The wind howled through the trees, rustling leaves of all colours, knockling some to the ground. She walked through the forest on a path to town. She wore a tank-top and shorts, and it was very cold outside. Her nose was red and runny. She shivered from cold and frioght as an owl hooted in the black, starless night.

A rustling of a bush behind her caused her to turn around and, wide-eyed, she scanned the woods around her for anything potentially menacing.

A raccoon scurried out of a bush and in the opposite direction.

She turned back around and continued walking towards town.

Soon she could see the buildings on the outskirts of town, and this spurred her on in spite of her fatigue.

When she reached the town she noticed quickly that there were no people in the streets. Ironically, a tumbleweed rolled by.

She walked on throuh the town, her pace slowing with every step.

She suddenly got a feeling of not only being alone, but being watched. She ran into a house whose door was open and screamed as someone raised a hand from behind the sofa. The hand groped in the air, froze, then fell with a thump to the ground.

Her hearts seemed to have stopped, but all at once started thumping at a rapid pace. She ran to behind the sofa and gasped: a woman lay there, all torn and shredded in places and bleeding badly. She wheezed, her eyes bulging as she reached her hand out, then dropped it and lay still and lifeless, her eyes staring into nothing. From behind her she heard a crash and turned around to see a fearsome sight: it looked like a human, but strangely tall, grey-skinned, and abnormally scrawny. Its back was hunched and its fingers ended in huge claws. It stood on its tip-toes and its legs were bent at the knee.

She had no time to scream before the house filled with gas and she fell unconscious.

/l\

When she awoke she was lying on a table, her wrists, ankles and neck held down by thick metal bands.

She tried to lift her head but couldn't for the bands.

She saw leaning over her the same creature she had seen in the house grinning madly.

He said something in a language she could not understand, and then more of the same creature gathered around her. One took a key out from somewhere out of her range of vision and unlocked the metal bands. They all looked surprised when she jumped off the table and ran through a long, twisting stone corridor. They each shouted something different, nothing being understandable. She continued through a maze of corridors until she came to a dead end.

She heard a sniffle from beside her and turned to her right to see a little girl lying in a cell.

"Hello," she croaked. Her voice was so scratchy, there was practically no tone to it.

"I'm Sarah," she said. "Who are you?"

"I'm Hannah," she tried to say, but only a whisper came out.

They froze there, Hannah standing against the wall and Sarah lying on the ground in a cell. Sarah had no clothes on and Hannah realized with horror that her stomach was open, revealing purplish slime where her intestines and gut should have been. Then she realized with even more horror, that Sarah's throat was also open, revealing more purplish slime where her larynx should have been.

Hannah felt a cold sweat break out on her forehead and back.

"Who are you?" Hannah asked in a hoarse whisper. "What are you?"

"One," Sarah said, "I do not know anymore. And two... well, I'm not so sure of that, either. All I know is that I cannot die. They've modified me so I cannot die. But that's too bad. I'd give anything... anything to get rid of this... this agony."

They both heard footsteps coming now, they sounded light and padded. They started getting closer, and Hannah started sweating harder. When the grey creatures came into view, Hannah saw that they took slow strides, and seemed to float in the air a little as if they were on the moon. She rushed past them and they looked surprised once again, then turned around and started running after her.