Elodie slowed as she neared the...the...the [i]thing[/i]. She was able to discern something vaguely oval-shaped in the clouds of gray smoke, illuminated by the light. Elodie could feel waves of heat washing over her, practically burning her exposed flesh (like that time she stuck her hand into the oven while her older sister was baking cookies, just to see how hot it [i]really[/i] was) as she cautiously picked her way over to the clearing. There was a crater-strange-and disturbed soil and trees littered the area. 

It was eerily quiet. Then, the silence was broken as a mechanical whirring sound filled Elodie's ears. She winced, flinching away from the noise. Something shifted within the smoke, and Elodie watched with wide eyes as she saw flashes of what looked to be wickedly sharp blades. She quickly took a couple of steps back. She saw neon orange and silver made pale by the moonlight, and then-

[i]Oh my god.[/i] Her gaze locked with what could only be described as a [i]mouth[/i] filled with "teeth" that looked about the size of a typical medieval sword. Elodie saw pitch-black metal plates and spider-like limbs crawl out of the crater, the entire alien or contraption or [i]thing[/i] bristling with deadly blades or scary-looking firearms. Elodie's heart was pounding, her mouth dry. [i]Oh my god,[/i] she thought, over and over again. [i]Oh my god, oh my god, oh my [/i]god.

Before Elodie could turn on her heel and get the hell out of there (like every fiber of her being was screaming to do), the thing-was it alive? Elodie had no idea-turned, and Elodie screamed.

[i]It doesn't have eyes,[/i] she thought numbly as the shriek ripped itself out of her throat. [i]It doesn't have eyes. Why doesn't it have eyes? Oh, who gives a shit? Why doesn't it have eyes?[/i] Elodie's thoughts were getting less coherent by the second as the shock and fear of coming face-to-face with...whatever [i]this[/i] was began to set in.

The creature, or alien, or thing, screamed as well. But it was not a [i]human[/i] scream. It was the roar of construction equipment and the hiss of a viper and the snarl of a lion all rolled into one single sound, and Elodie began to shake. It climbed fully out of the crater, streams of smoke still floating through the clearing, and howled. It came forwards-toward Elodie. 

Panic and fear took over Elodie's mind. Her thoughts became nothing but one bright white blur as she turned on her heel and ran. Logically, she knew that she would have never been able to outrun the creature, but one finds that all logic goes down the drain when faced with terrifying situations such as the one Elodie found herself in. Her breath came out in ragged gasps as she ran, unsure of where she was going, but knowing that wherever it was, it was better than [i]here[/i].