Fallen Angels

Christina’s mind was screaming. Her lungs and body felt as if they were on fire, but she forced herself to keep running. The crunch of the hard dirt under her feet was being drowned out by the sound of her heart pounding in her ears. The warm summer wind blew across her body giving her some relief from the hot sweat running down her face and chest. Her long blond hair was waving in the wind as she ran and her deep blue eyes were filled with terror. The night sky was empty and silent. The moon stared down unforgivingly, as if it knew what was about to happen.

Running hard across the desert she spotted a highway in the distance. I need to get out of here, she told herself. She couldn’t remember how she had gotten here, but she knew she hadn’t walked. Christina wore only a night gown and she knew that she wasn’t prone to sleepwalking. She didn’t know why she was running, only that she was very scared, more scared than she had ever been in her life.

Just before she reached the highway, her bare foot caught on a rock knocking her sprawling to the ground. Her body hit hard against the pavement. She started to lift herself up when she felt a trickle of blood drip down from her nose. She looked at her bare foot that had caught the rock. It had a jagged cut all the way across the top and was bleeding heavily. Wiping the blood away from her nose with her sleeve she slowly turned to look behind her.

The landscape was barren except a few jagged rocks and a several patches of sagebrush. A few mounds of dirt filled her vision. She couldn’t help remembering how much these looked like the sand dunes of the Sahara Desert she had seen in her school books. Then she saw it. She felt as if all her nightmares had come to life. Slowly rising above one of the mounds, she saw an ominous glowing blue light.