'Dear God,' she thought,'Outsiders. Oh God, Oh my God, have they seen me??' Obviously not yet, she stepped cautiously back into the brush, she could stay a few seconds just to see what they wanted...if any danger might come from their being there, she should know. There were three of them, two boys and a girl. The girl was complaining fevrently, what the hell was she wearing? How could you possibly walk silently in those? The tall girl walked foward a few steps, there was an ear splitting crack as she walked over a twig. Well, ear splitting to Maria anyway, she'd been trained early in life to notice these things and her sense of both smell and hearing were heightened. She was much noisier than the others her age,though, and she talked a lot, she always got in trouble for that. The spikey headed boy coughed suddenly, he was actually kind of cute..What!? UHG! He's an Outsider, Maria, control yourself. The girl (obviously named Isabel from the snatches of conversation she'd overheard) was scolding him, Tylenol? What was that?

Some medicine she geussed. Suddenly her breath got caught in her throat as she heard the quiet, dark brown headed boy, he'd mentioned something about Humans. Oh GOD!

NOW she was going to run, run like never before, she stepped backwards slowly, but she was shaking and faltered. Another earsplitting crack. The feeling of her heart leaping to her throat. Her stomach dropping. The world going in slow motion as everything stopped. They'd turned, they'd seen her.

She stood there for a moment like a deer trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car. They looked equally as shocked. All was still for around 35 seconds. Then, quietly and calmly, the dark one aproached her (the one the girl called Isabel had referred to as "Max"). She backed away slowly as she heard his words, "Shhhh, its ok, we won't hurt you, we just want to learn about you," he smiled.

Her lips trembled, she was told that in this situation she should run as far away from their camp as possible,and not to let on that she knew speech. She glanced wildly about her, Isabel looked positively shocked, the one called Michael looked shocked as well but was keeping close behind Max. She threw one more wild glance around, they were still advancing, so she did what she'd been told, RAN. She bounded away to the left, away from the camp, she heard their cries, "SHE'S GETTING AWAY!!"

"GREAT WAY TO STATE THE OBVIOUS MAXWELL!!"

"MICHAEL YOUR THE FASTEST! YOU CATCH HER WHILE ME AND MAX GET THE OTHERS!"

"NO! IS! I CAN'T JUST LEAVE!ITS THE FIND OF A LIFE TI-" "MAX!! LETS GO!!!!!!"

Isabel must've convinced Max, because soon she heard the feet behind her, a deftening symphony of crunching leaves and twigs as his hevy boots slammed the ground. There were only one pair of feet, she was sure, this was good, she could handle one person if he managed to over take her. She ran. Ran like she was on fire, on Fire and the first lake was miles away.

He'd gained considerably on he, but she was always ahead of him, if even just alittle. She was quicker than him, but he had stamina, and soon she'd have to slow down. If she slowed he'd gain and she'd be lost, she had to come up with a stratagey...quick.

********************

It was weird, one minute Isabel had been scolding him beacause of his cold and then..then it happened.

They'd seen her watching them from the brush, she was every bit like them. She looked normal, but there was someting not right about her too. She seemed wild, that feral glint in her eyes told him at once she was far from an Enlight. Max had approached her, he knew at once that had been a bad idea, what if there'd been more than just that one? The girl had been oddly attractive. He'd always thought if humans existed today, they'd look a lot like Boundies, almost Enilght-like but more apeish. No, this one was, well if you could say it about a human, pretty. What was he thinking? This was a totally different species, probably didn't have the brains to even speak, just another animal. She'd stood there for a minute looking very scared, he noticed she had no shoes and was clad in some high cut shirt and hide pants.

Very primitive. He'd never expected to find any humans out here, no matter how determined Max was. He'd had high doubts about humans living in Frazier Woods, so all he could do at first was hang his mouth open, but he soon followed Max closely in case they were to be ambushed. Her eyes had been wide as she threw that final glance around as if contemplating what to do, Max was speaking to her as if she could understand. Then, as suddenly as she'd appeared, she bolted like a hunted rabbit.

He'd been on her tail from that moment on,(Well after shooting an insult at Max anyway) he'd heard Max and Is screaming that they'd get some others. He doubted they'd be back anytime soon, they'd been lost. Max didn't know how to get back to the others to tell them what had happened, but still, he pursued.

She was very quick, he'd gained on her, but there was always that four or five feet between her and his grasp. She ran silently, he didn't understand how, but she seemed to glide over the ground on a pad of air. She zigged and zagged, he geussed it was a stratagey on losing him, or making him run into a tree.

'Well, that won't work little girl,'he said smugly to himself, smirking haughtily as he ran to keep up.

She suddenly turned a swift corner, she caught ahold of a thin tree trunk and swung off the ground. She twirled around it and was suddenly coming back at him, he was running head on into the kick when he realized what was happening and dodged out of the way. He rolled out of his dodge and quickly to his feet in a gaurd as he watched her land on her haunches, glaring at him. 'So, she couldn't take a blind runaway. She wants to fight,' again it was smug, but he could feel that tinge of fear. Not much but enough.

'God man,she's just a girl!' he thought as he swayed in his gaurded postition.

'Come on Maria, he's just a boy, and obviously doesn't have much fighting skill from the look of that gaurd,' Maria thought, she hadn't broken that glare, but the fear was forming. She'd been taught fighting skills young, just like every other kid in her tribe, the skill didn't have a name like kungfu or tae-bo. No, this was a new breed of self defense that had evolved on its own with her tribe, a mix of all known skills rolled in to one.

He wasn't moving, her turn to hunt, this bought a small smile..

'She's smiling....what's that mean? Oh FUCK!'and Michael had good reason for being surprised. The human had stood suddenly and flipped fowards landing in a gaurd, she was truly going to fight him. He didn't know what else to do, so he lunged at her...mistake.

He almost caught her but she rammed him in the side with one leg and landed on him, pinning him with the other knee and holding her knife beneath his chin. 'Nope, not experienced...even KYLE could take that,'she smiled again. He had not been aware that she was armed, God, the blade was milimeters from slashing him into non-existance. He had to do somehting. She was smiling...Damn he hated that smile. He zapped the knife away the knife with his small bit of power, and flipped her over. She fell and he was imediately on her, holding her down. He could never hit a girl, again..mistake.

She glared at him and suddenly her foot came up and caught his nether regions in a vice of pain. He howled and rolled off her. She lept up as he staggered to his feet. He had just enough time to look up into her feral eyes before..

'Man, he's not dropping as quick as I'd hoped, I can't belive I let the knife go..oh well,' Maria thought as she lept in the air and brought her leg around and slammed into the stunned boy. She caught him off gaurd and it hit him with a sickening thud. He fell. He didn't move.