TheFallenStarBookSeries1 by Jessica Sorensen

down at the ground. The ice looked like it was moving. Yes, moving, right along with the pace of my footsteps. My heart stuttered as my nightmare flashed through my mind. Me running. The monsters chasing me. Ice moving after me.
    I ran, but not very fast since the ground was one big accident waiting to happen. I kept telling myself that nightmares don’t come true. Glowing-eyed monsters that kill people with their death chill aren’t real.  But as I felt the air abruptly descend to a bone chilling temperature, I full-on freaked out.
    I searched franticly for car, slipping all over the ice like I was trying to be part of the Ice Capades . But I couldn’t spot my car anywhere. I desperately strained my eyes against the thick fog, and that’s when I saw it; not my car, but a flicker of yellow.
    My heart stopped.
    Everything stopped.
    I gasped as the prickle traced the back of my neck. I’d felt fear before, but this was a whole new level of fear. A run-for-your-life-or-you’re-going-to-die kind of fear.  Which was exactly what I was going to do. I spun around, preparing to make a mad sprint back to the school and wait there until the fog lifted. Except, before I could work up a run, I slammed into something hard and warm and static charged. I stumbled backwards, frenetically scrambling to get my footing.
    “What the heck is wrong with you?” Alex asked, his voice a mix of irritation and concern.
    I regained my balance and stood up straight. “Nothing. I wasn’t doing anything.”
    His dark brown hair was damp from the fog, and tucked underneath his arm was a book. “It doesn’t look like nothing. You look scared.”
    My heart drummed violently in my chest. Scared . I was scared. I glanced back over my shoulder. Nothing but fog.
    “Gemma.”
    I turned back to Alex. “Huh?”
    “Are you okay? You look a little…lost?”
    I was lost. And confused. And terrified. And a million other different things.
    The air was starting to warm back up. It was still freezing and everything, but a normal freezing instead of a deathly freezing. ”I um…” I swallowed hard, choking on the image of the yellow lights lurking not too far away from where I stood.  Had it really been there? I hadn’t actually seen the cloaked figure, just two little lights shaped as eyes. Or at least they looked like eyes. Without the overload of adrenaline pounding though me anymore, I wasn’t so sure.
    Alex’s gaze wandered over my shoulder. “What were you looking at over there?”
    “Um…nothing.” There was no way I was going to tell him what I thought I’d seen. “I just thought I saw…a dog.” I did a mental eye roll at myself. A dog? Really Gemma? You can’t come up with anything better than that?
    He eyed me over suspiciously, and then his eyebrow arched up. “You’re afraid of dogs?”
    “No,” I responded automatically.
    “You were scared, though,” he pointed out. “So scared you ran into me.”
    “Well…” I wanted to smack myself for being such a terrible liar. I struggled to think of an excuse—any excuse I could give. “What does it even matter to you, anyway?” I snapped.  “I mean, it’s not like you really care.”
    “Yeah, good point.” He shoved the book he was holding at me. “You left this in the library by the way.”
    I furrowed my eyebrows at the book, perplexed because I couldn’t remember taking my book out of my bag while I was in the library.
    “This is the part where you say thanks,” he said arrogantly
    I’d have loved to slap the arrogance right off of his pretty little face, but I didn’t. I snatched the book from his hand. “Thanks.”
    He pressed his lips together and gave a quick glance behind me. “Well…drive carefully.”
    I gave him a funny look. Drive carefully? What was that suppose to mean? Well, I know what it means in the literal sense but…I gaped at him as he sauntered away, feeling , once again, as lost ever.
    And after he’d vanished through the fog, I ran like