[i]Evelyn[/i]

The ground shook, and anyone who saw Evelyn stumble and fall was clearly addled by subterranean gases released from the fissure in the earth. Evelyn smacked onto her annoyingly-toned ass and bounced back up just as fast. She turned and saw what was almost the biggest load of bullshit she'd had to deal with that day crawling up out of the earth and ripping a lightpole out of the ground.

For a moment, the springtime ran from Evelyn's vein. It was just cold. She blinked again, her feet wobbling beneath her, a handful of scrapes and scratches from flying shards of rock screaming on her arms. This was not right. Things like this didn't happen. That thing was bigger than anything. It was really big. The sound the earth made when it split open was [i]loud[/i], like one giant rumbling shriek. She blinked. This - 

One of the songbirds pecked at her collarbone hard enough to draw blood, and she started. "No," she told it briskly, turning back to the golem. The shock started its metamorphosis. That thing just bitchslapped the Moonbucks into a million pieces. She had just been there. Like, [i]just[/i] been there. It could just as well have hit her. The audacity. The [i]nerve[/i] of this motherfucker. There was a mom who had not lost the pregnancy weight yet carrying a baby in one hand and tugging along a girl in the other. She looked almost old enough to be on the team Evelyn coached. 

Evelyn was halfway back to the site before she realized she was walking. The ground was broken and split apart, hills formed either of debris or where the earth was transmuted before their eyes. Where Evelyn stepped, poison ivy trickled out, before withering as she stepped away. The lizard was still standing there, looking up. Now he looked like a six year old next to that thing. [i]What a bummer, this thing stole his whole shtick[/i]. Birds swirled around Evelyn's head like a feathery halo, chirping and singing wildly. She supposed they were trying to get her to run away. For a certainty, the nursery of racoons at her feet were tugging at her with their little paws was begging her to flee. "Literally stop it," Evelyn muttered, looking up at this thing. The sour smell of a broken sewer line had already flooded the street, and the waste bubbled up at the base of the golem. A gust of fresh air carried pollen and the sweet of rose petals and everything else along with it, diminishing the reek as she got closer. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Evelyn noticed the air was warmer, and each time she gulped back the urge to piss herself or sprint for the Pennsylvania border, the glare on the windows seemed to spark a bit brighter.

Evelyn blinked, looking over at the glare. She glanced back to the lizard. Was he cold-blooded, or whatever? Didn't - this thing looked like a snake. Or something. Its top was really big but it had, like, no abs. Where was that mouthbreather MacArthur when they needed him? He could've just hit it really hard at the bottom and cut it in half. [i]What was the point of making out with him?[/i] It was still stuck in the ground. So it lived underground? Did it - 

One of the birds pecked Evelyn back to reality again. She was standing in the open like a dumbass. Somewhere in her chest, her heart was hammering its way down into her stomach and twisting every organ it could find in there, but Evelyn was not about to throw up. Or get hit by this thing. Did you know you shit yourself when you die? She was not doing that. She scrambled courageously around the corner of an as-yet-untouched building, peering out at the thing. There were like a million people running and screaming, and it was still beating the shit out of that coffeeshop ([i]Thank God it's not the espresso bar)[/i] so she felt relatively safe for the moment. If it turned her way she was just going to haul ass down the alley. 

She had to squint - the glare off all the broken metal and glass was sharper, as if the September skies above had been replaced with noontime at July without her noticing. The ivy on the wall beside her twisted and squirmed as it grew a millimeter thicker, then two. She already felt a bit winded, which was weird, because she'd barely done anything yet. Her skin felt warm, as if she'd been out tanning all day. For a brief moment, the golem had knocked an awning out of place, and the sunlight hit what was left of the windows at a brutal angle. It smarted Evelyn's eyes and watered them before her power adjusted for it, and the sun-sharp glare was just as annoying as a fluorescent light.

She glanced up at the thing. She couldn't see its eyes, but weren't they, like, blind, or something? Or night vision? Like it lived underground. Did it even have eyes? Didn't they echolocate or something?

"Hey!" Evelyn whispered to the nerd with the scales as loud as she dared. It was drowned out by the screams. Oh, fuck it. She could outrun this thing if it heard her - as she wasn't junior varsity soccer captain for nothing. I mean, it was really big, but it was like that time in fourth grade they'd thrown a dodgeball at the kid in the wheelchair. Fuck was he going to do? Lord knows she fucking [i]smoked[/i] Angela Whittingsworth at the last fitness exams, and this rock bitch didn't even have legs. So Evelyn upped it to a stage whisper, with force. "Henry! Get me like a big-ass piece of metal! Something shiny! Haul ass!" As she turned to him, the breeze came inexplicably from the alley she stood in, flooding warm crisp air at him. Every odor on the breeze sharpened, save the reek of the sewers and the iron tint of blood on the air that likely only he could pick up. Those melted away. It was just sunshine that jittered down his arms and warmed his muscles as if he'd been stretching for half an hour before this. She turned to the raccoons, which had not stopped clawing at her legs in an attempt to persuade her into finding shelter in the dumpster behind them. "Oh my God, you too. Go get me like a rearview mirror or some shit. I will tell my dad's janitor to stop leaving the garbage open at night, fucking [i]go.[/i]." 

They scampered. Evelyn ducked behind a trash can, which was positively nasty, I tell you - and started rummaging in her handbag. There was for sure at least one hand mirror in there.