Disclaimer: As usual, don't own 'em.

Chapter Two.

I walked out into the woods. Not doing anything much. Just walking, and thinking, and staring absently at the trees.

I thought about the choice I'd made last night. Laughed bitterly. I'd made that choice before, once. Hadn't kept to it. Had gone back to the fight, after making a deal. I wondered if it'd be the same this time around. It probably wouldn't be.

I was sick of it. Sick of fighting for my life, for Jake's life, Rachel's, Marco's. Sick of having to face people who didn't have a choice. Sick of watching the way the fight changed us.

I was still a normal kid. I wanted to be. But I didn't like the way I'd grown harder. Didn't like the way we all had started to see things in a military way.

I walked and walked. Didn't much care where I was going.

I saw trees and didn't see them. I saw the way I was going and didn't notice it. I heard sounds, the sounds of the forest, and it all turned into a jumble in my brain.

What if I'd doomed the resistance?

Was it better to win or to lose if winning meant you lost everything that made you human?

Maybe I'd already lost it. See, a bunch of friends and a decisive team act somewhat differently.

You assign roles to people. This is not a good thing.

I walked a bit further. My heels were starting to ache. So was my stomach. I sat down on a tree stump and pulled out a bottle of water and a sandwich. Watched the animals. A couple of blackbirds were building a nest in a birch tree. Two squirrels chattered at each other.

Their lives were simple. They didn't have to worry about morality, or about grey slugs that crawled through your ears.

I put the water away. I got up and started walking again, not much caring where I went. The black-and-gold pattern on the forest floor slowly shifted.

Some time later, I looked at my watch.

Six o'clock.

I'd been walking for almost nine hours?

I glanced around. Didn't recognize anything. Where was I?

I stared around me. Okay, so I was lost, but I could morph and –no, I couldn't, because I'd quit the fight, and Jake had said…

Right.

Well, I knew roughly which way I'd come by. And a human doesn't walk very fast. I certainly hadn't been. Even so, nine hours of walking would –No, not now. Concentrate.

Of course, I hadn't exactly been going n a straight line, either…

What would my parents think?

Oh, no… what would they be going through? I'd been gone all day. Even running, even if I miraculously found I'd been walking with a curve, it would easily take me another three or four hours to get back. And my luck was never that good.

I felt like crying.

Come on, Cassie, I told myself.

There was a rocky spur protruding from the hillside not far away. I walked over to it and began to climb. Maybe I'd be able to see the town from here.

When I was halfway up, I heard a noise.

It was strange. A kind of very deep rumble, with a whistling, singing edge to it. It sounded like an earthquake singing soprano. And it had come from above me.

A pebble skittered off the stone.

I looked up.

The sky was blue. And there was something in it that flickered against my sight.

A spaceship?

I crouched low against the spur. Wriggled my body sideways against a low wall. Stared up. My breath held in my chest.

Nothing. Not that that meant anything.

After a few minutes went by with nothing happening, I dared to move again. This time, I went forwards. I inched along the rocky outcrop. I looked out over the forest.

Mountains behind. Trees everywhere. No sign of the sea. No sign of the city, unless it was that dark grey smudge of smoke in the sky.

Hopeless.

I considered. I had a backpack. What was in it? Two bottles of water, a bottle of coke, a packet of biscuits, a bag of crisps, and a spare jacket. All of which could possibly be useful. But not very.

Okay. So I had food, I had clean water, and I had an extra jacket to keep me warm. I also had an elevated view of the forest from where I was, so if anyone was coming, I would hopefully be able to see them.

What to do, what to do…

"Right", I said aloud. "So I track around, using this big rock as a landmark. I try and find something familiar. If after an hour I haven't found anything, I come back here. I eat, try to start a fire, and keep an eye out. Tomorrow, I'll start walking back, and if by midday I'm still lost, I morph osprey."

Not the best plan I'd ever had. But right now it was the only one available.

I started walking back the way I'd come. Kept an eye on the rock.

Nothing. Unless you counted the incident in which I ripped my ankle coming through what felt like a field of three-inch thorns.

I hobbled back to the outcrop. Ate the crisps. Drank the water. Put my jacket on. Already the forest was getting dark. I could hear owls hooting. I found a small hollow at the base of the outcrop and crawled into it.

It took me another half an hour to get a fire started.

A quarter to eight. I warmed my hands. Looked out at the forest.

I couldn't sleep. I fed the fire and climbed the spur again. The stars were clear in a sky free of light pollution.

And then I heard it. A humming, thrumming noise that went right down through my bones. A sound that touched my blood and made me shiver.

I stared up at the sky.

I saw the ship by not seeing it.

It wasn't visible. It didn't block out the stars. But it bent their light around itself, and in some indefinable way I could see the faint trace of the curving starlight.

It was very high above me.

I stared up at the ship, at the lines that were only visible when my eyes moved, at the transparent waver in the sky.

It moved towards the mountains. How did I know? I registered where the lines were, and where new lines appeared and old ones vanished. It was hard, because the lines were so fleeting and faint, but I could do it. And I saw it move towards the mountains.

It went very slowly.