Furious

Chapter One

Running away from your problems never solved anything, but it helped. My issues and the cul de sac behind me seemed to shrink with every slap of my shoes against the pavement. In fact, they were now more minute annoyances rather than true "problems".

Ta da.

The neighborhood slept as I ran, slowing to a jog, eventually a walk. The air was peaceful; the world around me full of snoring people who dreamed and hogged the covers and wet the bed and would wake up in the morning feeling well-rested and refreshed.

As long as I was out here, moving, I pretended I was refreshed and careless as the sleepers tucked into their beds.

My slow pace came to a complete halt. I considered turning back, facing the annoyances that would once again become problems the moment I crossed the threshold of our 50s ranch and re-entered the real world. That's when the ground split open.

Pure chaos turned my ears inside out as the pavement before my feet erupted, spitting light and heat from the depths of the earth out into the cool night air. I stumbled backwards on unsteady legs while the world shook in an unnatural earthquake, ripping open the street where I had been standing.

Like a scene from a bad disaster movie, the computer generated kind, a crack grew in the street, stretching until it reached the curb on either side, completely cutting off my path; chunks of pavement fell into the abyss below, a light shone from the pit, contrasting the darkness of the street above it. With a final thunderous ripple through the ground, the crack finished its growth spurt, satisfied at its length. I lost my footing and landed on my ass mere feet from the chasm.

The noise died abruptly, leaving only lingering, timid quiet. No car alarms, no investigative neighbors, no barking dogs to alert the world to the Home Owner's Association nightmare of a pothole that boldly split the road in two.

The good news: I had a front row center view to witness the thing that emerged from the chasm in the earth.

The bad was the thing came out of the chasm in the earth.

"Hello, Autumn," he said, as if instead of appearing out of a giant chasm in the street he had simply bumped into me at the grocery store, as if it were just another Tuesday.

My mouth fell open in response; I was dreaming. I had to be dreaming. I tripped and hit my head and I was dreaming. Dreaming of a handsome, mysterious man who knew my name and had come to save me from the horrors of graduation and college and the Real World—because I am the pragmatic type and this is how we deal with issues, sensibly and realistically.

Even in my dreams I never could have imagined a man so equally striking and frightening. His dark eyes promised chaos and adventure and anything my heart desired if I just took a bite of the proverbial apple. Yep—definitely a dream.

He Who Knew My Name kept speaking and I, from my position on the ground looking up at him, wondered why none of my neighbors had come to inspect the damage to the street. Somebody could lose a car in that crack. Or a child. I waited to feel outrage at the disturbance on the neighbors' behalf, the audacity of it to show up in our quiet suburb. That thing was going to hurt somebody. And yet not a soul came to check on the earthquake or the girl caught in its wake.

There goes the neighborhood.

I remembered an ethics discussion from the fall semester about the murder of Kitty Genovese and the dozen or so neighbors who heard her cries for help and did nothing. If I cried out, would anyone come running?

If I cried out in the dream would it be enough to startle me awake?

In the back of my head I knew I should feel something intense, fear maybe, or shock. But all I could come up with was curiosity.