Hiders & Seekers

“1…2…3…run and hide away from me. 4…5…6…hush and don’t say anything. 7…8…9…pick a spot cause there’s no time. 10! Ready or not, here he comes!” a multitude of voices sang. I loved playing games. Just about anything really. Board games, card games, puzzles, and even video games. You name it, cause I’ve most probably played it! I especially enjoyed games where I get to move my body around a lot. If someone asked me, what my favorite game was… I’d probably say it was hide-and-go-seek. Why? Well one, I'm a very good seeker. And two, I’m a very good hider or at least...I thought I was until I met my matchmaker.

“He won’t be able to find me this—”

“BOO!”

“Ah!” I jumped up in surprise and turned so quickly that I fell hard to the ground. 

“Ouch!” I cried out. I glared up at the boy standing over me who had a grin plastered on his face.

“Are you alright?” he questioned and held a hand out towards me. I stared at his outstretched hand and accepted it. 

“How’d you find me so fast Alexei? It hasn’t even been 5 minutes since we started the game.” I questioned as soon as I got back on my feet.

“Hmm…” he hummed and bent down to dust off the dirt I got on myself. 

“Let’s just say you’re way too easy to find.” he said, looking up at me after dusting me off. 

“No, I’m not!” I huffed. 

“I’m always the last one to be found by the others and sometimes even then they can’t find me until I come out.” I said as we headed back to the starting point where I’d have to wait until Alexei found everyone else. 

“Well they’re just not as good as me,” he said proudly. I rolled my eyes. 

“It’s not fair. I’m just as good a seeker, but I can’t ever seem to find you.” 

“Oh? Do you want me to make it easier so that next time you can find me first too?” 

“What?! No way! That’d make me a sore loser! You better not go easy on me or else I’m gonna get mad.” I fummed.  

“Haha. Alright. I won’t go easy on you.” 

“Good! Besides, it's only a matter of time before I improve my skills so that you won’t be able to find me so quickly.” I declared and folded my hands behind my head. Suddenly Alexei stopped walking beside me. 

“Alexei?” I turned around and called out to him.

“...That won’t happen.”

“What?” I asked. He smiled with that face of his which I could never seem to read.  

“No matter how far you run…No matter how much you hide…I’ll always find you.” He said in a calm, clear voice and for some reason, I believed him. No matter how hard I hid, he would always find me and no matter how much I seeked, I could never find him. He was always a step ahead of me, but I made sure I would always match his pace and not be too far behind…

“Thump!” My eyelids flew open as I woke from my thoughts. I quickly looked in the direction from where the sound came. A doe and her fawn were standing under a tree and a lump of snow had just fallen from the branches above. I breathed a sigh of relief. The doe must have been trying to get the upper parts of the tree bark. I slowly got up from the broken branch I was sitting on and brushed off the snow that had fallen on me while I was lost in my thoughts. I took in a deep breath of the fresh cold air and breathed out a foggy mist. It was a beautiful winter morning and the snow seemed to glitter under the soft sun which was playing its own game of hide and seek with the clouds. I glanced at the doe and fawn who had their ears perked up and were looking my way. 

“It’s alright.” I said in a soft voice and held up my hand in an attempted gesture to not scare away the creatures. I slowly made my way towards them with neither of us breaking eye contact. I was about a couple of feet away from them before I slowly lowered myself to the ground in a crouching pose. The two deers still had not moved an inch, which was surprising. I then held out a hand.

“Come.” I  whispered. Neither of the deers moved. 

“It’s alright. I won’t hurt you.” A couple of minutes passed and the first one to make a move was the fawn. It slowly started to make its way over towards me and I could see the mother worried.

“I won’t hurt him.” I reassured her. At times I think that animals might be able to understand human speech because the doe gave a slight nod. I nodded and the fawn glanced back at his mother before moving towards me once more. It was now a couple of inches away from my hand and started to sniff it. I chuckled. 

“I can assure you my hands are clean.” I whispered. After a couple more sniffs, it nuzzled my hand with its nose. It then licked it. 

“Pff. Sorry, but I’m not food.” I said rubbing its cheek and ears with my outstretched hand. 

“Gosh, this feels like I’m meeting little Bambi in real life.” I grinned. I then slowly stood up and patted the fawn on its side. 

“Come on now. Let’s go to your mama.” I started to walk towards the doe and the fawn trotted next to me already having become docile. The mother just as easily let me pat it like the fawn had. I then looked up at the tree and the bark that was just out of the mother’s reach. I then took out my pocket knife and cut off some pieces and laid them near the foot of the tree. The mother and child rushed towards the food laid out for them. 

“Take your time. There’s more where that came from.” I said cutting off some more pieces. As the two of them were eating, I glanced further up at the tree and saw each of its branches glistening with red winter berries. Beautiful on the outside, but poisonous on the inside. I looked at it for a second longer before plucking one from a branch and plopping it in my mouth. Instantaneously my mouth was filled with a cold, bitter taste that eventually had a slight sweetness to it. I’ve had numerous of these berries during my childhood and I’m practically immune to its poisons. That includes the most well-known poisons. Perks to being raised by a family whose duty was to become one of the pillars that support society. I plucked another one and was about to gulp it down when I saw out of the corner of my eye the fawn looking up my way or rather, right at the red gem in my hand. 

“Do you want to have a taste? I can assure you though, it won’t sit right with your stomach.” I said but the fawn just kept looking expectantly. I looked towards the fawn and she looked my way. Without even saying my thoughts aloud on whether it was alright to feed its child these poisonous berries, she gave the slightest of nods.

“Oh…you’ve had these before.” I said rather amused. She must have been developing his immune system to make it stronger against poisons because, during desperate times, one might have to rely on eating the many different forms of the fruit of sin. How interesting. This mother and child reminded me so much of my mother and me…

I started to pluck off some more winter berries and laid them out in front of them. I watched the deers eat while munching on a handful of berries. 

“Now then, I wonder where Ilya and Yuri wandered off to?” I said aloud. 

***

“Where did that damn fool wander off to this time?!” Yuri cried out, which resulted in a flock of birds flying off from a nearby tree. 

“Calm down you nitwit. Your outbursts aren’t doing us any good.” I countered back.

“Noah might hear me, Ilya. Then I can haul his ass right on back before I pound him into a snowball.” Yuri roared back.

“He’ll find us regardless of your yelling. He knows these woods better than any of us. And besides, there’s no point in you searching all willy nilly. Unless Noah wants to be found, we won’t ever find him.” I said and let out a heavy sigh.

“Ilya did you forget that right now Noah’s being hunted by one of the oldest orders in existence and they almost got their hands on him?!” Yuri yelled. I stopped walking and he stopped just ahead of me.

“...It was only that one time…it won’t happen again.” I whispered. 

“Oh come on Il! How can you keep deluding yourself?” Yuri raged. He was more upset than usual and that was because Noah kept ghosting us whenever he got the chance. It caused us more worry, but we knew that Noah wasn’t doing it on purpose. He just got lost in his thoughts and memories of him and Yuki…

“Once? Seriously? They were able to get to Noah in what was ‘supposedly’ one of the safest places in the world! That incident was a warning. For Christ's sake, Alexei and June got shot!” I flinched recalling that incident. Everything the order did was to isolate Noah away from us and it worked. After the funeral of June’s older brother, Noah disappeared without a trace. Alexei was still in the hospital and all that Noah left behind was a letter that told us not to look for him. The order had succeeded in separating us and for 6 months, no matter how hard we searched, we couldn’t find Noah. 

 “That wasn’t an accident! It was set up with the purpose to get Noah away from us. Don’t forget, they can get to him anytime they want to. The only reason they haven’t yet is because they’re waiting to see what secrets Yuki had left with Noah regarding the order. That’s the only reason…they’re even keeping him alive.” Yuri whispered the last words as if he’s still afraid to come to terms with everything that’s been going on. Our worlds have been turned completely upside down ever since we learned about Yuki. His name was both a curse and a blessing for us all. He gave us something our parents never did and even sacrificed his life so that we’d be able to live a normal life, even if it was only for a few years. Though he may not have ever wanted us to, we’d do anything, anything at all, just to get him back. And we all plan to go through with it. Especially Noah… 

“You're right. I’m sorry Yuri. I’ll make sure we don’t lose sight of Noah again.” I said and put my hands in the pocket of my winter coat. 

“Yeah…yeah ok…also—” 

“Hm?” Yuri started to ruffle his hair and made an annoyed face. 

“Sorry for lashing out. I was just taking my anger out on you.” I could see his ears turn red. I chuckled. 

“Well, this is a first. Yuri Kuznetsov apologising? The snow must be playing tricks on me.” I teased. 

“Oh shut up Ilya!” Yuri fumed, turning even redder. I smiled. 

“Anyway, let’s just go find that bastard before he—” suddenly we heard the sound of several footsteps in the snow and voices just ahead of us. I immediately reached for the gun on my waist but froze. 

“Are you sure he’s here?” A familiar voice questioned in an annoyed tone. 

“The cameras picked up someone who looked like Noah about 3 hours ago and I’m telling you for about the millionth time, my facial recognition software said it was an exact match to Noah.” 

“Not like it wasn’t wrong before.”

“That was cause you—” 

“Calm the hell down you two. You’re giving me a damn headache.” 

“Well excuse me, your majesty!”

“Lucas shut up and June please.”

“I’m pretty sure that was Noah and he was also with—”

“It was him.”

“Thanks for backing me up, Mr. Obsessive Pants!”

“Ahem! As I was saying, he was also with Ilya and Yuri so I’m sure that he’s—”

Suddenly we came face to face with five of our friends who we hadn’t seen since Noah came to us and we went off the grid with him. We all froze looking at one another and the only thing that was running through my mind was that we had to find Noah and get the hell away from them. They can’t meet. If they do, he's going to run away again!

“What are you two—” Alexei started to speak but another voice spoke out to us and I was instantly filled with dread. 

“Shit!” Yuri cursed and I spun around so fast and saw Noah walking over towards us looking at a map and not noticing what was going on ahead. This is bad. This is very bad.

***

I saw Ilya and Yuri up ahead and smiled to myself. I should surprise them. I was a bit sad that I had to leave little Bambi and his mother, but I made sure they were well fed before I went off to find the two. I took out the map and a red marker and marked off the place I went to. I still had three more places to search, but I had a feeling that they’d be dead ends. I was missing something, but I didn’t know what…

“Ilya! Yuri! Where’d you guys disappear off to?” I said aloud not looking at them since I was folding up the map and tucking it and the red marker away. 

“Guess what, I saw the cutest deers and I swear they looked just like Bambi and his—” I looked up and froze just a couple steps behind Ilya.

“mother…” I said under my breath. Sanding right before me were Ilya and Yuri and just ahead of them were the friends who I hadn’t seen in 6 months. I glanced at each of them before my eyes landed on Alexei who was standing at the head of the group. We stared at each other transfixed. 

“Noah.” He said my name out loud and for an instance, the image of his childhood self overlapped with the present him. 

“Is that really you?” Ben questioned. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even breathe. It’s as if my legs had turned to lead and I forgot how to breathe. This wasn’t supposed to happen…

I suddenly forced a leg back and immediately Alexei took a step forward. 

“Don’t.” He warned. I knew that look in his eyes all too well. It was a warning. What I was about to do next might have been futile, but it was as if my instincts took over me. I had to run away from here. From them. Now. 

I took another step back. 

“Noah?” Lucus called out worriedly. Without another word I turned around and ran. 

“NOAH!” I heard June cry out from behind me and the sound of footsteps following in pursuit.

“Run…Keep on running…And don’t look back.” Yuki’s voice rang in my ears. My thoughts were all a mess. My throat stung from the cold air. My legs ached, but I still pounded them into the snow and ran with all my might. 

I’m a fast runner, but he was faster. I’m a good seeker, but he was always better. I’m a good hider, but he was always the first one to find me. I might have been able to get away from the others, but not him. Not for a second time. Suddenly, something fast rushed out towards me from my side and before I had a chance to react, I was tackled to the ground. 

“Damn it!” I cried out and thrashed at whatever lunged at me, but it grabbed both my arms, and I was instantly pinned to the ground. I closed my eyes as pain shot up through me. I heard a string of curse words in a foreign language and opened my eyes and was looking directly at a familiar pair of moonstone eyes. We were both breathing heavily and though I tried to get out from under him, he wouldn’t even budge an inch.   

“How dare you?” His accent was thicker and laced with so much hatred. 

“How dare you run away once again?!” He spat out and I grimaced. I knew he would be angry, but I didn’t expect it to be to this extent. I tried to say something, but nothing came out. What was I even supposed to say? I left because you got hurt. I couldn’t protect anyone. They’re only after me, so you’ll be safe as long as you stay away from me. 

Suddenly Alexei placed his head on my chest and I flinched.

“Please…” His voice broke and I saw him shake. This was the first time I saw Alexei like this and I knew it’s because of what I had done. 

“Please don’t run away…just…stay here with me…” his voice broke and I felt the tears start to stream down my face. 

“Please…” He said once more. I stared up at the sky that was raining down its beautiful snow. There’s so much I want to say. I need to do this. I have to go. I need to find…Yuki. That’s why I forced myself to say these words even through all the tears and my voice breaking. 

“I…can’t.”