She'll Be Here Soon

         My two best friends and I lay in a flowery meadow set alight by a hazy setting sun.  They’re just fine, laughing and joking, but I feel an unnamable presence in the air.  I solitarily sit and play with the head of a broken dandelion.
         I decide to walk over and join them, but my friends run from me, giggling and whispering. “She’ll be here soon, she’ll be here soon,” they chant.  I try to chase after them, but my heavy legs seem to be weighed down with bricks; I’m in slow motion.  I helplessly watch them disappear into the dark forest.
         Suddenly the blood-orange sky falls a violent black.  My balance falters at the abrupt loss of light.  I freeze in place.  My panicky breath comes in tattered, torn intakes of steamy night air.
           A shallow flow of nauseating uneasiness courses throughout my entire body.  I can feel her.  I look down at my trembling fingers.  I thoughtlessly curl them into shaking fists and gaze cautiously into the darkness. The black of the forest is blinding, but I know she’s there; she’s always there.
         I can see her now.  She stumbles out from behind the dark, and I feel my knees give out.
         I hear her mumbling sporadic moans as she shuffles her bare, bloody feet toward where I stand.  Her torn night gown glows in the night.  I lose my composure and fall backward to the ground.
         I flip over and start to crawl.  I hear horrifyingly desperate sobs escaping my quivering lips.  My dirty nails dig into the earth, pulling and sliding myself as far as I can from this beast. 
           I steal a terrifying look back at the monstrous being.  She still steadily approaches closer and closer.  The moonlight illuminates her startlingly broken body.  I can detect her racy, blood-shot eyes and sunken face.  I then discover the pool of crimson red streaming down the front of her neck.  Her bottom jaw is gone.
         A new rush of unadulterated fear crushes my mind and racing heart.  This time, however, my body completely forgets how to function; I can’t move.          
                Lying motionless on my side, I helplessly watch her wander into my full field of vision.  In an instant, her haunting figure rests just inches above my panicky face.  Beads of sweat emanate from every pore of my skin. The starry night sky starts to fade in and out. I feel faint.  My eyes desperately dart around for anything to see but her; I refuse to look this thing in the eyes.
                As if she heard my thoughts, the creature swiftly grasps my face in her icy palms and forces me to look at her twisted face.
My eyes gleam in horror as I gaze at her sheer malice.  The blood from her wounds drip onto my pale face.  Each drop feels likes a small waterfall and ignites fire against my skin.  The burning streams down my cheeks. The beast screeches a sinister scream just above my cloudy head.  I beg for salvation.  I feel myself succumb to unconsciousness.
                  All falls black.
         I awake sitting in the meadow, playing with the head of a broken flower.  My friends are giggling and laughing a few feet from me.  One smiles at my bewildered face and motions me to come closer.  I unsteadily waver to where she stands.
         I recognized the empty look in her eyes; it was the same look that held my face in her hands and burned scars down my cheeks.  She leans to whisper something in my ear. 
         “She’ll be here soon,” she giggles.
         The two again run away into ominous forest trees.