MAI WAS RESTING AT the park. She'd stopped to regroup, but found she couldn't relax with all of the destruction around her. So although she was still tired, she got up again. She had just passed in front of a simple white house when she first saw the dark man. He didn't notice her initially, but she felt a sense of foreboding and attempted to slip away before being seen, remembering her earlier premonition before the earthquake and hoping to avoid any unpleasantness.
But it had been her movement that alerted him to her presence. She must have kicked a rock or some other piece of debris, but the small noise caused him to look at her. Falling into his dark, bottomless eyes, she'd felt her insides turn to ice. That was when their short conversation had taken place.
"So, you have decided to
