t was late at night, the fog so thick that she could barely see, huddled forward over the steering wheel, trying to peer an extra few feet into the murk in front of her, only able to see shapes when they were nearly upon her, like the shadowy figures that suddenly appeared, one at a time, around her car, keeping pace, even though it didn’t occur to her exhausted brain til minutes later that they had to have been running awfully fast to keep up with her, and then they got closer and she saw the gleam of reddened eyes and the steel in their hands, and suddenly wide awake from shock and horror she sped up, despite her inability to see through the fog, but still they kept up, til one reached out one hand (paw?) and grasped the door handle and -*****blink*****

It was late at night, the fog like pea soup in front of the car, lights casting uneven pools of visibility before her vehicle as she inched her way home. She was tired, so tired, and it was nearly impossible to see anything at all, so she drove slowly – but still, when the shape ran into the road in front of her, she didn’t see it until it was directly upon her, and then the heavy thunk as she hit it, and it fell to the road, to one side, and she slammed on her brakes, heart pounding, eyes straining to see outside the window til finally she turned off the engine and stepped outside of her car to see if the thing she had hit was badly hurt, and as she approached it where it lay in the middle of the road, it rolled toward her and got to its feet in one fluid motion, and she could see that despite the blood dripping from one side of its head, it was otherwise unharmed, but it was also angry, and it snarled, and then –

*****blink*****

It was late at night, the fog so thick that she could barely see in front of her car, and then there were lights ahead, strange lights, and she slowed down even further because she thought at first that perhaps there had been an accident, because the lights were flashing and there were other colors besides yellow and white – blue and red – so she thought at first it was a police car, but then as she drew closer she realized that it was most certainly not a police car but something far more bizarre – a strange craft hovering just above the road and emitting a low hum that seemed to permeate her car and nestled in the base of her spine, and she pondered several options including getting out, and then perhaps trying to drive around it, and then maybe turning around and backtracking down the road and taking the highway like she probably should have instead of the back roads that were quicker to get home but less well traveled, but it was as she was pondering that she realized that she couldn’t turn the wheel; couldn’t move; and then there was something moving toward the car through the mist and she couldn’t even –

****blink****

It was late at night, the fog settled on the road in front of her as if a cloud has become suddenly too tired and felt the need to take a quick nap. She drove, not paying much attention to the distance, just driving, tired, sleepy, wanting to get home, hunched over the steering wheel watching for anything ahead of her because this fog was really too thick to see, and it wasn’t until she had been driving for quite some time when it occurred to her that it had been too long and she should have seen the lights of her town by now, and there were no other cars on the road, and so she started to pay attention more, straining to see the sides of the road, looking for street signs, looking for *anything* at all, but to her growing horror there was nothing, and as she watched the odometer click away the miles without seeing any sign of anything familiar she realized that she was –

****blink****

It was late at night and she had been out with her mom, staying up too late so they were both tired and giddy and when she left the house the fog which had only been a sparse mist earlier that evening was so thick it was nearly impossible to see. She drove slowly, tensed over the steering wheel, ignoring the blackness behind her because that always unnerved her when driving in the fog, trying her best to stay awake because she was tired, so very tired, and then finally the lights of town ahead of her, and she turned into her own driveway and she was –

-home