All I could see were its eyes, its yellow cat-like eyes. In the darkness of the night, they seemed to stand out, glowing as if they emitted their own light, like headlights. And I was totally paralyzed, transfixed by them. The sound of the helicopter seemed to fade away, as well as all the thoughts from my mind. Only the hypnotic split spheres concerned me now. They seemed to be searching my face, darting around in a quick manner, as if it were looking for something. Then the slits widened, in what I guess was surprise. I'm not sure, but it was almost as if the owner of the strange spellbinding cat eyes recognized me, which made me even more worried. Did it know who I was? But then, just as quick as they had appeared, the optics vanished, as if it had never been.

The world came back slowly like a steady beat, so it took a while for me to comprehend what had just happened. The helicopter was hovering stationary; no damage seemed to be done. The propellers were making that signature rhythmic beat that was almost as fast as my heart was or would have been beating. Can't tell if I have a heart anymore.

What was that? Was it real? The idea that it was something my mind had created, a sign I was truly starting to lose it, troubled me to no end. I have a fear of losing my head. But when I switched to my Thermal Vision, I was relieved yet disturbed to find that the imprints of two hands, warm and fading, were still visible on the windshield's bulletproof glass. I reached out to compare them to mine, and found them to be smaller in size.

This proved that whatever it was had been real and that I was still sane, for the moment at least, but this information did nothing to calm my nerves. And whatever it was hadn't attacked me, so either it was scared of me, or it didn't find me to be an enemy. But still, something with eyes like that…

Suddenly, an explosion from up ahead caught my undivided attention, as one of the Strike Helicopters, which were looking for what I now didn't really want to find, suddenly went down, its tail blade had apparently been ripped off. The UAVs, also known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, which were designed to scan for Infected (mainly me), were buzzing around, but not beeping red, their little eyes remaining green, indicating they sensed nothing in their vicinity. I was a pretty good ways away, but I still was mindful to keep my distance, not wanting to set off the alarms. If this… thing was still nearby, it wasn't infected, or maybe it was something new, a different strand of the virus that may have surfaced and wasn't detectable by the infection detectors. There were so many different ideas on what was transpiring that they bounced around in my head with such velocity that I had to just stop thinking altogether and concentrate on getting facts.

I turned the radio back on to hear what the remaining Strike Team had to say.

"DID YOU SEE IT?!"one of them was shouting over and over. Man, they were spooked.

"Yeah, I saw it, or should I say, I saw HER,"the other said, somewhat calm but it was a mutual calmness hiding the emotion of fear, "It looked like a girl or women… but not human. Never seen anything like it."

"So it was a female Runner?"

"I'm not sure, but whatever it is, get ready to engage when you see it."

So, it was female. This made me even more tense. I remembered what I had learned about female Carriers of the virus, how it changed them, made the look inhuman at times. The sudden image of Greene came into my head, when I finally confronted her in that god awful monstrously grotesque form that would give me nightmares if I slept. What if this was another Elizabeth Greene? The idea of a second coming of that psycho who had called herself my 'mother', as well as the reign of terror she had set forth, flooded my head. No, I can't let that happen again. But I must also consider that I am wrong. I made a quick mental note to consume and get the memories of the one or ones who saw her… or it, whatever it was.

The pilots started to shout though the radio again as the Infection Detectors plummeted to the city bellow. It was almost as if they malfunctioned or lost power, but it was too dark to see. The sky over Manhattan was majorly polluted so the moon and stars couldn't shine their light on the dark infected city. It was impossible to see exactly what was ten feet away in all the smog.

Meanwhile, the pilots were freaking out, and firing blindly into the darkness, hitting me briefly but no real harm done.

"It's on us! It's on us!"

"Shake it off! God Damn it Watterson, shake it… oh god, THERE IT…."

"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-!"

A piecing screech or scream of some kind burst from the radio. I had covered my ears, it was so loud I could feel the sound, and it hurt! Not even Greene's roar was this powerful. The radio couldn't take it either because it promptly exploded in a shower of sparks. I felt like I had almost gone deaf, my ears were ringing; it sounded like a courses of bells going off in a church with the worst acoustics ever. Then I saw the strangest sight I had ever seen in my entire existence, strange even for me.

The Strike Team helicopter suddenly stopped, froze, the propeller not moving, yet it didn't fall. Then it and the air around it rippled, almost like how my Biomass rippled when I changed my shape, but more like ripples on water. There was no Biomass, no tendrils or red or yellow or black or even the rare green, which I had only encountered once, but a faint glow of sky blue, an almost otherworldly light. I couldn't hear the high-pitched sound I just heard through the radio, which I was sure I could have heard loudly through glass. I could hear the helicopter I occupied, not as loud as my ears would handle at the moment, but not the loud screech. The Strike Chopper continued to ripple, then in a display I had never seen, it shattered in a burst of light. I couldn't believe my eyes. It shattered like glass, breaking up into pieces, which got smaller and smaller until they turned to dust and disappeared, as if it had evaporated. I was stunned, and started to get the idea to get the Hell out of there, until I noticed…

… the helicopter might have disappeared, but the pilots hadn't.

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