I walked on through the store, glancing at the display items. I continued on, holding a scribbled piece of paper to look like I was doing some shopping, most likely for my mother, whom I never had. I sighed, looked displeased at the items, and turned to leave. Passing the registers, I snagged a couple of candy bars -snickers, my favorite- and shoved them into my coat pocket. Those would be my dinner tonight. On my way out the door, I heard a woman's voice from behind me. "Excuse me, little girl... Did you pay for those?" I turned to face the manager, who was staring at me, her angry little eyes trying to shoot me down. I just smiled at her. "Pay for what?" I asked her innocently, putting my hand in the same pocket, and pushing the Snickers into a hole in the seam of the pocket, before turning it inside-out, to show the woman that there was nothing to be seen in my pocket. She raised a brow. "A-alright, hun.... Sorry." She grumbled and turned around. "I must be seeing things..." I heard her say. I laughed and turned out of the store. Once I exited the door, and was safe outside, I tucked my hand in the pocket, pushing two fingers through the pocket, and pulled out one bar. I unwrapped it, littered it on the ground, and munched it down. Candy bars and other small, pocketable items were pretty much my only food selections. I didn't mind my life style all that much. Except for the part about the men who seemed to have been hunting me for my entire life. Sound weird? Well, it is, really. They don't speak much, only to one another, and an occiasional threat to me, now and again, and they all dress alike, in black attire, with these large -in my opinion, very ugly- sunglasses, that shield their eyes from everyone. Their voices all pretty much all the same, I can never tell the difference of one from the other without seeing which one of their mouths are moving. After quite a bundle of close calls with them, I learned not to care, and just run. As I walked along the side of the road, munching on my newly stolen chocolate dinner, I tensed a bit, seeing a single, black dressed man in sunglasses. I had just been thinking of them, and now I was on edge. However, as he walked closer, he gave me a simple nod of his head and walked by. He wasn't one of them, just a normal guy. I could breath again. Making my way down the street, I didn't hesitate for a moment, to cross over into the well known backyard of some old wretch lady. She must not have been home that day, for she didn't come out with her broom, and crippled gaurd dog that must have been older than she was, to yell at me. I laughed as I continued, crossing through yards and hoping fences as I normally did on my way home. Well... What I called home, anyway. As I kept up walking for almost a half hour, the houses in the small town grew thin, and more trees surrounded the place. I smiled apon the sound of rushing water, and the smile grew as I caught the sight of barbed wire out of the corner of my eye. This rusy old fence was all that stood between me and the woods. "Ah, home sweet home," I muttered to myself, scrambling over the broken wires easily and continueing through the forest. I headed to my right, which was east... Or was it south? Ah, who cares. Anyhow, I soon found myself along a small stream, and continueing to follow it, I knew I would soon be apon my shelter. My shelter, was an area alon the side of the stream, where I had damned up the place with logs, to help guide the water away from my place. It took quite a bit of time for that to actually work, and how, I'm not really sure. The tree that I lived under had long since been eroded away under, leaving a small, earthy cave type area, where, once propped with sticks and branches, was easily disquisable from the human eye, It looked just like a bush by a tree, and no one would suspect. So I thought. I approached, and had to hold myself back from gasping out. My tree had completly been torn apart, the shelter destroyed. And walking around it, with monotonous looks, were four men, dressed in black. They were gathering bits and pieces of what I called home. Instantly, my plans were forgotten, my snickers were forgotten -the one I was currently eating had dropped to the ground- and only one thing was on my mind.... Run! And so I did. Of course, being the simple clutsy person I am, I tripped, and landed with a small thud. The men, hearing it, dashed in my direction. I was up instantly, and running. As I did, I looked to my right wrist. Ever since I could remember, there had been this weird, band type thing on it. It was a maroonish color, with a small clear, round gem embedded in the top, and a cone shaped, black blade sticking from it. I had tried to remove the damn thing multiple times, thinking that maybe it was worth something, but I could never get it off, no matter what I did. There were no clasps, the thing seemed solid, and even when I tried the harsh method of bashind the thing off with a rock, I only suceeded in bashing my finger. I looked down at the device once more, and cursed at it. It was only a guess... Well, a strong guess, that this stupid band was the reason that these men wanted me so badly. Otherwise, why would they? Stealing a couple of candy bars here and there.... Well, and a few knives from the local weapon shop, but still! It was no reason to hunt me! I almost lost my balance as a bullet went wizzing by me. "Jeeze!" I shouted. "What is with them?!" One girl vs. four adult men, and somehow, my luck had been awesome. But now however, they had caught me off gaurd, and it seemed that all I could do, was run in panic through the woods. The thought pondered my mind to run into the open, where someone might see and help. But of course my doubts shot in as well, in the fact that there might be more of these strange men waiting for me in case I do try such a stunt. However, tripping every so often over the random stones and roots that were just so common in forests. I desided -if they had backup or not- to leave my woodland home, and try the streets. I dashed, quickly as I could, knowing just when to jump over the battered wire fence, and laughed a tad to myself, to see one of the men not so lucky, and go sprawling out onto the ground. But not for long, he jumped up and followed, just a little behind the others... And the bad part was, that I was only about thirty feet in front of them. "Get back here girl!" One of them shouted to me, I didn't care which one, and I didn't yell back. I took it that they didn't realize the two facts that; One: yelling while running makes you wear out faster. And two: even if they told me to turn back, it wasn't likely I would. I smirked at the thought of someone just stopping when someone who was chasing them told them to, with a simple "ok." Anyway, enough of the random thoughts. I continued to run, my life on the road leaving me in wonderful shape, and I didn't even begin to tire out. As I ran, I dashed toward the park, which was maybe a quarter of a mile away from the woods. I dashed, and they followed, the one who had tripped now back up with the other three. As I ran, I headed for the gutter on the side of the walk near the edge of the park, where, as always, there was a small sting attached to one of the bars. I loved hiding things in gutters like that, It was so smart, and no one ever found my stash. The item I was after this time, was a dagger. I had hidden stuff all over town in case of emergancy, and while I would have prefered a better weapon, this one was better than nothing... I threw myself down toward the gutter, grabbing hold of the slightly damp bar to lift the tiny, barely noticable string up. In the matter of a few seconds, the dagger, securely tied on the other end of the string, was safely in my hand, and I had picked up speed, and continued running. Now, the men were right behind me, not fifteen feet away. Maybe the grab for the dagger wasn't so good after all.... "Didn't your mommy ever tell you not to run with things in your hand?" One of the men yelled at me, trying to distract me from my careful running. I didn't bother turning my head to even look at them, all four of those creeps discusted me... With my dagger in hand, I turned out, away from the park, and back out toward the woods that I had come. I had run a complete circle around the fairly large park, and after all the running I had done already, I really was begining to get kind've tired. One quick glance behind me, at the men beginning to gain speed, and the thought of slowing down leaped from my mind, and I kept up my speed. Another dash over those barbed wires, and I was safely back into my wooded home. I did turn back now, to hear a yell, and almost laughed to find that two of the jerks had fallen on it this time, and the other two had tripped over their companions, leaving them all on the ground. I smirked and kept up running, now, and apon hearing the flowing creek nearbye, I scampered over toward it, leaping from the ground to the water, which was a few feet down, eroded into the forest floor. I landed on my feet, the creek hardly reaching a depth of two feet, and stopped just long enough to splash a handfull of the refreshing water into my mouth, and take a look down at my reflection, which revieled a fairly nice looking girl of fifteen, green eyes and a dark brown hair. To bad it always looked so stringy, due to the fact that I lived in the woods... Away from those men... Remembering them gave me a startle, and I bolted off, out the other side of the creek, and then along side it, up a hill. On the top of this hill, was a graveyard. I figured it would be a good place to get away from my predators. I had no clue what these men wanted me so badly for, and I wasn't very eager to find out. I reached the top, jumped the fence that surrounded it, to find myself in a fairly nice kept graveyard. All the tombs were rather new in this area, and a good portion of them were graced with fresh flowers. Of course, now was not the time to stop and take in the sites, and I continued running, hoping the dead people didn't mind me running on top of them... A clanging noise behind me, told me that the four had just made it over the fence into the grave site, and as before, were chasing quickly after me. I ran, and they ran, and once again, I began to tire... And they... Didn't...

Well, to be very blunt, the chase didn't last much longer. I put every ounce of speed I had left, and dashed out toward the back road along the graveyard, slowing bit by bit. Suddenly, a tight grab on my shoulder! I spun, dagger in hand, to slash at the man, who took the blow at his elbow. His black cloth shielded it a bit, and in the few seconds it took me to pull myself from his grasp, the other three were there, and grabbing visciously at my arms and kicking legs, yelling all the while. In less than a minute, the dagger had been pried from my grasp, and I was pinned down onto the ground, right in the middle of that old dirt road. They had me... At last, I had been caught.