Kats eyes fluttered open from the slight vibration from the old van they where in hitting a rock. She look over at the man sitting beside her. His face glistened with sweat. "Conner, Where are we?" she said stretching. He looked over at her, pushing caramel brown hair from his eyes.

"Texas." he answered. "Travis county." She yawned.

"Frik, I've been sleeping forever!" he laughed and nodded.

Her chocolate eyes fell back to the road inspecting where they where driving, even though there was nothing to see. Miles and miles of dirt topped with a forever blue sky cooking under the trade mark Texas sun. "It's so quiet." Kat noted looking back over at her best friend. He nodded.

"Its nice…it'll be good to get away from everything back home. I think this is the best choice we've ever made." she nodded looking back out.

"Is that a building?" she asked, pointing out the window. He nodded a reply of yes. "Maybe we should stop here for a couple minutes. Stretch our legs." She said looking over at him again. He replied the same way, pulling over and stopping. Instantly Kat jumped from the oven of a car onto the Texas ground, looking up at the big building before her.

"it's a meat packing facility. . ." Said Conner from behind her. "Probably used to kill them here to. . .there not open anymore but if you don't want to stay, I understand." he was referring to Kats Vegetarian life style. Kat glared at the building as if it were a person but shook her head.

"We'll only be here for a little. I'm ganna walk around back and see what's there."

Connor nodded. "be careful katty."

Kat shook her head at the random nickname before crossing her arms and walking in the direction of a unique looking tree.

Halfway there she looked back seeing the back doors of the van slam closed. He was probably going to lay down. She turned back to the tree in question. It had a large lump growing out of the side of it. Like a bubble. She saw trees like this all over the places but they still intrigued her. She reached out and touched the tree lightly with the tips of her fingers. Her light purple hair flowing in the breeze, black bandana being used as a hair band soaking up the sweat caused by the hot sun, her tattered, torn and patched jeans that went down to the heel of her mismatched purple and lime green Converses with red shoelaces. All this was topped off with her black and white Rob Zombie shirt.

To anyone watching -especially from Texas- she would have looked like an alien. And someone was watching her. And it wasn't Conner. Conner was dead asleep already, being cooked in his own perspiration inside the van. The man watching was a local. Slowly, as so not to startle this new found creature, he stepped out from the decaying building behind her. His eyes were locked on her and he wasn't watching where he was going,

Kat was brought back to reality by the loudest crash she had ever heard. Her body became stiff and she spun around. She looked at the van first but nothing looked out of place there. Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement. She spun her head quickly in the

direction and locked eyes with a huge man. Her mouth fell open. He wasn't just huge, in Kats eyes he was enormous. It was probably just her mind playing a trick on her though.

The man had wavy -or matted; she couldn't tell- brown hair, which framed his face. Not that she could see much of his face. He was wearing a mask of some sort. It reminded her of a muzzle. He was adorned in brown clothes that looked like he had worn them all his life. Kat stared at him. She wanted to say something but it was almost as if her mind didn't remember how to make words. She closed her mouth quickly and looked down at the ground before looking back up at the man standing a mere ten feet away from her. She had almost thought he would evaporate into thin air before her eyes. Like a ghost. But he didn't. instead he looked down. His shoulders hunched. Was he cowering? She could have sworn she saw fear in his eyes.

Slowly, she raised her hands. A way of saying 'I'm not going to hurt you' and also her way of showing she had no weapons on her. And against all her better judgment, she started walking toward him.