Janie and The Gray: Part 8

The panicked screams of prisoners and the sound of alien weaponry erupted from the factory. As my foot fell in the overgrown grass at the edge of the parking lot, a tree trunk in front of me flashed bright white and exploded with a sizzling crack, accompanied by a plume of white mist. I ran through the hot cloud — a thousand shards of wood peppering my face as I inwardly begged the tree not to fall on me.

I crashed through the underbrush, eyes burning and blurry as I tried to blink away the debris. The forest thickened and the leaf-bare branches of scrubby trees slowed my progress.

I started to descend into the shallow gully when a voice thundered behind me. “Go, go, go, go!”

I froze and spun around to see another prisoner sprinting toward me. “Dimples?” I said, the sound of my small, crackling voice strange to my ears. God, why did I say that out loud? Holy shit — I talked. That’s weird.

He blew past me and I gave chase, feet sliding on crunchy, dead leaves. As we scrambled up an embankment toward the road, the unmistakable whine of an alien craft filled the air.