The Lost

Prologue -- Part Two: Chelsea

Run. Just run... Keep running.

    How much longer can I really keep this up? she thought as her feet padded against the ground.

    Left, right. One, two. On and on... running.

    The loss of her older brother, Lait, had been enough to push her over the edge, but now being pursued by what looked like the Corpse Bride with too much plastic surgery, she regretted wondering if things could get any worse. They could always get worse.

    She was exhausted. She hadn't slept for days, and the paranoia caused by such sleep deprivation had set in.

    She tried to get help, telling people that she was being stalked, that they needed to help her get away. No one saw it but her, which turned out to be even more unfortunate than she could've anticipated.

    She'd been called "loca", "bruja", among other less than desirable titles, by some of the more disbelieving and superstitious people in her town. Most people, even the kinder and more trusting, thought her to be a hyper-imaginative girl, mourning her elder brother.

    Without even the guise of help from her community, Chelsea left without looking back, and she'd been running ever since.

    She was running from the darkness, towards what she hoped would be the light. Her salvation.

    She'd gone as far as Mexico with a goal in mind— to cross the border and leave her past behind. Now if only this pesky thing would stop following her, all would be well.

    She'd chosen to cross at a fairly desolate desert area as the patrols were concentrated around the cities. The more dangerous terrains, the mountain and the desert, were ironically the "safest" bets for immigrants who didn't want to get caught.

    What worried Chelsea was the lack of people around. If anything were to go horribly wrong with her stalker, there would be no one to offer her a hand. Not that it was very likely anyone would come to her aid to start with... So she trekked on.

    It was a hot and humid day, and Chelsea felt as if she were in a daze from the excessive heat clinging to her. Was that why that thing disappeared? she wondered as he peered back over her shoulder. Last she had checked, it had still been drifting along aways behind her. Had whatever it was given up?

    She twisted the silver ring on her finger nervously. After following her for days, she doubted that her stalker would just up and give up. That struck her as being rather odd behavior, if the case.

    Just keep moving, she told herself, keep up this pace and you'll be there in no time at all.

    She slipped off her ring, moving it so that she could see the script on the inside. In bold scripted letters, it read "No loco." Originally, the ring had been a plain silver band, a family heirloom of some sort that her mother had passed on to her on one of her birthdays, but after Lait's death, Chelsea had the ring engraved, much to her parent's fervent disapproval, to remind her of her crazy big brother.

    She missed him so much. He would've believed her... He would've protected her.

    She blew a puff of air from her nose as she slipped the ring safely back on her finger where it belonged. She lifted her gaze ahead of her, and her hands started to tremble. She would have screamed if it hadn't been for the fact that only inches separated her from the pools of black that formed her stalker's eyes.

    She stumbled back, her feet failing her for what certainly wasn't the first time that day. "Get back!" she demanded, straightening herself. "I don't know who you are or what you want, but you're barking up the wrong tree!"