They were hunting her again.
A girl with brunette hair ran through an alleyway. It was just as dark and dingy as the rest of the slums surrounding it, the slums that she called home.
She wore a sweater her boyfriend gave her, paired with black sweatpants and some run-down sneakers. A tiny paper crane dangled from her necklace as she ran.
Her designation was 3487, but her friends called her Trip.
"Dammit, I just saw her!" An angry voice echoed through the alleyway from behind her as she entered another one.
She ran past her apartment building, where her family shared their apartment with another.
"Mom, I'll be home soon. I promise." Trip muttered to herself between breaths as she sprinted.
Her mom was extremely ill, but they didn't have the money to get her proper care. That kind of privilege was stripped away from them when their dad was arrested.
He was convicted when Trip was little. The crime that the Regime most commonly arrested civilians for was heresy, and that was what Trip's dad was convicted of. The arrest came about after he helped a child who was trying to escape the Correctional Forces.
When a family member is convicted of heresy in the United Nations, which controls one hundred percent of the population of earth, their immediate family members are sent to Correctional Areas. Most of the public calls them the slums, because that's what they are.
The thing Trip hated about the slums the most was the income cap. Anything over is taxed into oblivion.
Trip's mother became ill because of the laborious work she was forced into so that her family could survive.
"There she is!" That same voice echoed from around a corner.
A man in a Correctional Forces' uniform turned the corner, sprinting straight at Trip. The uniform was black and white, with a badge that read "Correctional Forces Deputy of the United Nations" in a circle around a globe.
Trip held her arms out, manifesting paper that floated into the space in front of her. The paper folded itself into a staircase, allowing Trip to sprint up onto the roof of the building she was running next to.
The paper staircase collapsed into a pile of paper as Trip made it onto the roof.
"I've already manifested a lot. Hopefully I have enough Spirit to get away." Trip thought.
Ever since that rebel introduced Trip and her boyfriend to Spirit, they had been training day and night to get back at the Officer that had arrested both of their fathers.
Trip barely remembered what the rebel had told her. She had said something about Spirit being alive inside everyone, something about choosing a Mode tied to emotion and 'more Spirit equals stronger' talk. Her own Mode was food, because she'd grown up starving. Trip didn't understand it at the time, but she'd held onto the idea anyway. The rebel tried to explain it to the best of her ability. She had talked about the compound in D.C that she lived in, and the movement they planned to lead against the government, but that was all a bit too much for Trip to think about at the moment.
Like the seventeen year old she was, Trip chose origami as her Mode.
Every day since her mother was diagnosed with her illness, she made ten paper cranes. She believed they were good luck, so she would cherish them like living beings. And so she chose her Mode.
"C'mon, just give up!" The Deputy followed her from the ground.
"Fuck you!" Trip ran on the sweltering tile roofs that made up the majority of the slums.
The Miami sun was hot, but it was all Trip had known.
She tripped over a broken tile, sliding down the roof as she panicked.
Instinctively, she manifested a flurry of paper, making a platform at the bottom of the roof.
Trip slid into the platform, falling straight through it.
"Shit!" Trip exclaimed. She hadn't had enough practice with the strength of the paper, coming from the amount of Spirit she was using to manifest.
Trip fell ten feet down, landing hard on the concrete sidewalk. She felt a sting in her right ankle, wincing at the pain.
"Gotcha now!" The Deputy pointed his firearm at the girl.
"Focus!" Trip told herself. She held her arms in front of her, manifesting a storm of paper.
What seemed like a thousand pieces of paper folded over each other in front of Trip, making a paper shield between her and the Deputy.
The Deputy pulled the trigger, firing one shot into the shield.
Surprisingly, the shield was just barely able to stop the bullet.
"Shit. I'm useless now." The Deputy muttered to himself. He pointed his gun down, holding it with both hands.
"She can block bullets?!" Another Deputy sprinted from around a corner, standing beside the other Deputy.
Trip was surprised herself. She didn't know that she was able to focus that much Spirit into her manifestations.
Trip walked backwards slowly, keeping her shield up in fear of another gunshot. She was now on an open road, but she couldn't care less. Every resident of the slums was either hard at work or sitting in their house, scared to leave it.
"Give up. It's futile." A cold voice came from her left.
She looked over to see another man in a Correctional Forces uniform.
Trip's eyes widened as she noticed the man's headwear.
The cap was pointed, the words "Correctional Forces Officer of The United Nations" circling the globe in the front.
"An Officer?!" Trip thought.
"Officer 1060! You made it!" One of the Deputies rejoiced from behind Trip's shield.
"Do you know how many dissenters I've met just like you? They all died like dogs." Officer 1060 manifested a blade in his right hand, charging at the girl.
Trip turned her shield towards 1060 in a panic. She heard thumping on her paper shield. They moved upwards.
Officer 1060 appeared above Trip, pointing his dagger downwards as he fell.
Trip reacted quickly. Her shield collapsed, the paper folding into dozens of paper planes that shot directly at the Officer.
1060 put his arms before him, trying to block the paper.
Some of them hit him, and even fewer actually pierced his skin.
The Officer landed, removing the paper planes from the mild wounds they had left.
Officer 1060 chuckled as he crumbled the paper planes in his hands.
Trip gritted her teeth, manifesting a dozen pieces of paper. They folded into a sharp point, shooting directly at the Officer.
1060 manifested a dagger. He flipped it in his hand as he examined the angle of the paper attack.
"Bullseye." 1060 muttered to himself. He threw the dagger through the air, heading straight at the paper manifestation.
To Trip's horror, the dagger ripped straight through her paper. It kept its momentum, digging straight into Trip's shoulder.
She screamed in pain, turning to make her escape. She manifested the few pieces of paper she could, wrapping them around her shoulder to stop the bleeding.
Officer 1060 walked behind her, manifesting another dagger.
He threw the blade, hitting the back of Trip's right knee.
She screamed a second time, collapsing onto the ground.
"Deputies, come. I want to show you something." Officer 1060 waved to the Deputies as they sprinted over to him.
The girl clawed at the asphalt, using her last ounce of energy to slide just an inch more.
"This is what you do with filthy rebels like this." Officer 1060 manifested a blade, digging it into Trip's spine.
She screamed a third time. This one was the loudest by far.
The teen began to sob as blood collected in her mouth, "Please!"
"Please what? Do you want mercy now?" Officer 1060 asked.
"Please, let me see my dad one more time. Where did you take him when you arrested him?" Trip asked between coughs.
1060 thought to himself, trying to remember who she might be talking about.
"He's probably rotting away in a grave by now. You'll meet him soon." Officer 1060 held a dagger in his hand as he kneeled down to the girl laying on the asphalt.
He held the blade to her neck, slowly slicing her throat open as blood spilled down her sweater.
Trip began to gurgle. Choking on her own blood would be the last thing she would ever feel.
Trip's vision began to flicker. She thought of her dad's smile, her mom's tired hands, her boyfriend's voice telling her she wasn't alone. Tears welled up in her eyes as she began to feel her strength leave her.
Officer 1060 stood up, wiping his bloody hands on his uniform.
"Amazing, Officer!" One of the deputies rejoiced.
"Alright, backup should get here soon to clean up this mess. Didn't you say something about a boyfriend? Let's go for him next." Officer 1060 said.
"Wait, shouldn't we log this?" A Deputy asked.
"Spirit user neutralized. Teen. Female. Done." Officer 1060 waved his hand as he walked off, "Dinner's on me for the one who finds the boyfriend."
The two Deputies ran to catch up with the Officer, the three of them making their way back to their vehicle.
Trip died in the middle of that street like a dog, just like Officer 1060 said she would. Later, her boyfriend would be killed in a similar manner. The street was cleaned by nightfall.
"Two Spirit users neutralized. Both teens. One male. One female." The Correctional Forces' logs said.
Of course, the public would never know. They didn't even know what Spirit was.