Sanctuary

There was nowhere to hide. If nothing changed and quick, they were more than toast. They were some coyote's bread and butter.

The hike had started early and was peppered with recreational drug use, junk food, and not enough water. By the time they hit the small expanse of grassland that tucked up against the towering facade they aimed to climb, they were dehydrated, stoned, hungry, sugar crashed, and exhausted.

That was before the strange electronic bubble enveloped their little camp. It was like something out of an early MTV video...mildly menacing and slightly sexy, fakely real and velveeta cheese-y.

Daphne was the first to panic and try to break through. Since there wasn't more than three feet of space between the entrance to their tent and the inner edge of the wacky dome, her charred remains wound up smoking and smelling mighty nasty.

Cricket, who had dated Daphne on and off ever since he started dealing pot a year and a half ago, was horrified at the carnage but some small flame of relief turned on and he realized that he'd never loved her. He wisely kept this from Sandi, Daphne's best friend and his best customer. She'd freak out even more if she found out that he wasn't really sorry to see Daph go.

So, none of this was very reassuring, but then things got worse. The pressure of the lava lamp invader quickly rendered them incapable of moving. They could feel impulses racing to their appendages, attempting to deliver the message, and feeling like many sad adolescent teenage boys used to feel before call-waiting changed the world.

They all writhed under the shifting lights that raced through the membrane that surrounded them. The sun went down and shortly after that, the kooky cage simply disappeared. But they still could not move.

Many miles away, a pack of desperate wolves picked up their scent. Normally they wouldn't have anything to do with man, but something told them this would be like an all you can eat buffet. And that, as they say, was that.