Every nerve in Olivias body felt as if it were on plugged consciously into her brain. Her eyes seemed to focus on details near or far in a way far more precise than usual. She could feel thin currents of warm air pass across her arms and legs. The sound of every call of a bird, every whisper of wind through the grasses was magnified to a point that she could feel the vibrating of the birds vocal cords or the quivering of the heavy grains at the tops of the stalks. Her feet in her boots were sweaty, her socks felt rough against her toes. She felt a surge of energy at the base of her spine that ran between her legs and then back up her spine to her brain.
She knew someone was out there watching her. She knew they meant her harm. She knew that if she made one false move, if she gave them a chance, then some violent force would slam into her body and render it useless leaving her only a few precious seconds for her brain to process what the meaning of her life had been. She wasn’t ready for that. She had something to finish. Something here at Arkhara, but also something larger, something that was still ahead. She flattened herself to the ground and found a small trail through the Weeping Pea Shrub and Ginseng plants that populated the bog around here. She slithered on her belly like a garter snake, low to the ground as she could keep herself. She moved as slowly as she could stand and kept going until she felt she would go insane if tried to move another foot forward. She stopped and listened again, imagined her ears standing up from her head and twisting independently trying to find any sounds that were out of place, that were human. There was nothing she could identify. She pushed on her forearms and slowly raised her head above the level of the vegetation that had been her refuge. When her eyes topped the canopy, she carefully swiveled to scan her surroundings. Nothing moved. She wondered if she had become paranoid. Delusional.