Kara

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Scene Title Kara
Synopsis {screech}
Date November 8, 2011

Rain comes down in sheets.

It's a steady storm, heavier than typically fall in this part of the Pacific Northwest. The forest is awash with the smell of wet wood and soil, rain has wet the bark of moss-covere dtrees, and a blanket of pine needles cover the forest flood. A deer, standing still between two looming trees, listens with a twitch of its ear for the distant hum of traffic in the distance. Down below at the base of the rocky hill, headlights are a faint glow agains tthe rainy day gloom. The deer freezes, ears steadying, muscles tense, eyes wide.

A moment later, the air starts to distort some eight feet away, rippling with a surreal emerald green lattice of aurora-like lights, and then snaps to reveal a woman in a gray and black paramilitary uniform, blonde hair frosted with ice and snow. She lets out a scream as she collapses to the pine needles, and the deer bounds off into the woods on galloping hooves. The blonde woman slowly looks up, eyes reddened at the edges. Snow is collected on the ground around her, already melting in the cold rain. She shivers, pale lips trembling, arms wrapped around herself as she falls onto her side. Tears blend with rainwater, and she cannot slow the rapid beat of her heart. It pounds behind her eyes, a machine-gun thrum. Run, run, run, run. Kara gets up, shakily, lets out a keening sound in the back of her throat and starts to move as fast as she can.

Booted feet crash through deadfall and underbrush, long legs move with gazelle-like speed, and rushing down through the forest, Kara Price carries herself with a surefooted grace. She skids on wet rocks, slides, leaps, and lands in a soft patch of earth and digs in her heels, then breaks into a run again. Clos of earth kick up from behind her heels, rain-slicked hair lashes her brow and cheeks, hangs down to chin-length as she runs for the road. Fear, confusion, and uncertainty race behind her blue eyes, throw her into movement that isn't entirely rational.

Crashing out of the treeline, a serpentine highway dark with rain comes into view. Kara skids down the earthen hillside, vaults the guardrail and leaps out onto the road. As she darts across the highway—


Just off South Skagit Highway

Sedro-Woolley, WA

November 8, 2011

5:54 PM, Local Time


Red and blue lights flash on a foggy road. The sky is slate gray, the asphalt wet, misting rain falling from an overcast sky. It is forest all around, tall and old, moss on the trees. The police car parked on the side of the road has set out flares, they burn pink and red against the drizzling rain, shine like knives down along the street. A lone car, rust-colored, sits by the side of the road with a dent in its hood and a broken windshield. A blonde woman lays in the street, blood in her hair and face, a police officer crouched over her, his jacket covering her chest, but he dare not move her. “Help is on the way,” he says reassuringly while the driver that hits her panics on the side of the road, vomiting at his feet.

The blonde woman reaches up to touch her head, fingers shaking. “Where— ” her voice is coarse, scratchy and rough like sandpaper. “Am I?” The question makes the police officer nervous, and he lays one hand on her shoulder to steady her.

Easy,” the officer warns. “The driver said you ran out in front of him, in front of his car. You were hit, but you're going to be ok. Do you know what you name is?”

The blonde woman stares intently at the officer and nods slowly.

“Kara,” she says with certainty.

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"Kara, okay," the police officer says, noting the patch on her shoulder that indicates USMC with a star and bars indicating a Lieutenant. "Kara, are you in the military? What're you doing out here in the road?" He needs to keep her calm and awake, though the mild interrogation may prove useful in the future. Kara reaches up with two fingers, feeling a gash in her brow that goes into her hairline, then pulls her fingers away and exhales a slow breath.

She nods, once, then opens her eyes and looks around at the road, the car, the driver puking up his lunch from nerves. Another car is coming and she's laying halfway in the street, but the vehicle slowly navigates around the flares, drives slow, but then keeps going once it's past the accident. "Where am I?" Kara asks shakily, turning blue eyes over to the police officer, who looks up the street as he considers her question.

"Sedro-Woolley," the officer indicates, "round-about a mile and a half from Birdsview." She looks at him with unfamiliarity, and the officer furrows his brows. "Washington, State?" Kara swallows dryly, looking up to the sky and blinking against the rain. Her head swims, disorientation sinks in.

"This isn't… Alaska?" Kara asks rhetorically, a lump forming in her throat. The police officer gives her a worried stare, then reaches up for his radio.

"Goddamnit, where's that ambulance?" He calls out, and Kara lises the rest of his sentence over the muffled sound of something rushing in her ears. Her vision tunnels, head swims again, and she;s certain the last thing she remembers hearing is a muffled.

"Hey, stay with me."

She doesn't.


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