to get up when, just on the edge of my hearing, I register a dull thudding sound reverberating through the air. As it intensifies, I get to my feet to see if I can make out what it is. It sounds vaguely familiar, but I cannot quite call to mind what it is - until, through a gap in the trees, I see a glint of light off metal and see the gun turrets trained on me. It is a helicopter.

One day after an attack, they've found me again. One day! That's the quickest ever. I am halfway through wondering how they do it when I remember the perilous situation I am in. There is no point in trying to drag my bounty along with me, so I grab my backpack and Eric, strap him around my front and run in a random direction.

I find myself moving diagonally down a moderately sloping hill, watching trees flash past me and hearing the deep resonating thud of the helicopter above me. There are no twisting plants or roots to trip me up in this patch of woodland, which I am glad for, so I manage to work up a great speed on my way down. I can in no way match a helicopter, though. My heart starts up its deep, resonating pounding again, which I can feel everywhere: my temples, my ears, my feet and against Eric's small hand clutching my shirt. As it thumps along above me, I hear the juddering of rotating gun turrets and the thwacking as the bullets impact the trees and, in some cases, burst their way straight through and keep going. I really hope I don't become one of those trees. The smell of gunpowder intermingles with that of eucalyptus and grass, causing my head to spin slightly; I would never get used to that smell. The bullets are chomping at my heels as I reach the bottom of the hill and burst out into a large open area next to a fast-flowing river, which is not very helpful in protecting me from the hailstorm of gunfire. I crunch along the pebbles on the shore, spinning my head around to try and pinpoint where the helicopter is, when I feel a searing pain in my upper right arm, for a second it is as though I have been given a needle, but then the real pain sets in, like a raging fire has been set in my arm, like someone is pulling molten barbed wire through it. A wave of dizziness overcomes me and I trip over the only piece of driftwood on the shore. Just my luck, I think, as I come crashing down onto my right shoulder, and feel the pain well up so much that I let out a small scream.

Eric is fidgeting in front of me, and begins to cry when he sees the blood and the tears in my own eyes. Trying to calm him, I hoist myself onto one knee to get moving again, when I notice the bullets have stopped; the only sound now is the loud rushing of water of rocks and then louder thudding of the helicopter rotors. I look skyward just in time to see a large net dropped down on Eric and I, with weights on the corners to make sure we cannot go anywhere. Eric's crying fills my ears, along with the heavy pumping of my own blood and the whimper of pain that escapes my mouth as I army crawl my way towards the edge of the net.

The last thing I remember seeing is a fish jumping out of the water, sparkling in the midday sun, before I feel the butt of a gun whacked into the back of my head and I black out.