Sta.sh
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'sby *sedART
There always have been those rare few, and they could have been people you've met, who are not normal, per se. Maybe it was the boy who always sat on the other side of the playground at break, the girl in your office whose name still escapes you, or the man sat alone in the corner of the chippy.
While you may have met them, you haven't really. Because they can't let anyone in, can't let anyone get too close.
It hurts. But it would hurt more if they...we didn't.
I am one of those people.
My name is Kristina; this is the story of my life.
24th December 1999
Target: Gina Wildman
2:49pm
Sighting of target in Saint Andrew's Shopping Centre. Pursued on foot.
3:02pm
Target entered branch of Greggs. Exited a minute and a half later with a medium sized bag of baked goods. Unlikely to have been purchased without ordering well in advance; a large queue had formed in the shop.
3:09pm
Target exited Saint Andrew's Shopping Centre, alighted 152 bus heading North to Shepton Bus Station. Followed, was seated three rows back from target.
3:47pm
Target disembarked the bus at Church Street in Worden. Will continue search here at a later date.
I was seven years old when my mother sat me down and explained. She explained why we never lived in a town for more than a few months, why Dad lived with us very rarely, and why above all else I couldn't play pretend with any other children.
She tried her very best to make me understand, make me understand that I was different. But she failed. I just wanted to go and play.
To me, my games were sweet, and life was dull, why shouldn't Mum humour me with hours and hours of play?
It's widely accepted that when children play, they project images in a much more vivid and real way than adults. A way that's distracting and lucid.
25th December 1999
2:54am
Target was terminated upon her exit of the property. She had left the building in order to move wheelie bin.
26th December 1999
Target: Kristina Wildman
Every night after that Christmas, I was alone with maddening nightmares too real and too complicated for me to understand.
But the week after my mother's death was a difficult one that I'd rather forget. I was too young to carry on alone, so when he offered me a place to spend the night, I couldn't refuse. He was tall, but I can't be sure if it's simply how I remember him. He had dirty-blonde hair and a lantern jaw.
What's more was that he was dressed as a policeman.
He never laid a finger on me, so don't try to misinterpret my account of this. In fact, in all the time I spent in the apartment I barely saw him for more than an hour collectively.
I wasn't sure how far I could trust him; I was fed and warm and comparatively safe.
But for me, things like comfort don't last long, so I didn't.
30th December 1999
4:02pm
Requested target to demonstrate abilities. She showed no understanding. It took twenty minutes to explain fully and persuade her to demonstrate. She manifested a small teddy-bear. Upon further questioning she became distracted and the manifestation vanished. Her abilities lack training.
1st January 2000
10:42am
Target escaped from safe house at approx. 6:30am. Have contacted local constabulary with claims of my missing daughter. If they do not contact me within three hours with details of the targets whereabouts, I will inform them that she has been found.
It made me sick. It still does. I don't know if it's because of a traumatizing memory or simply a side-effect, but even now when I try to make something big or complicated or just concentrate on the same thing for a long time, I feel nauseous. The feeling of knowing that you're being chased by a real monster. He terrifies me.
The first place I went was a convent orphanage in the south. Cliche, yes. Safe, no. The sisters of St Ambrose only kept me safe for eighteen months until they found out what I was. If it weren't for Sister Agnes, Big Sister Agnes as I called her, I wouldn't have made it out in time.
She called in a favour at Fulton Grammar School, back up in the North. It was a huge school, with easily over two-and-a-half-thousand students, from nursery to sixth form. I took my chance and vanished behind the paper work. It was a test definitely, and Agnes warned me beforehand not to give in, to keep practicing in secret, and to run a mile at the first sign of trouble. After six years in hiding there, the dormitories were closed, the school became a day school, and I was moved into foster care for the first time. I didn't speak a single word to my foster parents and to this day I don't remember their names.
10th June 2007
6:45am
Target changed routine today, instead of taking the chartered bus to Fulton School, caught the 152 towards Shepton. It is likely she will return to Church Street in Worden.
When he followed, I knew.
When I knew, I ran.
An hour after getting off the bus, I was sick of walking and stole a bike. The helmet felt a size too big, but the bike rode beautifully. I took my time along the motorway, south again, to Lorrington. I saw him stood on the street corner in the centre of town, and dumped the bike the second I rounded the next corner. The UK is the most suveilled country in the world, and I had been consumed with the fear that he could be watching for a number of years. So I stepped into a hairdresser's with a waist-length plait and stepped out with a bob (money was never a problem. I had only to make sure it existed long enough to go into the cash register and then run).
Then I ran again. I took a taxi from Lorrington to Hatton, the nearest city. It was going to get a supreme amount of concentration if I was to pull this off.
10th June 2007
3:12pm
Target reappeared and mounted bike. Followed down a series of side streets before target vanished leaving only the bike. Her abilities have much improved. Will continue search in Lorrington.
I feel like I've missed a lot of this out already. A lot of my life was indeed spent running, but the parts where I forgot, and just enjoyed my gift...
The first time I created a double of myself, she could only mirror me. It took a number of attempts before I could control her actions, and even then it was a huge strain. I had to consciously consider her actions, down to details like blinking and breathing.
I was about 13 when I first made a double, and at 14 I had created a realistic double, and sent her in the opposite direction, riding a motorcycle. This was a huge step, and a huge risk.
I practiced a lot during my formative years, but after the motorcycle, I realized, this was me. I could use this for fun, as I had before that Christmas.
I didn't stay long in Hatton, just long enough to buy a box of black hair colour and make good use of it.
30th September 2010
4:02am
Have located target in Cardiff.
4:03am
Was confronted by target.
Search ended.
Agent Pace resigning commission.
"Search ended"
At least that's what the document said. According to this it was now two years since he had stopped following me.
I couldn't understand.
And I still don't.
Which is why it's time.
It's time for the hunter to become the hunted, and the man who murdered my mother to suffer.
Kristina had first laid pen to paper an hour ago. The words had come to her slowly, an after-effect of being an underachiever, with the massive distraction of supernatural abilities. She had taken time in writing this brief account and now, in this cold hall, her fingers were numb.
On standing, her scarf fell loose from her neck and vanished into the floor. She manifested a new, thicker one from the air and draped it over her bony shoulders. She had only been here a week since leaving Wales. The burnt out shell of the manor house she was been hiding in wasn't extremely insulated, and it had taken a fair bit of work just getting rid of the rats. But it was somehow feeling more and more like home to Kristina. No, a playground, for a woman-child. There was a lot of space for her to experiment and train in privacy.
She grinned at the remains of a portrait of some Lord and Lady hung over the mantel. She clicked her fingers, pretending she was their spoilt little heiress daughter, and the pair leapt from their painting, hovering ghostlike before landing. They took up a waltz hold and proceeded to dance to some silent music. Kristina span across the room, recalling another painting she had seen.
She wanted a party, and she was going to get one.
Minutes later the cold hall was filled with ghost like figures spinning in the blue morning light. Kristina danced with partner after partner, but the whole ball took place in silence. She had only noticed recently that she couldn't create sound.
The figure of a young man across the room caught Kristina's eye. He wasn't at all unattractive and his hair would have been red but for the blue-grey tone that her less concentrated apparitions took on.
In Kristina's mind for now, they were star-crossed lovers, doomed to be kept apart, because he was only a servant. She raised a finger to her lips and winked. He silently chuckled in reply and returned to his duties.
But, this was some kind of coming-out party. Her mother and father, the Lord and Lady of the Manor had decided she was old enough (at twenty no less!) to be introduced to society. So while her father mouthed a silent speech, her mother drew her into the centre of the hall. Suddenly though her father made another announcement that shocked her to the core. He had arranged a marriage for her to an owlish-looking man with a complexion like watered-down milk. Everyone's head then turned to the (albeit silent) sound of Kristina's lover dropping a silver tray. Then he was on his knees begging her father not to make her go through with it, for he loved her, and would surely pine away and die without her, and her mother was banishing him from the house, and...
"Stupid." Kristina muttered and wafted her hand in the air, the vision disappearing like disturbed candle-flames.
A voice echoed across the hall. It was unusually resonant.
"What game are you playing?"
Tired 
