The sun rises, to create a beautiful Saturday morning.  My cell phone vibrates on the nightstand next to my bed.  My eyes slowly open and I lean forward, stretching my arms out.  A yawn takes over my system as my eyes close again and that vibrating phone rings in my ears, over and over again.  Slowly pushing myself to the side, I set my feet down on the carpet, feeling it’s soft material as I reach over and grab the phone.  I re-open my eyes and see “8:15 a.m.” on the screen and slide my thumb over to the “Dismiss” button, relinquishing the alarm that was going off.  It’s another Saturday, which means I have a long day of personal activities planned for myself.

As I stand up, I start arching my back, letting out another yawn.  I can feel and hear my spine cracking in several places as I get myself up and shake my head.  I stand around for a few minutes, letting the sunlight shine in from my window and help me wake up.  After feeling the warmth of the light on my face, I turn and pick up a pile of clothes, which I’d set out for myself last night.  Still half-asleep, I walk out of my bedroom and turn to the left, into the upstairs bathroom.  Shutting the door, I spend the next several minutes taking a nice, hot shower.

I emerge from the bathroom a few minutes later, fully dressed and ready for the day.  My hair is brushed down, my teeth are sparkly, and my face has been thoroughly shaved.  I’m wearing a red “Hurley” T-shirt, with a white checker-like design across the chest portion of it, Jean shorts that almost come down to my shins, ankle-high socks, and a pair of dark-blue converse sneakers over my feet.  I wear a smile on my face as I run down the two sets of carpeted stairs, heading towards the kitchen.

As I pass into the kitchen, I open up a 2-door cabinet on the side wall, revealing a huge pantry of food.  I reach into a small box on the middle shelf and pull out a Strawberry-flavored Nutrigrain Cereal Bar.  It’s not too much of a breakfast, but it’s enough to get me by in the morning, until I return home from my morning run.  I tear the wrapper off the bar and toss it in a garbage can under the sink, as I open up the refrigerator and pull out a small bottle of water.  Putting both of them together in one hand, I walk along the counter until I reach the front door.  Opening both the thick door and the screen door, I push the door open and emerge outside. 

I stop in front of my house, standing on a green yard, adorned with flowers and a small garden of vegetables, looking up towards the sun.  The heat beats down on me, and I can almost feel myself sweating already.  This is good.  The temperature must be at least 75 degrees or so today.  I’ll be able to work a lot off as I go.  Pocketing my water bottle, I bite into my cereal bar and run past the garden, alongside the road that I live on, surrounded by fields and wilderness, paying no mind to a small ruffling noise coming from my tomato plants.

I run at a slow, but steady pace, making my way down the road.  As I pass by my own property, I see nothing but fields of grass, hay, and corn for as far as my eyes let me.  This isn’t exactly the most wonderful scenery in the world, for most people, but it works for me.  The lack of people and activity make me feel more alone and in touch with nature.  Having this inner-feeling always makes me calm myself and focus less on the pain I feel from exercising and more of the joy of being outside to see everything there is to see.

I take my run in segments, as I always do.  I run for about 15 minutes, then walk for 15, and then repeat the process.  Once I have both of my regular cycles done, I stop and turn around.  I can see my property far off in the distance as I pull out my bottle.  The cold feel of the bottle makes my fingers chill as they slowly unscrew the cap and pull the opening to my lips.  Taking a small cloth from another pocket, I wipe the sweat from my forehead as I quench my thirst.  My breathing is slow and deep, but steady, as I start running again, making my way back.

As I finally arrive back at my property, I’ve been pacing myself well, and am not overly tired.  My legs burn a little from the run, which is normal, but at least I don’t feel like I’m about to collapse.  As I empty out my bottle of water, I pocket it again as I start walking past the fence in front of my property.  I smile at thinking about the workout I just put myself through, thinking it’s going to be a good day.  I didn’t have a watch on me, but I imagined it was, at least, 9:00 by now, and I would have lots of time to do everything else on my weekend routine.

As I came onto my property, however, something caught my attention.  As I stood on the stone walkway that led from the fence to my front door, I heard something moving around in my garden.  I raised an eyebrow as I slowly walking along the path, looking at each set of plants.  The corn seemed fine, but the tomato plants looked like they were moving a little.  As I crept closer and closer, I tried to look closer before I heard what sounded like a human scream.  What’s more is that the scream sounded like it had come from my garden.  I hurried over to the garden to see what was going on.

As I came over, I wondered why a person would be in my garden, in the first place.  Were Mom and Dad surprising me with a visit?  I didn’t have them scheduled to come down until next weekend, but it’s possible that they wanted to surprise me, or even my sisters.  As I came closer, I realized that it wasn’t my family at all.  It was someone I didn’t know.  I gasped as I saw a young girl jumping out from the garden and falling down to the ground, right in front of my feet.  I looked forward and saw a stray dog, one I’d seen come by this area, from time to time.  It had been seen, running down the road often, normally chasing some sort of small animal.  It’s prey, this time, it wouldn’t be getting. 

Not thinking about what the woman looked like, I start yelling and screaming at the dog, quickly shooing it off my property.  After dealing with it, I turn to the girl who had fallen unconscious near me.  Her clothes are shredded and there are blood marks all over her arms.  I kneel down by her, trying to see who she is.  Before I turn her over, she looks like she was a little more than 2 feet in height, probably pretty young.  As I turn her, however, I quickly realize that she wasn’t young at all.

I look over her body as I gasp when I saw it.  The curvature of the legs, the stomach, the full breasts, and even her face.  This was no girl, at all.  From her entire figure, she looks like a woman, nearly the same age I was, in fact.  Along that shoulder-length black hair is a woman, but something is very strange about her.  She looks like she’s not even three feet in height.  I’m no expert, but she doesn’t even look much taller than 2 feet.  How can that possibly be? 

I shake my head and try to get the questions off my mind.  The woman is bleeding and scratched up from that dog.  My questions can come later.  I have to get her inside and get these wounds patched up.  I quickly put my arms under her legs and back.  Lifting her into the air and putting her head and arms over my shoulder, I quickly run into the house, hoping that whoever this is isn’t badly hurt…