It was perhaps the fresh air that did her good or maybe was it that everything around her was new, but once outside and far enough from the laboratory, she had forgotten all about her monster. She paused on the landscape before her, eyes on this new world she discovered in black and white.

While our young deranged discovers the landscape before her, let’s take, if you please, a moment to describe her : she was a small frail girl and by looking at her, no one would believe she was about eighteen or nineteen years old. In fact, she did not seem older than fifteen. Flat as a board and with her short hair, she could easily be mistaken for a boy. No need to hide it, this would happen more than once in the future. What drew attention to her was those attributes we give to the cat and which we talked about earlier. Perched on her head and as blonde as her hair sat two fully functional triangular ears, one of which, the left one to be precise, was now punched by the bullet that had grazed her earlier. Behind her was a tail which was the same color as her ears. It was in some places covered with bandages, attached by small loops and a few clumps of hairs came out of the strips. An eye patch covered her right eye, and it was a green iris that paced the horizon, as the wind caressed the thin white hospital gown she was wearing. Her name was Split. Split Verdeel.

Eventually she noticed the sharp pain that pounded in her ear. Placing a hand on the wound, she winced. She then took a look at her fingers, now covered with a dark liquid. She licked them clean and looked around her. What was she supposed to do now ? For sure, she would not return to the laboratory, in fear that the monster would still be there. The best thing to do was to get away and she decided that venturing into the forest would be a good idea. There would be plenty of places to hide if the monster were to chase her all the way there. However, she had not taken three steps until something caught her attention. She turned her head to see a creature that she knew far too well. She held out a hand in order to catch it, unsuccessfully. That wasn’t new. She never managed to get her hands on him, no matter how hard she tried, as if the creature was always just a little too far, just out of reach.

To briefly expose this thing she was seeing, which was nothing more than the fruit of her imagination, picture yourself a light bulb. A black and purple jelly bulb as big as your fist, with laughing eyes and a broad smile, a serpentine tail holding a cane and a top hat on it’s head. And because everything must have a name, our young demented friend had called this thing Goudron. There were three Goudron, one large and two small. This one was the big one.

Said Goudron turned to race off into the forest and Split decided to pursue him, reaching out from time to time to close her fingers on nothingness. Every time, she heard the little creature mocking her with a shrill laugh. When the thing went through a tree, the girl crashed into it head-on and fell in the leaves, dazed. While she ran, a few branches had scratched her face but she did not care. She didn’t even feel it. She wanted to catch Goudron at all costs and steal his hat. She stood up and looked around her to find her friend, but he was gone.

- Goudron ?

She uselessly sought for him in the area, turning over every stones and digging into the piles of leaves. She frowned with a childish pout when she realized she couldn’t find him, and resumed her course. She began to feel hungry as the sun was high in the sky but nothing around her seemed edible. She walked a few hours and each of her steps were crackling the dead leaves on the ground. Breaking the stillness and the silence of the forest, alerting the few wild animals living there. She saw some of them, who fled as soon as they saw her and she watched them with wonder as they disappeared among the branches. Needless to say, they were much more impressive and far more beautiful than in the picture books.

When she met a hare, she decided to hunt it in order to eat it ; although, the animal was fast, she quite easily kept the pace but things went out of control when the string that fastened her eye patch got caught on a branch. She fell back and the eye patch remained hooked. It was undoubtedly the worse thing that could happen in this place and season.

Her left eye was green and saw in black and white, that was not the case with the right eye, which was blue and saw in color. With that said, seeing both in color and black and white at the same time was quite annoying for her so she had made an habit of using one eye at a time and if she was blinding the right one, it was because she did not like certain colors, like red, for example, that triggered in her a frenzy of legendary violence. Everything red had to be destroyed and simply hiding the blue eye again was not an option she could think of. She now had to destroy and spray to nothings all that she had in horror and annihilating all those leaves would most likely take her days or even weeks.

She began her destructive work, crushing the dead leaves that littered the ground, horrified. She destroyed it with her hands, her teeth and her bare feet until she realized, in a movement, that she had blood on her gown. Worse than red in her field of vision was to have red on herself. She panicked and ripped the thin fabric, throwing it on the ground to stomp on it and drag it in the dirt, until she could no longer see the color of blood on it. Fortunately for her, the wound on her ear had already made a crust, stopping the blood from dripping. Now meagrely dressed, Split resumed her leaf crunching with a memorable rage and in a state of mind similar to the one she displayed in the laboratory, until exhaustion took the best of her a few hours later. She collapsed on the ground, losing consciousness as the night slowly began to fall.

A scream rose, hoarse and bruised. The alarm seemed to her like it was ripping her eardrums. Both hands pressed against her ears, crushing and hurting them, she was throwing herself against the walls, peoples, and anything that could be on her way. Her approach was frantic, panicked. Escape. She had to run away, leave this noisy place where the lights flickered constantly, restricting her to properly see the environment which was in front of her. She only had one eye, sort of, an eye that did not see as well as her pursuers ; even though her sight was a big disadvantage, she did possess something they did not : madness. She could also take advantage of her small size, she was light and skillful enough to avoid those men and women who, armed with syringes full of sedative, were nervously trying to catch her.

She threw herself into a room, retreating against the back wall while three male nurses approached cautiously. Between the flashes of light, she saw their lips moving, but the alarm’s chirping concealed her full attention, thus she did not hear what was meant to be soothing words. With a cry resembling one of a beast, she threw herself on one of the men, leaping to grab his head and bite his nose. She easily tore out a piece of it and the poor scientific collapsed on the floor, writhing in pain. Taking advantage of this brief moment, the other two had tried to push their syringes in the skin of the young demented girl but as she moved, they did no better than to break their needles, whose tip was left embedded in her arm. She threw them on the ground while struggling like a kitten and ran back into the hallway, where they once again tried to capture her.

As a matter of fact, what she fled from were not these men and women nor this place. What she fled was following her wherever she went and if she could not always see it, that thing, she knew it was there, somewhere nearby. In the corner, behind her, above. Or so she thought.

The way out was close by. Surprisingly, she had managed to clear a path from the bottom of the laboratory. She had progressed rapidly, wounding many workers and even killing some. Flee. Her instincts prevailed over her unsteady mind, pushing her to behave like a beast and what could one do against a mad dog ? She might be crazy but she was not totally stupid. Traps didn’t work with her and it seemed like the only thing that could slow her progression resumed to brute force. However, even the security guards struggled to stop her. Electric guns had no impacts on her, or rather they did not gave the desired effect. Instead of halting and limiting her movements, they made her all the more violent and agitated. The only way might have been to use real guns, but with the scientists running in all directions, the risk of hurting an innocent man was far too great.

Some researchers tried to flee through the front door and she decided to follow them. If they were going in this direction, if they were as panicked as she was, were they seeing the same thing as her ? Did they also came across this huge thing, this horrible creature veiled with hands and eyes, with it’s mouth so big and granted with such long teeth that simply looking at them gave the impression that they were already ripping your skin ? She wanted to scream for help, but for now, the only sounds she could produce were cries of distress, shrill screams that would give you the shivers.

She tripped on a medication cart and fell head first onto the concrete floor. When she turned on her back to settle from under the wagon, she saw her monster, that thing that was chasing her. In no time she was back on her feet to escape from the fruit of her nightmares when a hand grabbed her by the ear.

Her ears and tail were probably the most easy to grab on her lean person. Similar to limbs of a large cat, they were also the most sensitive on her whole body. However, if in other circumstances she would have stopped, this was not one of those. She struggled, and showed her teeth. The guard tightened his grip on her when she decided to resume her course. Strident pain hammered her head and chills ran up her back but she kept running. The monster was just behind.

The guard lost his grip on her and seeing that she approached the exit door, aware that it would be a threat if she were to find herself outside, he decided to draw his weapon and aimed at her head.

- Do not shoot ! cried a voice behind him.

A man and woman stopped at his height, but the security guard was not listening. Losing a specimen or making more victims, the choice for him was quite simple. He had seen enough already.

- Do not shoot !

He pulled the trigger and to the two scientist’s relief, the projectile only brushed her ear. The demented young girl jumped, clapped a hand against the wound and, persuaded that it was her monster that had just bitten her, she uttered a cry of terror and quickened her pace. She then threw herself against the glass doors a few time to break it down rather than open it as anyone else had done and when the glass finally gave in, she rushed out. The guard tried to follow for a while, but soon, his breath failed him and his legs gave way under him. She was free.