Optical Allusionist

Elizabeth jerked awake, grasping with shaking fingers for her wiry glasses. Her vision clear, she pressed her pale knuckles to her head.

"Stop." Gasping for composure, she repeated, "Stop, stop, stop!" With a deep inhale, she folded her quivering hands over her stomach. Struggling to keep her eyes open, she focused on the glow-in-the-dark star formations. The room, softly spinning, disappeared behind fitful eyelids.

A soft scarlet fabric ran up and down her finger-tips. Or perhaps it was her fingers running up and down the fabric. Thump. Thump. Was it a heartbeat? No; too distant. Thump. Thump. Thump.

The heavy footfall broke behind her as Elizabeth's eyes adjusted to the sudden light. She crouched against the thin sheet of metal-- an excuse for a van door. Dumpy, magenta, leather seats sat to her right. She crushed herself into the back of the driver's seat, a corner out of the man's view.

She knew the man stalking her. She had already seen his over-sized crossbow, and his bulging, steroid-hyped figure. Childlike hands attempted to grab the plastic pocket, as tides of elbow-length, strawberry-blond hair fell in front of her eyes.

The footsteps began again, moving to the other side of the Plymouth Voyager. Her frightened young frame found the agility to spring to the opposite door- his destination. Breathing heavily, keeping her head low and out of view from the window, her eyes darted around the broken-down car. Under the seat? Maybe she should be hiding th---

"Liz? Liz, it's time to get up!" Her mother rapped at the door. "Li-iZ!"

Her temples faintly aching from being pressed against the metal frame of her glasses, she rasped "Yeah." She paused from lack of sufficient sleep.

"I'm up. I'm up." The floorboards creaked as Elizabeth's mother walked away.