Lights flickered past her as the wind whistled in her ears. Loose brown hair streamed back from her face as the sound of her orange and white running shoes slapping against the dark concrete echoed in her ears. Fear coursed through her very veins, urging leaden legs to continue their fevered flight past the twinkling of soft orange-yellow lights. A glance, just one, over the shoulder confirmed the need to flee; as one by one, the lights that had guided her thus far were extinguished by a swallowing shadow.
    Suddenly, the directions tilted strangely and she found herself racing toward the expanse of night sky. The twinkling stars, hanging like bright jewels against a black velvet drop, grew closer and brighter as the lights of the other buildings in the midnight city fell away. That's when it became clear that the guiding lights were in fact windows and it was the side of a building that was her track, leading her away from the engulfing darkness. Upwards and upwards she ran, fleeing the swallowing shadows below.  
    Suddenly, her foot thudded downward, harder than expected, and she found herself at an abrupt standstill. The rush of the run rustled the black shorts, emblazoned with the word "Army" and gray, untucked t-shirt that said the same. Perhaps eighty or more stories straight up, she took a moment to drink in the beauty of the brightly lit city far below. That is, until something moving caught her eye.
    Turning sharply, she took in her pursuer. The shadows that had chased her up this monumental run were now swarming onto the square rooftop opposite her. There were hundreds of them, no thousands. She had nowhere left to run, no place to escape the encroaching darkness now scuttling across the rooftop at her. There was only one way left to go,
    Smiling, she raised her arms out at her sides; as if in sacrifice or perhaps in welcome. And then, she fell.