Yuriko had been having vivid dreams ever since she had received that special kiss on her forehead from her mother.  She had told her that she had a special destiny that even she could not forsee... that one day the fate of the cosmos would rest in her hands.  In her dreams, which were at the same time terrifying and wondrous, she found herself running faster than she could ever hope to run... it was always this way.  Running faster than the wind could blow... the very ocean beneath her swift feet as though it were solid ground.  It was joyous, and yet in her heart she felt that something was chasing her... something malevolent.  This time was different somehow... and when she awoke she found herself not in her bed but curled up on the arid, dusty ground with the blistering hot midday sun beating down on her.  She still wore what she had worn to bed, but this looked nothing like Japan.  It looked like a desert wasteland.<br/><br/>She was in what appeared to be a large fenced in cow field.  That's when she noticed the buzzing and the smell of fairly fresh blood and death.  There were over a dozen cows, or rather what remained of them.  From the looks of things they had been torn to pieces and half eaten... green flies flew all over them.  She could see about 50 yards away an old house with a pickup truck parked in front of it.  Something about the house itself seemed menacing somehow, as though something was seriously wrong.  A breeze blew past her and for a split second it almost seemed as though she could hear a low gutteral chuckle coming from the direction of the house.<br/><br/><div align="center">*****</div><br/>Matthias Graves had not been in Texas long... in fact he had only just crossed the state line from Oklahoma an hour ago.  Although Ghost Rider needed no sustenance but the vengeance he stood for, Matthias was another story.  He realized it had been at least a day since he had last eaten and though the spirit was willing, his stomach reminded him that a part of him was still technically mortal.  There was a diner/truck stop ahead, so he pulled his bike over to park and headed inside to get food out of the way.  As he stepped inside, he got a few odd glances from some burly truckers, but they mumbled amongst themselves and went back to their meals.  A middle aged waitress with brown hair behind the counter offered a smile as he sat down and took his order.  As Matthias waited, he could hear a couple of locals at a table behind him talking about something potentially interesting.<br/><br/><strong>"Yeah I swear, it was the most messed up thing I ever saw.  Every living thing on the whole damn farm was dead, including the Landersons.  I heard it happened to another farm a few miles down south, too.  God knows who's doing this.  What a world we live in."</strong>