A distance off, towards the Western end of the [i]Sement [/i]road, the towering stalks of nigh-forgotten wheat rustled on the southern side of the road. Those closer the road bent out against each other as those further in were parted by a vigorous force of hand. There within the field, one hundred feet south of the paved pathway, a ‘modestly’ clad, dark-haired girl pushed her way through the grain as though it were some insufferable drove of city-dwellers. If an onlooker could have seen her face, the expression would have confirmed such an outlook: the tall growth was little more than an obstacle to overcome, however trivial it was. 

So, the dark-haired girl, ferocity practically etched like stone-carving onto her face, and an obvious fire blazing in her eyes, forced her way, unabating, through the wheat field towards the road she understood to be on the other side.
Unabated, that was, until a calamity pried her attention away her course. 

She was nearly fifty feet out from the road when, through the overhead clearing she had produced for herself, she took note of the obvious, and altogether atypical, shift in the atmosphere. The flashing rush of blood-red was first to catch her eyes, bringing her to the thought that something new to her was occurring. Then came an explosion, which, by its sound, could have come from mere miles behind her to the south. Next came to gale of winds, billowing across the landscape. If not for her being in the thick of the field, the girl thought, she might have been carried along to the road by it. Certainly, it proved enough to convince her to lower herself to the ground, a position that at least brought some sense of security amid the chaos. 

[i]A meteor?[/i] It was the only thing she had ever heard of that could have happened so suddenly. 

In a matter of mere moments, her question was answered. Though the wheat had blocked out her view of the cause, another flash of red disrupted the otherwise blue serenity of the day. Following a second explosion, originating from the East. This time, she knew for sure that it was something close by. As a result, she renewed her proceeding through the field, this time with increased vigor, and trembling of anticipation. 

Not a moment after, she emerged. There, she, the girl who went simply be ‘Sarah,’ burst out from the dense growth of the field, just in time to witness the faintest visage of a living thing flip bottom-side down just before slamming down upon the [i]Sement[/i] road. When the dust and dirt began to clear, the visage came into better focus: a human-like figure, standing roughly a quarter of a mile to the East. With clarity, she took in the man… or woman… or thing, as it stared in her direction. Beyond pale, the… whatever it was… was gaunt by the looks of it, like an apparition from a modern horror flick. 

Though the distance made it impossible to get any sense of the thing’s power, it was a no-brainer that something capable of such an impactful entrance, in particular surviving one at all, was not to be taken casually. 

Sarah would proceed, then, with a slow, cautious pace. She took in the presence of the barn, already worse for the wear, and shaken more by the dramatic arrival of the being; it could provide some cover, if she could get to it. She thought of her knife, carefully stowed in the interior pocket of her leather coat; the other person didn’t appear to be armed, which she could play to her advantage.

At last, with a bold dose of daring, and firm focus on herself and her surroundings, she took the first strides towards the other end of the road.