The Pursuit

Chapter One

The Warning

The first thing I noticed that morning was the rain.

Not the sound of it. The smell.

That faint, earthy scent that rose from the garden after the first drops touched the soil.

I loved it.

I had always loved plants. Maybe a little too much, according to my family. I had a habit of coming home with plants that weren’t technically mine. I preferred to call it rescuing them.

I could spend hours wandering through a garden, looking at leaves, checking new growth, wondering which plant would survive in which corner of the house. That morning was no different.

Our apartment was quiet.

My mother was somewhere inside, my father was probably doing his usual morning routine, and my brother had disappeared into his own little world. My dogs were around too, moving through the flat as if they owned the place.

It felt ordinary.

Safe.

That was the word I would have used then.

“Safe”

I stepped outside toward the garden surrounding the apartment complex, looking between the plants for anything I hadn’t noticed before. Maybe I was searching for another eye-catching variety I could bring home.

There weren’t many people around. Ahem. A very good opportunity to steal— I mean, make a plant mine. Or should I say... that’s what I thought.

Actually, there were hardly any.

The apartment complex had never been particularly crowded, and that morning it felt almost strangely empty.

I didn’t think much of it.

Why would I?

I was looking for plants.

Then I heard someone talking.

I slowed down. After all, I was nosy most of the time—especially when I should have absolutely minded my own business.

A girl was standing a little distance away from me.

She wasn’t alone.

There was a group of people around her—quite a large group, actually. They were listening carefully while she spoke.

At first, I couldn’t understand what she was saying.

It sounded like a language I had never heard before.

Not completely unfamiliar.

Just... strange.

The girl looked around before speaking again.

“Don’t speak normally.”

I stopped.

She continued talking to the people around her.

“Use the other language when you’re with them. If they speak to you in one, answer in another.”

I frowned.

“What?”

The people around her seemed to understand perfectly.

One of them replied.

She corrected him.

Another person asked something.

She answered.

Then the group began moving.

One by one, they started leaving.

I watched them go.

Something about the entire situation felt wrong.

I didn’t know what it was.

But I knew I didn’t like it.

The strangest part was that the girl who had been giving them instructions wasn’t leaving with them.

She stayed behind.

I looked at the group disappearing farther away.

Then I looked back at her.

Why was she staying?

I couldn’t explain what happened next.

There wasn’t a sound.

No explosion.

No scream.

No warning that I could see.

Just a feeling.

A sudden, overwhelming certainty that something was about to happen.

My stomach tightened.

I turned around and ran.

I didn’t even know exactly where I was going.

I only knew one thing.

I had to get my family.

“Mom!”

My voice echoed through the apartment.

She looked at me immediately.

“What happened?”

“Get everyone.”

She stared at me.

“What?”

“Everyone. Now.”

Something in my voice must have convinced her.

She didn’t argue.

Within moments, my father, my brother, and the dogs were with us.

I didn’t have an explanation for them.

Not a proper one.

I couldn’t tell them what I had heard because I didn’t fully understand it myself.

I only knew that staying there felt wrong.

So, we left.

We joined the people who had already started moving.

There were more of them than I had realized.

Families.

Strangers.

People carrying whatever they had managed to take with them.

People who looked just as confused as I felt.

Nobody knew exactly what was waiting for us.

But everyone seemed to know that going back wasn’t an option.

And then we reached the sea.

I remember the water first.

Cold. Endless. Violent.

People were rushing around me, shouting, trying to keep their families together, trying to understand where we were supposed to go.

Then the shouting changed.

It became screams.

I turned.

They came from the water.

I don’t know what else to call them.

They were people.

But they moved like nothing I had ever seen before.

Fast.

Precise.

Almost unnatural.

They didn’t hesitate.

They didn’t warn us.

They attacked.

The first person beside me barely had time to react before he was pulled away. Someone screamed for help. Another person tried to fight back and disappeared beneath the water.

Panic spread through the group like fire.

Everyone was running in different directions.

I couldn’t.

Not while my family was still there.

So I fought.

I don’t remember when I stopped being afraid.

Maybe I didn’t.

Maybe there simply wasn’t enough time to be afraid.

I didn’t even know what I was fighting with. A broken piece of wood? A weapon I’d grabbed from someone? It didn’t matter.

One came at me.

I dodged.

Another followed.

I blocked the strike and pushed him back.

For one second, I thought I had managed to hold my ground.

Then two more came.

I stumbled backward.

Water splashed against my legs.

Someone crashed into me from behind, nearly sending me under.

I caught myself.

Kept moving.

Kept fighting.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Every time my body told me to stop, I forced it to move.

I don’t know how many people we lost.

I only remember the faces disappearing one after another.

The people who had left with us.

The people who had trusted the same warning.

The people who had believed that getting away meant getting somewhere safe.

There was no safety here.

Only survival.

Something struck me.

Hard.

Pain exploded through my body.

My knees buckled.

And, trust me, not every time you end up on your knees feels romantic.

This was definitely not one of those times.

I tried to stand.

My body refused.

The world tilted.

The water rose around me.

I reached for anything I could hold onto, but my fingers caught nothing.

Then I went under.

The sounds above me became distant.

Muffled.

The fight continued somewhere above the surface, but it sounded like it belonged to another world.

I tried to breathe.

I couldn’t.

My lungs burned.

My body grew heavier.

I was sinking.

I thought about my family.

Were they alive?

Had they made it out?

Was anyone still fighting?

I didn’t know.

I couldn’t see anything anymore.

Then, through the darkness, I saw something.

A faint shimmer above me.

The surface.

I reached toward it.

And beside it—

A seashell.

I don’t know why I reached for it.

Maybe instinct.

Maybe desperation.

Maybe I simply needed something to hold onto.

My fingers closed around it.

There was something inside.

Something small.

Smooth.

Perfectly round.

A pearl.

I held it tightly in my palm.

And then—

everything went black.

After The Fall

I opened my eyes.

I was lying on a bed.

For several seconds, I couldn’t understand where I was.

The ceiling was unfamiliar.

The walls were unfamiliar.

Even the air felt unfamiliar.

I sat up slowly.

My body hurt.

I looked around.

My family was there.

“Alive”.

My dogs were there too.

I stared at them.

Then at the room.

“Where are we?”

Nobody answered immediately.

I didn’t know how long I had been unconscious.

I didn’t know how we had escaped.

I didn’t know how we had travelled from the sea to this place.

I didn’t even know how much time had passed.

But apparently, we had survived.

We were living in another apartment complex now.

And we weren’t the only ones.

The people who had escaped with us had settled nearby.

Everyone had found a place.

Everyone was trying to rebuild some version of a normal life.

Except normal didn’t exist anymore.

We had rules.

Curtains stayed closed.

Doors stayed closed.

Nobody went outside unnecessarily.

If someone needed something, they waited.

If someone had to move between buildings, they watched first.

A curtain would move slightly.

A window would open just enough for someone to see outside.

Then close again.

Sometimes a person from another apartment would signal that everything was clear.

Sometimes another would signal the opposite.

We were all watching.

Waiting.

Hiding.

Nobody knew exactly what we were hiding from.

We only knew that whatever had attacked us before could come again.

So, we stayed quiet.

And for a while...

it worked.

Until the puppy arrived.

It happened on an ordinary day.

I heard movement outside our door.

Before I could think much of it, the door opened.

A small puppy slipped inside.

I stared at it.

“Where did you come from?”

The puppy looked at me as if I had personally invited it.

I laughed despite myself.

Then someone appeared at the door.

A neighbor. A guy I’d never seen before.

“I’m sorry! It ran inside.”

I smiled and picked up the puppy.

“It’s okay.”

The person reached for it.

Our hands brushed as I handed him the puppy. I looked up—and found his eyes already on mine. Neither of us moved. For a moment, everything around us seemed to disappear.

He took the puppy and started walking away.

After taking some steps, he stopped.

He turned around.

For some reason, he looked at me again and smiled.

He wasn’t alone.

His sister was there.

A couple of his friends stood behind him.

I wasn’t sure why they had all come.

Maybe curiosity.

Maybe coincidence.

Maybe they were simply being “neighbors”.

We hadn’t really interacted with anyone outside our little group for quite some time.

So, for the first time in a long while, the silence between our little group and the outside world began to break.

As if everything were normal.

His sister asked something.

One of his friends laughed.

Someone commented that we hardly ever came outside.

Another person asked why.

My mother answered before I could.

“She’s preparing for an exam.”

They looked at me.

I smiled awkwardly.

“That’s why we don’t disturb her much.”

“Oh.”

That seemed to satisfy them.

The guy glanced at me again.

I noticed.

He noticed me noticing.

He smiled.

I looked away.

A few minutes later, his sister quietly asked me for a sanitary pad. I gave her one. She thanked me, and while she went to the bathroom, everyone, including her brother, came inside.

As they were our guests, we offered them tea and some snacks. Everyone sat down and started chatting about life and everything happening around us.

I picked up a packet of snacks and tried to open it for everyone.

He glanced at me.

“Give it to me.”

I frowned. “What?”

He smiled at my expression and pointed toward the packet.

“You’re going to struggle with it.”

He held my gaze as he said it, the teasing tone making the words sting more than they probably should have.

I frowned again and looked straight into his eyes.

“I wasn’t struggling.”

He smiled.

“Sure.”

He took the packet from my hands and opened it effortlessly before handing it back.

His friends immediately started laughing.

“At least tell her good luck for the exam.”

He looked embarrassed.

His sister returned, and everyone began teasing him.

For a moment, I hesitated. There was something unfamiliar about the way I felt—something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

His friends crowded around him, laughing and whispering among themselves.

I couldn’t help feeling shy.

For the first time in a long time, I felt “normal.”

Almost.

They eventually left.

The door closed.

And everything became quiet again.

I didn’t know it then, but that was the moment everything changed.

The Breach

The first arrow struck the wall.

I heard the impact before I understood what it was.

THUD.

I froze.

Another followed.

Then another.

My mother screamed.

“Close the door!”

Panic erupted.

We didn’t know where they were coming from.

We didn’t know how they had found us.

We had been careful.

So careful.

Nobody opened their doors.

Nobody showed themselves.

Nobody went outside.

Yet somehow—

They were here.

My mother looked at me.

“Check the house.”

My heart hammered against my ribs.

I grabbed the first thing I could find.

A screwdriver.

I moved through the rooms.

Living room.

Empty.

Kitchen.

Empty.

Bedroom.

Empty.

Then I heard voices.

Workers.

Three of them.

Plumbers.

They were fixing something inside the apartment.

For one horrible second, I thought—

They did this.

I raised the screwdriver.

They immediately backed away.

“Wait!”

“We’re workers!”

“We’re just here to fix something!”

They backed away, panic flashing across their faces.

They shouldn’t have been there. Nobody came into our apartment anymore. Not without warning.

I kept the screwdriver raised.

“Who sent you?”

“You called us!”

“I didn’t!”

“You did! Someone called us!”

I watched them carefully.

They were terrified.

Not pretending.

Actually terrified.

I lowered the screwdriver slightly.

There was no time.

I ran back toward my family.

“There’s nobody inside!”

My mother and father had already moved toward the roof.

We climbed.

The neighboring rooftops were connected closely enough for us to move between them.

My family hid on another rooftop.

I stayed where I was for a moment.

Then one of the workers came after me.

The main one.

He looked frightened.

“If you want us to leave, we’ll leave.”

I looked at him.

Then I heard it.

“A scream”.

I turned.

Another scream followed.

Pain.

Agony.

The workers.

The main man immediately turned toward the apartment.

I knew.

I didn’t know how.

I didn’t know why.

But I knew.

“They’re here.”

My mother’s eyes widened.

“What?”

I looked at my mother with terror in my eyes.

“We need to run.”

I didn’t wait.

We ran.

We jumped from the building.

For one terrifying second, I thought we were going to die.

But we didn’t.

Our feet hit the ground.

We didn’t break.

We didn’t even fall.

We ran.

Arrows flew past us.

Left.

Right.

Behind.

Ahead.

Everywhere.

And then I realized something.

We weren’t escaping.

We were surrounded.

I looked at my mother.

An arrow flew toward her.

She dodged.

I looked at my father.

Another arrow.

He moved.

My brother ducked before it even reached him.

I stared.

How?

How did they know how to do that?

I had never taught them.

Nobody had.

At least...

I didn’t think anyone had.

My heart pounded.

I turned my head toward the front.

An arrow flew directly toward me.

I moved.

It passed so close to my face that I felt the air cut across my skin.

For one second, I couldn’t breathe.

The arrow had stopped my entire body.

I stared at it.

Then I looked ahead.

And finally understood.

They weren’t coming for us anymore.

They had already found us.