She loved it when the leaves changed their colors, and that's why the fall was her favorite season. She loved seeing every leaves all go from the standard green to an array of various colors. Reds. Golds. Yellows. Oranges. But then, after that, the frail little leaves fell to the ground and turned into dirt. It was a sad ending to a natural process.

In fact, you could say that Deidra was somewhat envious of this process of change. In a way similar to the changing colors in the leaves, humans grow older, changing from babies to children to teenagers to adults. Deidra, as every other human, was no different. She did look like a teenager, however, despite being so close to twenty-one years old, she looked a mere seventeen. She hated it, it was the only annoyance that really got to her. What really bugged her was those occasional stares from older adults whenever she was with her boyfriend, David. At twenty-three, he was a few inches taller than her, very tan, and had a rather impressive beard. He was the opposite of Deidra in regards to his appearance, looking a few years older than he really was. She hated the awkward glances that people would give her, as if she was messing around with someone far beyond her years.

But luckily, she found a way to deal with her stress. She and David had taken some time out of their daily routine and decided to go on a road trip. They wanted to hit every single state together. Even the boring ones.

That's how they ended up in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by corn. They drove for miles and miles upon miles. All they saw was corn. Deidra sighed, "You know, David," she said, "I did think that this would be a bit more exciting."

David smiled and looked over at her, "Are you telling me that this isn't fun? Are you kidding? I was thinking that we could break a world record. Imagine it in the headlines: "Young Couple Breaks World Record for Longest Time Staring at Corn"!".

"Or how about this one: "Most Stubborn Man in the World Drives for Two Days without Asking for Directions because He is Convinced He Knows Where He's Going"?". Deidra joked.

David laughed. Suddenly he yelled "Whoa!". To which Deidra immediately answered "What?!" with a slightly panicked tone.

"Look at those gas prices!" David laughed. "Those are the lowest we've seen in awhile! Let's stop just for the heck of it!"

Deidra looked at the gas station and sighed. She felt uneasy in this area. She recalled the sign that she saw earlier, welcoming her to the small town of Gatlin. Now she felt nervous, seeing this dingy, run-down gas stop. As David pulled in, Deidra yanked out the map. "David, this town isn't even on here," she said after looking.

"Bull, that's the newest version. It has side roads and everything, you're probably looking at the wrong state or something," David teased as he got out of their car and looked for the serviceman to pay for the gas before he pumped it. He walked over to the garage and looked in through the dirty windows. He knocked on them. "Hello?" he called. He looked back towards his girlfriend, who was still looking at the map. "Damn, Dei, there's no one here!"

She didn't look up, "Let's go. I'm telling you, this town is not on the map and this station is a dive!" She looked up at David. He was facing her, walking towards her. She was relieved to get going. But something wasn't right. The background was off. It was shaking, moving back and forth by what appeared to be a black smoke. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a black smoke shot out of the corn stalks and slammed itself into David, who was knocked out cold. At that moment, kids started to appear. Deidra screamed.

~...*...~

Author's Note: Hello, everyone! I'm baaack (with a cliffhanger at that)! I really missed writing for this site. I plan on having a few new stories come out and this one is one of the ones that I enjoy working on the most. This is a collab with (LiveFoREVer93), where we switch off every other chapter. This chapter was written by yours truly, and the next will be written by Deidra. The title for this story comes from the song of the same name by the band Being As An Ocean, as the two works have similar themes (check that song out!). We hope you enjoy and please take some time to review, we'd love to hear your opinions.