I'm no athlete, but I understand what that "runner's high" is all about. Damn does it feel good! As I streaked away, the nerves in my feet sung with the rush of freedom and fear. A jolt of fiery sparkling rocketed up my untoned legs with each harsh step, and the air zipped over my small ears. I collapsed to the ground as The Moving Sky zipped around and arced in front of me, moving like an elegant, salty ocean wave above. The concrete tore holes in my pants as I clumsily fell, and a sharp stinging burst up from my knees and the heels of my palms.

"Stop!" I shrieked as the fluid, formless monster snaked towards me.

It paused its pursuit, and what I guessed to be its front end was a mere foot away from my face. I could smell it. It emitted the smell of ice water in a cup, and the chill ran through my nostrils. It was refreshing like the land after a solid Floridian rain, and I also received a whiff of...strawberries? That's the only earthly thing I could compare it to.

"Stop." The body of The Moving Sky undulated as a human sound barked from it, and the pieces of glass in its form rubbed together strangely.

My brow pushed down in bewilderment, and I slowly raised myself back up to my feet. The movement was laggard; I didn't want to possibly spook the creature poised before me. It warped its form into a corkscrew shape, and one of its finger appendages shot out towards me. I shrieked in response to the unfamiliar behavior, and I could feel the fluttering of my desperate heart as it wrapped around the bottom of my shirt. Another finger came forth, and it investigated the cloth of my sleeve. The Moving Sky rubbed the thick material, and I decided to return the favor.

I slipped my quivering hand over its flesh, and The Moving Sky halted its own investigation of me as I touched it. It felt like when you put your arm into a cloud of dry ice gas: cold, unsettling, and almost invisible. For those who have never experienced the joy of carbon going through sublimation, it also kinda felt like when you enter a haunted house. It was a synthetic chill.

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After I retreated my hands, The Moving Sky played with my black braids, throwing them up and down and watching them swing about. It tapped my brown cheeks and stroked my fuzzy eyebrows with interest.

"Do you have a name?" I inquired.

The glass plates vibrated and wiggled like cricket legs once again and produced a feminine, exotic voice. "Name, name?"

"Yeah. Something you call yourself?"

"Mee."

"Me?"

"That is who I am."

I was sure Mee was intending to be referring to the word "me", as in she was just herself, but I came to like calling her Mee. Mee floated a bit away down the road, and the bright moonlight cascaded through her translucent body, as if the photons themselves were being encapsulated in her alien body.

I ventured after Mee. I was unsure of where to go in this unknown part of the country, and Mee seemed like acceptable protection from the horrors of the world. At the time, I just wanted to return home, and I had no thoughts about filing a police report or anything of the like.

Besides, I had come in contact with someone very otherworldly.

"Mee? Where are you from?" I called up to her as we ambled down the dark and indigo roadway. I jumped from one broken lane line to the next, and my scuffed tennis shoes squeaked as I slipped on one of the slick, painted marks. I stumbled, and Mee pushed against my back to balanced my unstable body.

"Protegia," she replied, her voice almost as if she was singing. Her words also seemed to echo and bound around.

"Where's that?"

"Not sure. Some other dimension."

"Oh, so not a planet."

"Yes, yes, yes. I was made there."

"Made?"

"Yes, yes. Pordaga made me. Pordaga are experimentalists."

"Pordaga?"

Mee utilized her body to morph into a glassy representation of a wild creature, and she gazed upon me with wide set eyes while her triangular gill filaments slithered quickly in and out of their flaps. [see picture above]

Mee reverted back to her original form, and she delightfully fluttered around me, her glass pieces creating a sound like a peaceful rainstorm. It was like she was "hushing".

"So why are you here?" I asked as I watched her dance about.

"To hunt."