Another dusty sidewalk down dreary streets.  The girl's shoes scraped along as she dragged her feet.  Leaves blew by, twirling in the wind.  One landed in her hair.  She plucked at it, untangling its stem from her blonde strands.  Shifting her backpack, she groaned, and finally stopped.

“Camille? What's wrong?” Her friends called, “We're going to be late.”  Their voices faded into the background, and their arms, swinging, beckoning her onwards, seemed to be in slow motion.  She let her eyes go out of focus, and the world started to spin.

“Why do I feel so tired?” She wondered aloud.  Then there was a flicker.  For just a moment everything went black, and she could have sworn she saw green letters and numbers trickle down like rain.  Then everything sped up again, and the voices of her friends returned full volume.

“Are you feeling sick?  What's wrong?”  Her friend asked, resting an arm on her shoulder.  “Are you coming?”

“Sorry,” Camille brushed the arm off, “I have to go.”  And she took off running in the opposite direction.  She could hear them calling her in the distance, but tuned it out.  Pulling out her phone, she checked the time.  It was 8:45.  She stuffed it back in her pocket and picked up her pace.

Twenty minutes later she collapsed on the steps of the 5th Avenue church.  Then, fumbling up the steps, she leaned on the massive oak doors panting.  The air tasted sweet, but burned her esophagus.  The oak doors creaked loudly as she pried them open, and stumbling in she expected to see the sanctuary full of pews.  Instead it was empty, like it had been stripped of all its content.  The only thing in the massive belly of the church was a small simple table with an old black rotary telephone.

“What the...” She whispered under her breath as she walked closer to the table.  She spun around looking for something, or someone, but the place was deserted.  She reached the table and leaned on it, still having not fully caught her breath from twenty minutes of running.

Suddenly the phone began to ring.  It startled her, and she reached her hand out towards the phone, but hesitated.  The phone continued to ring, it's high pitched old fashioned clamoring was almost annoying.  Her brow crumpled in a mixture of confusion and irritation.  Finally she picked it up.  “Hello?”

A cold emotionless man's voice replied from the other end, hollow and void like it was coming from another dimension. “You're late.”