My hand is empty as I return - I feel the contact break even before I fade and materialize, and I know where I am headed.

That there is no escape for me, and I've made peace with that. That they won't stop until my body lay still and broken. I'm prepared.

The light of the earthly orb fades from my view, and I feel my body merging with -

Skip - Skip - Skip.

A hallway - fluorescent lights, industrial floors like a hospital. Solid walls, like a prison -

I’m back. Already casting -

Taking in my surroundings - my eyes scanning and a soldier is already swinging, his weapon raised and firing -

*Bam-Bam-Bam-Bam*

My Light Spell erupts! Blinding! Seeds scatter in a tossed handful, their stretching growth lost to the gunfire -

Bullets beat at my chest, the slugs falling as twisted pennies to join the spent brass of their casings. The staccato of pain beats across my chest like Brandon’s punches - bruises forming while I’m reaching, closing on the soldier while shrapnel lances across my hand.

And his - her, struggle is brief, I realize, as I bring her body inside me. And I frown, an already uncomfortable idea made worse, but there isn’t time now and I’m already changing, letting the brightness hide everything in the chaos of battle -

Explosions - and I hear the rattle of body armor, more gunfire, the weapon gripped in my hand clutters as I collapse and I see my my blood leaking across the floor, cuts, as the growing branches wrap, pulling it back - the flare of my light spell lessoning by the second.

Bullets pierce my chest, my arm, my legs - all I can do is watch, steering the branches that are almost fast enough to shield the flesh, but -

A flash-bang - The world screeches even as I go deaf -

I can’t hear the tread of boots, or the sound of weaponry, instead I feel it, the vibrations of their heavy feet, the bursts of pressure in the air as I lay on the ground and they inch toward me firing.

Closing my eyes, I don't move as they surround me,

Gabriel Benito - Female. 5’5. 31. Brown Eyes. Army. Military Police.

They move past - continuing to fire into the growth that staggers and slows under the onslaught as they form a living shield around me - protecting me.

Just a fallen soldier now - in my combat fatigues. I feel myself lifted over somebodies shoulders and I’m bouncing, jerking as they carry me past the others - retreating and firing into a mass of writhing growth that twist through my remains -

Crafted to look like me, made of pieces of me - my blood, my bones, almost every one of them there, my dna, my fingerprints - my life. I left it behind - so Cody Abbot could die -

I can't escape this place, not a chance, but Gabriel?

I know a close look will reveal me as twisted still, wrong - but a crushed face and blood can hide a lot. A bulky uniform and combat fatigues even more - when people don’t like to look at gore.

Not closely.

Each second that passes, there’s less imperfections that need to be concealed as I look at the true version inside of me, trying to imitate the way she looks without a mirror, it's not perfect -

More boots speed past us, shouted orders called out like football plays as my hearing returns while being carried by these professionals. They move with smooth precision, direction, determination. And the clock is ticking as they follow a process ingrained in every soldier from the beginning -

Never leave a man behind.

I felt myself laid gently on a table, rough hands moving across my body - going for the clips of my helmet -

“She’s alive!”

I opened my mouth to cough, letting the stolen eyes of my victim peek open in wide surprise. Blood pours from my mouth and I start gagging, coughing

“Damn it, Gabby!” The man shouts, pulling back and rolling me over, supporting my neck and letting the blood drain.

“Green one this is squad three with a casualty, undiagnosed injury, internal bleeding -”

I couldn’t hear the other voice over their comms device - just the mumbled buzz

“She’ll be dead, we don’t have an hour to wait through quarantine, we probably don’t have minutes -”

I kept my breath light and soft, letting blood ooze out, another hand squeeze my shoulder, heard the angry mutterings from the rest of the squad-

“Sores!”

“Keep your mouth shut, it’s still hot.” But then - “We’re moving to the extraction point, we got an all clear. The threat was neutralized.”

I felt myself rolled through the halls as sirens blared and codes were announced over loud speakers. We would stop, I’d hear a beep - doors would grind open or swing, then slam with the sharp click of locks behind us.

Then suddenly a cluster of voices - a brief argument before I was moved into a vehicle, rolled and locked in, strapped down and once more I sensed movement, faster - four hands check over my body, discussing my treatment, but floundering - Hazmat suits, scuba gear I realize from their breathing.

They limit their actions to connecting me to monitors, calling out vitals over a comms device, prepping me for - transfer, heart rate is erratic, low pulse, blood loss - they prep an IV to adjust and as soon as it plunges into my arm a pocket of flesh grows around it, the contents sucked into me - along with my own blood that keeps restoring itself -

Keeping my heart rate low.

I grew bolder, removing the stolen eyes and letting mine regrow, one at a time - my heart flutters weakly, the monitors they were hooking up squelch in warbled distress. It's hard to maintain concentration, keep the balance and not black out -

Then we were slowing, I hear the doors flung open to the beating blades of a chopper, and I was moved again, the snap of wheels locking, the iv bag handed off - slamming, and a rising whirr of the blades -.

Flying.

Grinning on the inside as the pilot speaks gibberish, but I heard hope - Mercy West. New medics checked vitals again, checking IV levels, serious voices, tracking readouts - then panic -

As sprouts began to grow out of nose, my mouth - spreading and twisting, reaching -

“Mayday! Mayday!”

They batted at what was swiftly becoming branches, felt them entangling their bodies as the monitors that all hooked up to my body hissed errors, their connection severed - the chopper plummeted and I felt my stomach lurch, the pilot screaming as the plants spread into his cockpit - as he rushes to land.

Too late.

Ensnared the moment after they threw open the doors , unable to extricate themselves from the twisting growth, unable to escape -

The couldn’t see - didn’t notice the table vanish, or it reappear a few seconds later with their patient - green growths protruding just the same, worse now - they'd grown out of her eyes, ripping them out - as I snuck out -

I'm sorry, Gabrielle.

I was already shifting again. taking on my fastest form with all limbs attacking the ground - practiced lunges carried me in bounding leaps faster then a man was designed to go…faster then any animal - fast enough it was almost dizzying -

Each second took me further away - closer to freedom - I skirted the first road I found - following it in my loping run across desert not stopping for anything, not cars - not noise, I sprinted as fast as I could - until the houses started appearing regular, every mile - every half mile -

I was walking along the road in my plain clothes, stepping out from the thick bushes. Just a pedestrian walking through the countryside, maybe my car broke down?

Maybe I got a DUI?

I certainly looked the type - rough. Older. Wrinkled. Hunched back and dirty beard that looked like the soft curly hair of a young man if you looked close enough - past the mud -

Maybe even sick. Like I appeared ten years older then I actually was, that hard living had caused me to skip thirty altogether and dive head long into a mid-life crisis. A pitiful man -

Not a boy at all.

That’s what I looked like - as I continued along the road, thumb held up - as people honked, zipping by. More and more houses and then I was in a neighborhood- people out, walking dogs, I took a tight alley with garbage cans and emerged the other end younger. Cleaner.

Walking casually, hands in my clean jean pockets, black t-shirt where I waited at the bus stop, eating a granola bar -

Finally sagging in relief after cramming dollars into the kiosk with shaking hands. I slunk into the back and took a seat - I closed my eyes and made fists, forced myself to breath smoothly -

“Damn it.” I whispered over and over. I’d prepared myself to kill but -

“Damn it.”

Why did have to be so easy? Why did I have to make myself upset - I wanted to be sad, not angry. Why did the regret pale compared to the relief -

When had life moved down the wrung to inconvenient - the contrast, as I felt a reverberation of Brandon's outburst, how much more he had. He was so thick with emotion, so heavy with it, I remember Derek screaming, how it impacted all of them...

And even my relief felt numb - was I still coming down from the high of being overwhelmed again, or was it something worse?

And was it bad because it was good - I could think clearly, as I stepped off the bus as it neared a shopping center.

Moving through a big box retailer - seeing those yellow, mocking smilies - always found it ironic, the contrast to the employees faces. And I began to steal - my elbow, my hand slipping out to hold up a shirt while taking two more -

Clothes, dozens of outfits, shoes, everything. From button ups to hunting wear, they vanish into me in the rush. Clothes I’d never wear - that Cody would never wear, but now? The guilt was small as I stole for my survival, compared to killing.

The person I was would have never stolen - even now I hate it, even from this place - but what choice? I have cash still, from my father, but...it's all the money I have in the world, and even feeling it inside, knowing that it's a part of it -

Caps and cowboy hats. Cheap sunglasses. Hair extensions - make up. When nobody was looking it vanished.

Then I vanished - my features slowly shifting again during a bathroom break, another change.

I used the model computers to go to reddit - and the post was there, I relaxed a little more -

u/CaptainCrabCrusher005

‘I just got back from vacation and it’s like nobody cares that it was my birthday, no presents, no party. My friends didn't know, not even my parents remembered. I thought maybe it was a surprise, but it's obvious now. Nobody cares about me.’

My family was fine - still home. They'd checked in on them somehow. My friends were okay, at least not captured, and nobody appeared to be watching them.

'Remember to whistle' I typed after switching computers and finding the post again, scrolling through instead of searching -

Switched to another computer, looked at map, and then I was moving again, a stolen bicycle giving me speed to make my way around Laughlin, Nevada. To their library -

Tactics. Strategy. Military history. Farming and Botany. Maps. Logic and famous speeches. Mechanics. Anatomy and knots…if it even looked interesting I took it. If it looked really interesting, I took the whole shelf.

And I was gone again, emerging to retake my stolen bicycle with my final identity, just a forgettable beggar without a name. Bad scar, dirty hair under a squished, muddy hat. Torn jeans and torn loafers. A shirt too big.

A wrinkled face. A few missing teeth.

A cigarette lit and smoldering. I stank -

I peddled faster, my deft internal fingers flipping and holding the stolen maps, tracing my route like a gps system, easily picking out streets. I leisurely followed the sidewalks, almost invisible.

The outskirts of the city shrank into towns, and I peddled a steady, squeaky path. My adrenaline of action finally fizzling out to allow my brain to begin thinking - realizing just what was happening. What I was doing. What I had done - already.

I was a homeless man. On a bicycle, peddling his way to what, war?

With an entire nation? The most powerful nation?

Freedom.

I had to wipe tears out of my eyes, the bicycle wobbling beneath me during bouts of laughter, I couldn’t control it, as I mentally traced the path I was headed -

It was going to be a long climb - to reach the top, to water the thirsty tree of liberty.

Home. They'd taken it from me, like they'd taken my freedom. My identity. Now I needed a new one.

Just 2,300 more miles, if it was only distance I was concerned with, instead of power...How much did you need to claim the White House? How long would it take?

As I ride, my eyes constantly scan - and finally, in the distance, I see a red glow -

My shortcut.