The Reluctant Hunter

"I'm looking for any females who came into the emergency room on the eighth. She wouldn't have had a name."

Weston waited as the secretary searched through the records. He was at the Barrington Hospital, because Silverpool was a relatively small town and didn't have one. This was the closest one, and he was pretty sure that she would have been taken here. He knew what he had to do... he would take her out of the hospital and bring her to the station. He was not to kill her personally, as had been planned originally. They needed a new body for research... they wanted to know how it was done. How to clone people. Weston didn't think that things like alchemy were safe to mess around with, but those were his orders. He wondered what would happen if this power fell into the wrong hands... If it was in wrong hands at the castle... He had seen things there that he was sure would give him nightmares for the rest of his life.

They had been ordered to kill all the clones at the castle two days ago. He knew they were beings that were not meant to exist, that were created by sick and twisted minds... Yet he still had a hard time doing it. Even though his job was often dangerous, he had never been forced to kill someone before. And now he had the uncomfortable knowledge that he was involved in a government cover-up, as well. They already had one of those bodies. But this girl was different. She was separate. She was special. How, he did not know. But he knew she had some importance over the others. And now they would kill her, even though she had become more than an experiment in a test tube. She had been walking, breathing. As much as he didn't like to admit it, she was a human being.

"There was one that came in that afternoon as a Jane Doe," stated the secretary, bringing him away from his thoughts. "She had numerous physical injuries on her back and her feet."

"That's the one I'm looking for. Which room is she in?"

"Room 380, officer. I will inform the nurse you're going to see that patient."

"Thank you," said Weston as he walked toward the elevator. He got in and pressed the button for the third floor.

When the elevator reached the third floor, he got off and headed straight for number 380. If he was lucky, she hadn't woken up yet. That would make things a lot easier. He found the door open, and walked inside. The nurse was standing in the room, staring at an open window. Weston looked from the empty bed to the open window and swore. He should've expected this.

"She was in here just a few hours ago!" The nurse was saying. "I don't know where she could have gone!"

Weston walked over to the bed, and noticed the newspaper on the nightstand, with the headline about Belli Castle standing out. He picked it up and scanned the article.

"I think I do," Weston said, putting the paper down. She must have gone looking for their "anonymous person". And, with any luck, she would find her.

The girl had no idea where she was, or where London was in relation. She knew London. She'd been there. So far she'd been denying her fears about being involved in this cloning thing because she had memories. She knew about the world, she knew things a clone couldn't. Yet... she had no personal memories. She only knew that she had not been in that tube all her life. And someone out there knew who she was. Whoever wrote that note... She had to find that person.

The bandages on her feet were beginning to deteriorate, and her feet had started bleeding again. She was having extreme difficulty walking. Thankfully, she had located a bus stop on the road going by the hospital. Judging by the number of people gathered there, it would arrive very soon. She had been forced to re-enter the hospital and steal enough money for the bus from a donation jar in the lobby when nobody was looking. She felt horrible about it, but it was the only way she would be able to leave. She glanced back up into the window of her former room. What looked like a police officer stood there, a man dressed in black, looking at the open window she'd used to escape.

Go quickly, there are people looking for you.

She was reminded of the note. Why? Why couldn't she be left in peace? Was she a criminal? What was going on?

Rain started sprinkling from the sky as the comforting roar of the bus's engine approaching reached her ears. Quickly, without looking back, she walked to the bus doors as it stopped and got on, and finding London was on the route, she paid the driver and sunk down in a seat in the back, not wanting to be seen. She couldn't trust anybody. Not until she had things figured out. As for now, she was still in the dark.