Kori POV

  Dust clouds settled around my little Ford Focus as this blue woman stared us down from the bush she landed in. Luckily, the road was empty after the truck drove away. The fewer people that saw this…whatever this is, the better. How did this blue woman find me? I mean she can fly or leap high at least, but that doesn’t explain how she found me or why she knows me. I haven’t seen her before, so I can’t possibly know her. Maybe she’s a techno wiz… Wait. Am I looking at my own cyberstalker? I am not sure if I should be scared or flattered right now. A strange…pretty…woman was saying I was summoned. But what for? I don’t know.

  "Kori, why does the scary blue woman know your name?" Felicity asked.

  Good question, Felicity. Why, indeed. "You think, I know? I have no freaking clue!" I answered, allowing the panic in my voice to take over. The blue woman started to approach us, and all I wanted to do was crawl out of my skin.

  Felicity asked me again if I knew anything about this woman, and honestly, I had no idea. My only guess is it has something to do with my family's cursed birthmark since the damn thing was burning like a sun beneath my skin. "Honestly, Fe, I think this might have to do with my birthmark."

  "You mean the one that you and your mom both had? The crescent moon?" Felicity whispered.

  "Yeah, that's the one. It burns like hell right now," I replied, rubbing my shoulder. I felt the heat building up where the crescent moon lay. Shit. I am not going to combust, right?

  She reached over and poked my little moon. Immediately, she pulled her toasty little finger back. “Oww. Damn it,” Felicity breathed. We both sat quietly as she sucked on the hurt finger. "Uh, Kori, that's not normal. Like, that's impossible," she said dumbfounded by the birthmark.

  “Don’t ya think I know that Fe? I have no explanation for any of this!” There goes my Texan accent…

  "Korinne, you must come with me." The blue woman said, ominously.

  Does she think I will just follow her wherever she goes? Hell no. I shook my head at her. I locked my car doors in protest. Too many things were happening at once. My birthmark is burning my best friend, and a random…alien…blue…person wants to abduct me. This is not how I saw my summer starting after Felicity and I started our road trip six hours ago. I just wanted a quiet summer on the beach, damn it.

  Felicity giggled nervously, "I don't think that's going to help much against the blue wrecking ball."

  "Come Korinne," she beckoned as she started walking toward me.

  "Forget this shit," I muttered, throwing the car into drive. My anxiety was running high, causing my fight-or-flight response to kick in. Luckily, this road didn't have much traffic, so I floored it after I turned my car around. My wheels kicked dirt back into the blue woman's face. Fe made faces and hung on to the car for her dear life. I glanced back in my mirror to see the blue woman’s figure fade into the background until it disappeared. Keeping my speed as fast as I could go, I put distance between us and the stalker lady.

  Things were quiet in the car. I know Felicity is wanting to ask questions. I don't have any answers. At some point, the music had gone silent too. All I could hear was the roar of my little car, breaking the speed limit. No one was around because we were still driving through the large cliffs that overlooked the coast. It was only midday, so the sun was high in the sky. Birds flew overhead, freely into the horizon. Something I wish I could be doing right now.

  We must have traveled about 20 miles in pure silence before Felicity decided to speak. "Do you have a plan here or are we just winging it?" Felicity asked in an anxious voice.

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  "Sure, when we hit the highway, go west and avoid the blue psycho entirely before heading south to our vacation in Georgia," my voice didn't sound very reassuring.

  "How would changing our route avoid the blue wrecking ball? She can fly. She probably knows where we are going. Hell, she found us in the middle of nowhere in Virginia! Maybe, we should call the police." Felicity rubbed her arms trying to soothe herself.

  I shook my head. "How would the police handle a blue, flying wrecking ball? She's either a science experiment gone wrong or an alien from another planet. I don’t think guns will work so well if she can fly away before they get here."

  Fe's eyes got all big at the possibilities of what that blue woman could be. “An alien? What would an alien want with you? You are just a normal, human female. Plus, you hate small spaces. You could never be an astronaut,” Felicity shook her head. “I am pretty certain you would accidentally kill the rest of the crew when you got the urge to run.”

  “Fe, you can’t just run in microgravity,” I could feel my body relax some. “There would be nothing to hold you to the ground.”

  Felicity giggled for a moment before she seemed to tighten her grip on her arms. "Kori, what do you know about your birthmark? You said her appearance was connected to it."

  Ah. I did say that before. “I think I would prefer to talk about astronauts,” I sighed. No point in keeping Felicity in the dark since a psycho is chasing us. "Right. I know a few things. My mom said it was either a curse or a blessing from a moon goddess depending on how you viewed it. Supposedly, everyone born into the family has the exact same birthmark although it's in different places for each person. I am not sure how far back it goes in the family.”

  Felicity just blinked at me. "I would say it sounds like a load of bullshit, but there's a blue wrecking ball after you. Is that blue wrecking ball here to take you somewhere? Were you summoned by this goddess?" Felicity reasoned.

  "I have no clue. I thought that my mom was just telling me a family myth to make our matching birthmarks seem cool. You know, people made fun of me for having it, and others thought I was weird for having a tattoo at such a young age," the memories made chills run down my back. "I thought it was a curse, honestly.”

  Felicity's face sank remembering our days at Stevenberry Elementary. I was often bullied by our classmates, but Fe never let that stop her from being friends with me. Music class was my solace because music brought unity to everyone. It was where I first met Felicity. We were fast friends, and it wasn't too long after that we learned we lived down the street from each other. "We are a long way from Allwood, Texas, aren’t we?"

  Fe gave me a funny look. "Yeah, and we are six hours away from our school, Columbia University. Why are you changing the subject? We still have a psycho, blue woman after us."

  Felicity was a dog with a bone. She had to plan and solve the problem now. It was that drive that made her an excellent cybersecurity programmer. She could anticipate problems and solutions for her codes faster than the computer could. It must be killing her that we have no solution to our problem. Okay, more like, my problem. "That's where my train of thought went," I shrugged.

  She sighed, "Focus. It could be the moon lady is summoning you since she supposedly gave your family the birthmark." I could almost see a little hamster in her head drinking an energy drink while running on a hamster wheel, trying to help her solve this mystery quickly.

  "I think the hamster in your little brain is working too hard there, Fe," I said. "I know we are in some kind of danger, and it is probably my fault or my family's fault, but you are trying to tell me a goddess exists outside of old religions. It seems far-fetched."

  "Did you just call my brain a tired hamster?" Felicity raised an eyebrow at me.

  "I did," I giggled. I couldn’t stand her serious attitude right now. I didn't want trouble. We just got out of class for the summer and left my now ex-boyfriend. I turn twenty-one in a few days. Let's just chill already. "You look frazzled from your serious thinking."

  "Someone needs to be Kori. This shit is happening, no matter how impossible it seems. Get your head out of your ass," she responded, curtly.

  We finally reached the highway, so I made a left to follow it west. "It's not that I don't think this is serious. I just choose not to dwell on what I can’t control. I told you what I know already. The blue lady will be back, I am sure. I have done all I can do while being faced with a supernatural being." I regretted saying anything at that moment because an uneasy feeling filled me. The hair on my neck was standing up as the A/C blasted in the car. Chills ran down my body. It felt like strong winds were blowing through the vents. Fe tried closing them and turning the A/C off, but it continued to build a windstorm in the car. I had to pull over on the side of the highway to keep from crashing.

  "Well, you're definitely not dealing with a human," the blue woman's laugh filled the back seat.

  Shit. Shit. Shit. My eyes felt like they were going to pop out of my head. The blue woman had just entered her car by turning into the wind. Who the hell does that? I looked back at her, making herself comfortable in my little car. This was the first time I could see her. She had a certain beauty like a fairy from Neverland. Her sky-blue skin almost glittered from the sunlight peeking in from my car windows. She looked like a mythical creature from Greece. It was odd for an alien. Or wrecking ball, as I preferred to think of her.

  Still, this woman turned into the wind just to enter my car. Now, I was positive the police couldn’t help. My car was small and locked. There was nowhere to run. The blue woman appeared in my backseat from the strong winds in the car although I had tried to lock her out. What the hell did this woman want from me? She seemed to have magic. Why would she come to me? Shit. What if she ruins my car? Should I just get out and walk? I feel like she could just drag me around like a doll if I did. There was no way to avoid this.