Aspen

            Aspen awoke to the sound of the damn songbirds outside her window. The moment her eyes opened that surreal feeling that she was still in a dream hit her and she closed them again. Those damn songbirds weren't shutting up. So nope, no such luck. The night before…it had been horrible. She'd had an encounter in the mall with that monster thing and that young boy.  He'd saved her, or at least distracted the monster while she got that…vision. And that power. As she sat up and pushed the covers back, she looked down in amazement at the hand that had wielded the sword and shook her head.

            It was time for school soon anyway. Maybe if she just concentrated on going to classes, it would stay a dream like thing and the full impact of how scary this was wouldn't hit her. Aspen's feet swung around and hit the cold bare floor and she stood, walking to her dresser and pulling out a bra and a pair of panties, and a pair of jeans and a tight t-shirt. She walked into the bathroom adjoining her room and turned on the hot water in the shower before turning to examine herself in the mirror.

            Aspen was a classic beauty with delicate features and dark blonde hair that she allowed to fall about her shoulders. Her eyes were blue and she had aquiline features that made her look like a poster girl. Her body was slender and had womanly curves that caught the eye, though naked at the moment with the big bruise on her shoulder and the cuts from where that thing had bit her just above her full right breast made her grimace. She turned and got into the shower, allowing it to ease the tension in her muscles she hadn't even realized she'd had when she woke up.

            She got dressed in a hurry and headed out to her Honda Civic, her backpack slung over her left shoulder. The December wind was bitingly cold, but it carried no snowflakes. It was almost a gyp, she mused. All that miserable cold weather without any of the fun of being able to play in the snow!

            A sight that made Aspen drop her backpack on the ground with a loud thud interrupted her musings. Her neighbor Mister Rawlins was outside fetching his morning paper, but there was something WRONG about him. To her sight he seemed to have black veins pulsing with thick sludgy black blood on an almost translucent skin instead of just plain old Mister Rawlins the real estate broker.

            When he looked up at Aspen, she scrambled to pick her backpack up and get in her car, backing out of her driveway and flooring the pedal so that her tires squealed as she shot out onto the street. The drive to college was the same, everywhere she looked, hidden among normal unsuspecting people, were monsters. They all looked different to her, and they all looked WRONG. It made her want to scream.

            Aspen's day didn't get any better. When she got out of school, she went home and locked all of her doors, having seen more of them on the way home. She had broken out into a sweat and was beginning to seriously doubt her sanity. There had to be someone else that was experiencing this. Maybe Darius! Yes, the boy who'd given him her number!

            Aspen ran to the bathroom and began rummaging around in the hamper until she found the bloodstained jeans she'd worn the night before. She lifted them out and shook them a couple of times before rifling through the pockets to find the number the kid had given her.

            She couldn't dial the phone fast enough. The phone rang three times before someone picked it up.

            "Hello?" It was the kid's voice, she knew it.

            "Darius? It's Aspen…can you come over? I feel like last night was so…surreal…and I'm seeing them…everywhere and…" Aspen trailed off. She felt a lump rising in her throat as she struggled to control her fear. No sense scaring the kid too.

            "Oh, hi there Aspen." Darius had a coy tone in his voice that she recognized from guys that thought they were flirting, or possibly shy because they thought she was flirting. It wasn't something she could put up with.

            "Can you come over or not?!" She barked into the phone. There was a moment of surprised silence on the other end of the line.

            "Yeah, sure…geez. Chill. Where do you live?" He said after a minute. Aspen rattled off her address, repeating it once so she could be sure he got it. "I'll be there soon as I can." Darius said, and hung up without further ado. Now all she could do was wait for him to come over.