We Are...

Was it a incredibly poor idea to be out in the middle of the woods in the dead of night?

That was a definite yes.

Was it going to be worth it having to deal with the rather terrifying environment and the paranoia that came with it in order to view this meteor shower?

Also yes.

At least it was worth it to 23-year old Rose Wright, who had been wanting to actually view a meteor shower in person for a decent amount of time. Probably tracing back to her 18 year old self being decently obsessed with just about everything from space and making a promise that her decidedly less space obsessed current self was now going to complete. Of course keeping a promise wasn’t that easy since meteor showers weren't exactly daily occurrences and when they did happen, they didn't exactly always happen in the most easy to view areas.

So that's why she was here now in the middle of the dark woods with barely a small flashlight to illuminate the path as she made her way to a nearby cliff where she could properly view the meteor shower.

“Yup,” Rose gazed off to her left and then to her right, seeing on both sides a endless extent of trees. “totally going to watch a cool meteor shower and not get murdered by grizzly bear.”

Despite the fact that she had a decent size kind of bear spray hanging off a clip on her belt, Rose had the feeling that if she were on some off chance actually encounter a bear. The darkness of the forest would cover it’s approach long enough to where she probably wouldn’t get the chance to use the spray.

Rose shook her head, she didn't need to think so pessimistically about this.

She wasn't going to run into a bear or anything like that, she was out here to do something fun and witness something beautiful. That’s exactly how this was going to go down and not a single thing was going to go wrong.

Then a meteor flew over her head.

Like right over her head, like not up in space it was supposed to be but maybe 20 feet above her head. She could only guess that number because it came fast and it also was surrounded in a blinding aura of fire and sparks that obscured her ability to exactly see the distance.

The distance quickly stopped mattering to her as less than 30 feet away, the meteor crashed and a powerful impact that sent dirt flying high into the air and blasting out a shockwave that sent Rose off her feet and crashing back first into the dirt of the forest ground.

Rose let out a pained groan, trying to get her bearings back as her ears rang and her vision blurred. Slowly but surely as the initial wave of pain and disorientation faded, Rose’s senses began returning to proper functionality. Allowing her to see from her position looking straight up at the sky that above her, other meteors that were far lower than they should be streaking through the sky. These were far higher than the one that smash down near her was, probably in the range of hundreds to thousands of feet up but the bright fire surrounding that made them visible even though the distance between her and them.

“Oh what the hell?” Rose said to no one as she sat up slowly, her back muscles aching in protest as she did. Her leg muscles joined in on the protesting as she stood up and limbed her way over to the large crater that was left in the ground.

There are so many questions going through her mind and the fact that she was managing to keep herself from outward panic was rather impressive considering the levels of ‘what the actual hell was going on’ were crashing through the roof right now.

The limping woman arrived at the edge of the crater and was not overly surprised not what she show, it was a meteor or meteorite or whatever the proper terminology was. It was a chunk of space rock glowing red hot that was slightly larger than a basketball, it had probably along with the others that have been flying overhead. Broken off from the meteor shower meteors and had fallen into the atmosphere.

Is that how that worked?

Rose couldn’t recall, the little she would could recall from her 18-year old self space knowledge was currently unavailable on account of probable head trauma.

Her musings were cut off by sound of something breaking.

Immediately she looked wildly into the woods around her, her earlier thoughts returning as the possibility of a bear nearing to investigate the crater and breaking twigs under foot as it approached suddenly became very real. Yet does she wildly looked all over, the lumbering shadow of a 500 pound **** weapon with teeth never materialized from the darkness. Instead the breaking sound continue then it began to sound more like cracking instead of just generalized breaking.

Casting her gaze back to the space rock in the crater, Rose was surprised to see that the roughly spherical shape of it was covered in cracks. Cracks that continue showing up with the sound of a distinctive separation of stone. Rose’s fight or flight instincts were starting the kick in but before either option could be taken, the space rock shattered. Ups and down into a pile of smoking pebbles.

Left in the wake of the rock’s destruction was a pile of black goo and Rose only had one response.

“Fuck no.”

She enough of a movie nerd to realize that she had already let herself fall deep enough into a situation that was fatal to those who participated in it, so without any other words. She promptly began hauling ass the best she could through the woods back to her car.

Not that it was particularly fast hauling ass as her limp slowed her significantly but she was making progress and that was all that-

Rose got blindsided as something wet and slimy entered through the bottom opening of her pant leg and begin climbing up her leg. Rose screamed and bent over, trying to grab at whatever was climbing up her leg. Her hands wrapped around where she felt it was through her pants yet despite the tight grip she was desperately holding, the thing continued up without resistance.

“No!” Rose yelled, reaching up and repeating the same maneuver on her thigh and getting the same result as the thing continued up.

Every horror movie she had ever seen suddenly came to her mind, thoughts of horrible fates and gruesome deaths filled her head and combined with literally what was happening right now. Rose passed out, the world around her darkening into nothing and her conscious disappearing into that nothingness alongside it.

Then she suddenly jumped awake into a sitting position in a bed.

And it was most definitely her bed as the same maroon colored blanket that she had been using for the past year and a half was covering her lower body and she was definitely in her room as the walls were the same ugly blue that the previous had and that she swore she was going to repaint someday, even though that was a dumb idea because she lived in an apartment.

“What the fucking shit?”