<div style="text-align: center;"><a class="postlink" href="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSKJQM5Koa7D6AddBkUzqfH9L7gdzLUjfHN_yEefqMv3uHVY1qFRQ">[ img ]</a><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">Name:</span><br/>Marina Torres<br/><span style="font-weight: bold">Age:</span><br/>23<br/><span style="font-weight: bold">Race:</span><br/>Human<br/><span style="font-weight: bold">Appearance:</span><br/>Marina is 5'3" and petite. Almost everything about her is small and demure, except her eyes, whose bright green shine demand attention. Her hair is a light brown, and can be flyaway at times. <br/><span style="font-weight: bold">History:</span><br/>Marina had a typical childhood, and life for her didn't really start until college. She is currently a grad student studying Journalism at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Unfortunately, her first-year final project has had some unintended consequences. Her hard-hitting expose into border patrol letting the larger cartels easily smuggle drugs into the country has landed her in a bit of hot water. Marina has two choices- stand up to the cartels for the sake of her paper, and by extent her career, or leave town and start over.<br/>~~~</div><br/><br/><br/>Marina pulled out of the 24-hour gas station, her heart pounding. "Since when was getting gas so terrifying?" She muttered to herself as the lights faded from her rear-view mirror. She knew perfectly well when it had become terrifying. When she had driven down to Las Cruces to talk with a source for her term paper, and she had instead found a note addressed to her lying on the source's coffee table, next to a splatter of what she had only hoped was red wine. Apparently, the cartels had caught wind of her snooping, and they didn't like it. Granted, nearly everyone in border states knew that border patrol was lax on the bigwigs, but that didn't mean they wanted that information printed in a term paper. Marina glanced over at the letter in the passenger seat, sighing softly. She didn't need to re-read it to know exactly what it said.<br/><br/>'Drop the project or we'll come for you next.'<br/><br/>That was all they'd bother to give her. No lofty threat, no declaration that they knew where her family lived. Just, 'Quit, or get hit'. How quaint. They must have done some kind of research on her, to know that she wasn't a huge threat. They had probably sent Junior down to leave the note, in fact. She wasn't worth the time of the head honcho. What they didn't know was that she had thought this through. She knew the risks when she declared her project. Her professor had even tried to give her an alternate, but Marina was determined to finally get rid of corrupt border patrols and help stop the drugs flowing into her country. She had her reasons.<br/><br/>So here she was, driving back to Albuquerque to continue her paper. She would wait a few days before contacting her next possible source, she didn't want to cause too many waves. Marina felt her eyes begin to droop, and she looked at her dashboard clock. It was nearing four a.m. She had anticipated a night without sleep, but she thought it would be because she was getting information, not driving back home empty-handed. She should have stopped at the small town an hour back and gotten a room, but she had less than one hundred miles to go, and wanted to be back to do some research on Sunday before she had to go back to classes.<br/><br/>She kept her eyes on the road ahead of her, blinking more often than usual in an attempt to stay awake. She was so focused on not drifting off to sleep, she didn't notice the soft rumbling of tires on the road, far louder than her quiet Chevy. She did notice the headlights that suddenly appeared behind her, high-beams on. She cursed and cupped her hand over her eyes, flicking her own high-beams on for a moment to let the other driver know, in case they had forgotten that their's were on in the long stretch of empty desert road.<br/><br/>She figured out that it was on purpose when the car pulled into other lane, as if they were passing her, and instead stayed right beside her. Marina couldn't see anything other than it was a dark off-road vehicle, maybe a Hummer. When the car veered right, it all clicked into place. They must have followed her from Las Cruces. Marina pulled her car off the road, hoping that the sandy rock wasn't too deep for her tires to handle. The car revved, the driver giving her a warning as it continued in the right lane. Marina kept driving to the side of the road, not wanting to stop in case they got out to continue the lesson. The car stayed beside her for awhile, before veering right once more. Marina pulled farther off the road, knowing that she couldn't make it back onto the road because of the way the other car was positioned.<br/><br/>The Hummer followed her off the road, crashing through the low brush that Marina was trying to avoid. It sped past her, sending small rocks plinking against her windshield. Marina went to turn around and head back to the road, but the car had already circled around and stopped, high beams aimed at her. Someone leaned out of the window and yelled, "In case you didn't take the first warning seriously." The Hummer drove away, heading back onto the road and turning back south.<br/><br/>Marina closed her eyes. She couldn't tell if she was shaking, or if it was just her car idling. She may need to give second thought to that alternate assignment. Although this encounter frightened her, she also thought that it was again the work of an unseasoned child. The men she had heard stories of would've deliberately crashed into a smaller car, gotten out, and shot anyone left in the wreckage. There would have been no warnings, not for someone like her.  After a moment to calm herself, Marina went to pull back onto the road herself, but her car would not move. She tried to put in into reverse, but the tires only spun in place. She was stuck in the soft sand; she had gone too far off the road. Marina dug her phone out of her purse, but of course there was not enough signal to call anyone.<br/><br/>"Well that's great." She muttered, the stress of the day making her feel as if she were about to cry. She blinked to stop the tears, knowing that she needed to keep a level head.<span style="font-style: italic">So I've got a drug cartel on my case, and my car is stuck in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest human life. I would have to be pretty desperate to head back to that gas station too, it was pretty shady. Well, I suppose it's time to either head to the road and try to hitchhike without attracting a murderer, or wallow in self-pity and pray to whatever god's out there to send me some kind of magic tow truck. </span>Despite her situation, her sarcastic thoughts made Marina smirk. "Hey, mind giving me a little help here, universe? Aren't I suppose to have some kind of guardian angel whose job it is to not let me get into situations like this? Where's he?" She said aloud, if only to calm herself down and ease her own pent-up tension.