The girl dressed in black started to move away.


    "Wait," I said, staring off to the nearby hedge and the dark of night above.


    The sound of the approaching dogs filled the air. They were going to be on us in less than a minute tops.


    "They have my scent," I said, "If we run they''ll just keep chasing us."


    The girl searched the road as if the answer to what we should do next might be among the concrete and faded white markings.


    I strained to hear beyond the dogs. Were there vehicles following them? As far as I could tell there weren''t.


    "You want to fight the dogs?" said the girl.


    From the look on her face it seemed this was something she wasn''t keen on doing.


    "Can you fight?" I said.


    "I haven''t tried," she said, "I run away, mostly."


    The dogs were very close. Maybe ten seconds from us. Whilst alert and slightly nervous, I found I wasn''t nearly as frightened of the possibility of being chased by several hunting dogs like I would have been a little over a month ago.


    I can handle this, I thought, I''ve been through worse.


    "Don''t hurt them too bad," said the girl, clenching and unclenching her hands nervously.


    I nodded and said, "I''ll do my best."


    "Xandra by the way," said the girl.


    "Burgess," I said.


    Then the dogs were on us. They were kept at bay by the hedge in front of us for several moments before each of the dogs found a gap beneath to slip through.


    The dogs weren''t all of the same breed, not that I knew breeds well enough to know exactly which they were. One pair of dogs looked to be golden retrievers, with short coats, and another pair looked like german shepherds, with dark brown coats; though much of the colour of the dog''s coats was guesswork on my part due to how much of my vision was tinged with gray thanks to the power heightening my night sight.


    I didn''t have any intention of fighting the dogs in some kind of brawl. Instead I readied a powerful fox-like cry to scare the crap out of them.


    Don''t go overboard like you did with the Pied Piper officers in the underground complex, I thought, just scream loud enough to make them go away.


    Before I let out the scream however I noticed the dogs weren''t making an effort to attack us.


    Instead they stayed several paces away and, though barking, appeared to be joined in the same effort to keep their distance.


    "Look at their collars!" said Xandra.


    On each of their collars was a single steady red LED light.


    I let out my fox-scream and I could almost see the wave of the scream leave my mouth. The dogs yelped and whined and bolted back under the hedge they had initially crawled out from.


    "The Peepers must be tracking the dog''s location," said Xandra, "They''ll know where we are. We have to go!"


    I nodded, and turned to the hedge on the opposite side of the one the dogs had just crawled under. There was less room to pick up momentum to charge through the hedge, so what followed from me was a rather clumsy clambering and breaking of the twigs and branches to get myself through. Before I got all the way I felt a pair of hands against my back.


    Xandra landed on the other side of the hedge having just used me as a means to bound herself over.


    Impressive! I thought.


    We both broke into a sprint and, again, I found myself wishing I had something better than boots to run in. They simply weren''t made for high-speed sprinting.


    My concern that Xandra might have not been able to keep up with me was quickly tossed aside.


    If, by her own admission, she wasn''t much of a fighter, she certainly was good at running and jumping.


    She made the low stone walls, hedges, wooden and metal fences in our way seem trivial to avoid. Each time she jumped she seemed to spring up, her legs apart and her arms together in front of her. She had both cat-like finesse but also a silly, cartoonish defying of gravity to each of her athletic jumps. It was the kind of talent a parkour master could only dream of.


    My own efforts were heavy and blundering in comparison.


    We came to another farm, the kind with freshly plowed earth going on for about half a football pitch worth of land.


    Xandra was running just a little ahead of me, and I wondered then if she was making a point of showing that she could. Her head cocked to the side suddenly and she looked at me.


    "There''s police up ahead. It''s a checkpoint," she said.


    Before I could show any sign of understanding she made a sharp turn to the left. I skidded to a stop and nearly fell over. I renewed my sprinting pace, forcing my legs to pound the soil beneath me hard enough to quickly close the gap between Xandra and I.


    I took one last look at the direction we had headed in before veering off and saw the faintest glimmer of red and blue lights from police vehicles peeking out behind a far off hedge.


    Good we''re avoiding that, I thought.


    But something was troubling me. As I tried to think what it was, Xandra was the first to reach the end of the section of farmland we were in. The ground rose up to form a small hill, which Xandra used as a jump-off point to clear the hedge blocking our way.


    For a moment I was just in awe at how far she was able to jump and the confidence she was able to do it with. It was like something from a movie that I was living through in real time. And it was my turn to do the same.


    "Y-ah!" I shouted, having to strike off from the top of the hill with all the effort I could muster.


    Even then I just about cleared the hedge.


    I landed hard with both boots slamming down, knees bending deftly enough for my legs to absorb the brunt of the landing.


    I had however come to a hard stop. I simply didn''t know how to do a cool action movie roll to keep the momentum, or to land and keep running the way Xandra had managed.


    A sparse forest lay ahead of us which we both ran into.


    "Do you think the dogs will come again?" I said, between huffing breaths.


    "Maybe," said Xandra, "You seemed to scare them pretty good though!"


    With a little bit of deft weaving of the thin trees, we cleared the forest and came onto a hillish section of open land. The grass rippled in the firm night wind that had picked up more over the last ten minutes.


    Far off in the distance we could see a town lit with twinkling white streetlights.


    Xandra and I kept running towards the town. Our speed had slowed just a little.


    "This way''s not good," said Xandra, "There''s checkpoints in and out of most towns."


    "Okay," I said, "We need a place to hide, but before that we need to make sure we''re not followed by the dogs. I need to lose my scent."


    "Me too," said Xandra.


    She looked at me with her strangely large eyes and said, "I''m sorry for leading them your way. They''ve got my scent too. They were after me to begin with."


    I nodded, not knowing what to say to this new information. I needed time to think but with us both being on the run I felt way too occupied with escape to think back to how this chase even got started.


    We continued towards the distant town. It would still be a good while before we reached it, and there were plenty more hedges, fences, houses, farm buildings, and roads in the way. At the speed we were running the town seemed to be ever so slightly expanding.


    I searched the distance and saw there was another checkpoint far to the left on one of the winding roads that would lead into the nearby town.


    We could avoid that too, I thought, but that would force us more to the left.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    I strained my vision as much as I could muster, using the slight advantage of us being on a hillish section of land to see far off into the distance. The faint lights of two more checkpoints were faintly visible.


    "Wait," I said, coming to a stop.


    It took me a few moments to catch my breath and then it was as if I hadn''t just sprinted with inhuman power and speed for ten minutes straight. Xandra brought herself to a stop too and recovered just as quickly. She looked at me anxiously, raising her right sweater sleeve to chew on it.


    "What?" she said, her voice muffled by the sleeve.


    "I think they''re funneling us," I said, "If we keep going this way I think the checkpoints are going to be set up so they''ll lead us right where they want us."


    "If that''s the case," said Xandra, "Then there should be a police checkpoint up ahead. The funnel would make it so there would be less intervals between checkpoints, right?"


    I nodded.


    "The thing is," I said, "Whether I''m right or wrong I don''t think we should just keep heading in the same direction."


    Xandra listened, keeping her large eyes fixed on me.


    The way ahead wasn''t clear. I needed to think of a solution to getting away. But with checkpoints, and the potential of the checkpoints being set up in such a way to funnel us into a trap being a concern, on top of the dogs tracking our scent; the solution to our problems wasn''t coming easy.


    I crouched and held my hands to my ears as if doing so might contain the fragmented ideas inside my mind.


    Think of something, I thought, wishing I was a good deal smarter than I was. There was the option of using the power to increase my cognitive abilities, thereby circumventing my own lack of creative thought and problem solving, but the idea of giving the reins to the power like that was far scarier than the threat of the Pied Piper Task Force and their hunting dogs.


    Xandra hugged herself and sniffled as if she had a cold. With each moment that passed she muttered to herself and increased the enthusiasm with which she absently chewed her sweater sleeve.


    "Have you escaped the Pied Piper Task Force before?" I asked.


    Xandra didn''t respond. She was faced away from me muttering to herself in a panic. My hope for a new companion that might easily take control of the situation was quickly fading.


    "Xandra?" I said.


    Again she didn''t respond. I gave up trying to get her attention and instead tried again to think of a solution to our hunting dog problem.


    My hair felt hot and prickly so I took off the fox-hat. I looked at the hat, seeing it as a gray fox instead of the orange it was supposed to be given how dark the night was.


    The simple black eyes of the fox-hat stared back at me.


    Xandra sniffled again.


    "Help me think of something," she muttered.


    Was she talking to me? I looked around the field we were in and, for the time being at least, it was still just the two of us.


    It was then I absently rubbed my thumb over the stitched patch that made up the fox hat''s nose.


    "I''ve got an idea," I said.


    But, at pretty much the same time, Xandra also said, "What if we-"


    "Sorry," I said, "You go first."


    Xandra hugged herself even more tightly.


    "Erm, well," she said, struggling to get the words out, "Maybe we could increase our own sense of smell so at least we could have an idea what the dogs are smelling? It might help us figure out what we need to do to hide our scent?"


    I stood up, nodding.


    "Right," I said, "Good idea. We should do that."


    "What''s your idea?" said Xandra.


    "Well," I said, "I recently used the power to lower my body temperature. There was a helicopter and I thought it might be able to pick up my heat signature. I don''t know if the people who were in the helicopter were even looking for me in particular, though I have a good reason to think they were; and I don''t know if they were even using technology that detects body heat-"


    "--okay, okay," said Xandra, urging me to hurry up.


    I made an effort not to let Xandra cutting me off annoy me and tried to stay on track.


    "So," I said, "One way we can change our smell is by copying another. We just need to find something around us that has a strong smell, copy it, and maybe that will help us mask our scent. But I don''t know the first thing about how dogs hunt so-"


    "Okay," said Xandra, cutting me off again.


    "Increase our smell first?" she said.


    "Okay," I said, nodding.


    We both seemed to have the same idea about how we might increase our sense of smell. At first I thought it might be as easy as heightening my hearing, but my first attempt to smell my surroundings better proved to not make much difference. The scent of the grass, and the slight pollution from the nearby town and vehicles were much more pungent than before. The smell of the surrounding mud and of my own sweat also met my nose. But it wasn''t enough, I would need to push my sense of smell further to gain some real insight.


    It was becoming increasingly frustrating how every situation that called for me to use my power seemed to be pushing me towards becoming more fox-like.


    A part of me was still very much against the idea of allowing my nose to become an animalistic snout on principle. Not only because I probably would look very silly with a snout on my face, but also because I knew all too well how dangerous it could be going too far into one''s animalistic side.


    Holly had lost control, and had been killed. Adam had also lost control, and had been captured and given a fate that was arguably worse than death. So many teenagers at the Wedder Gorge facility had lost their minds to the power and had killed others as a consequence. They had all been killed by the lethal gas released by Officer Freeman; who, by killing them when their minds were still lost to their animalistic, so-called ''shadow-selves'', had died without even the dignity of being cognizant of their final moments.


    I was already hallucinating baby foxes. What if using my power to heighten my sense of smell akin to a fox''s was just another domino piece that would lead to an eventual cascade? The cascade in this case being the loss of my own mind to the power; to the animalistic ego.


    But we were running out of time. We had run fast and far but not nearly enough that the Pied Piper Task Force might not be on us within minutes, if not sooner.


    Despite how much I didn''t want to use the power in such a way, I decided I just had to take the risk.


    I''m not trying to integrate with my ''shadow-self'', I thought, trying to tell myself and the power not to get the wrong idea; It''s just a superficial use of the power to get what I need.


    I tapped into the power and felt my nose reshape into a fox''s snout. It wasn''t that I knew on some complex level how a fox''s snout worked, all I knew was what they looked like, and even then just vaguely.


    This is more imagination than knowledge, I thought.


    The sudden influx of new smells hit my nose in a way I was utterly stunned by. It wasn''t just that I could smell far better than before, which I could, but the smells suddenly took on a shape and meaning unlike anything I had ever experienced.


    "Woah," I said, and I could imagine my eyes dilating as if I were on some drug.


    Xandra was standing in front of me and she had just made her own nose become a snout too.


    Along with the rest of her goth-ish look, the addition of a snout gave Xandra a raccoonish look. Her large eyes went wide with the same awe that had taken hold of me too.


    I put the fox hat back on and noticed, through sniffing the air a few times, that Xandra had her own distinct smell. It radiated off her almost like an aura, as if the smell were rising away from her like microscopic debris.


    Make-up, toothpaste, sweat, mud, denim, wool.


    Whilst I could detect each individual scent, as if I were picking each one out in my mind''s eye, I noticed that, in some strange way, there was a ''code'' of sorts that was simply Xandra''s scent.


    But I needed something to contrast the smell with. I averted my gaze from Xandra and noticed the other scent trails in the night.


    There were undoubtedly rabbits nearby. I used to have a pet rabbit called Precious when I was very little, and knew her smell well. The memory of Precious''s smell, which I would never have thought would be something that would come in useful, paired with the rabbit scent trails nearby. I sniffed the air several more times and knew that, if I wanted to, I could follow the rabbit smell all the way to where they might be; most likely the rabbit''s burrow.


    "I can smell you," said Xandra, "Actually, I can smell everything."


    "Everything?" I said, sheepishly.


    "No," said Xandra, "I mean, like, everything around us. But yes I can smell all your smells too."


    I don''t like this, I thought, These powers are just plain creepy to use.


    "Okay," I said, trying to bring us back on track, "You''ve got my smell, and I''m pretty sure I''ve locked onto yours."


    Xandra broke into a giggle.


    "What?" I said, dismayed.


    "You just look funny with your nose like that; sorry," said Xandra.


    "Oh," I said, "Can you concentrate please?"


    "Sorry," said Xandra.


    She grew serious quickly.


    "I can smell rabbits," I said, "Can you?"


    Xandra looked up.


    "Erm, yeah," she said, "I can smell them too."


    "Okay," I said, "Now all we need to do is use the power to match the smell of the rabbits. If we can do that then our scents won''t be tracked by the dogs."


    "But I don''t know how to do that," said Xandra.


    "Oh come on," I said, "It''s all just wishing for the power to do what you need it to do. Don''t you know that?"


    Xandra looked at me as if this was news to her.


    How does she think the power works? I thought.


    "I''ll try first," I said.


    Just like how I had made the effort before to match my body temperature with my surroundings, I internally wished for the power to make my scent match that of the rabbit''s.


    A strange tingling sensation swept over me.


    Xandra''s eyes grew even wider than I thought possible. She sniffed the air with her new snout some more and looked like some cartoon character brought to life; although her overall look was uncannily creepy.


    "Your smell just completely changed," she said.


    She winced, "It''s so confusing because my brain is saying ''rabbit, rabbit, rabbit'', but I can see you''re still just Borges."


    "Burgess," I corrected.


    "Oh, sorry, Burgess."


    It took another minute for Xandra to figure out how to change her smell too. For some reason she seemed to find the process much more difficult. I had assumed she knew how to tap into the power to the same degree I could, instead she seemed to be figuring out the basics of how to even think about asking the power to do what she needed it to.


    She didn''t go through hell at the facility, I thought, So she hasn''t needed to learn as much.


    The smell-aura I knew as ''Xandra'' changed to ''rabbit'' instead. I understood what she meant by how it messed with how she perceived me; because a part of my brain simply would not accept that I was not smelling a rabbit that was standing in front of me. My eyes were telling a different story, and the conflict between the two was bringing about a migraine.


    I heightened my hearing and heard yet again the sound of the dogs approaching.


    "Let''s go," I said.


    I broke into a sprint and Xandra followed close behind.


    "Do you think it''ll work?" she said.


    "It has to," I said, "Or else we''re going to have to resort to Plan B."


    "What''s ''Plan B''?" said Xandra.


    "We''ll have to fight back," I said.