Oh, and it's fantasy, just so you know.

***

Merry ran down the dirt path as fast as her little legs could take her. Her eyes weren't focused on the ground below her, so the branch that caught her foot while she raced through the hilly terrain easily brought her crashing to the hard earth.

Her tears came quickly, but in spite of the pain in her bare hands and jeans covered knees, Merry forced herself back on her feet. She couldn't let Mom find her and take her back home. Everyone was watching TV, talking about buildings falling down and people dying and it terrified her. She wasn't going back to that.

It was while she was getting her five year old body off the ground that she saw in the corner of her eye a tall, thin dark spot on a nearby rise. Merry sniffed and rubbed her eyes to clear them up. She turned her head to get a better look at what seemed to be a shadow. Didn't people on TV hide in shadows? If that was true, it meant she could disappear, and that's exactly what she wanted right now. Ignoring the pain in her knees, Merry raced as fast as she could to the thin, ragged shadow, realizing as she got closer that it was far better than she'd hoped.

 

- "...that caught her foot while she raced through the hilly terrain ..." You've already said that she's running, and it seems to me that the hilliness of the terrain isn't crucial to the picture of desperation you're painting, so it might work better if you took out "while she raced through the hilly terrain." Also, if you do that, you can then get away with changing "ran" to "raced" in the first sentence. Not sure if you'd want to or not, but it's an option.

- "... pain in her bare hands and jeans covered knees, ..." 'jeans covered knees' is awkward, and the jeans don't offer much to the pain that she's feeling. You might consider taking 'jeans covered out,' and if the resulting "pain in her bare hands and knees" implies too much that her knees are also bare, switch them around: "pain in her knees and bare hands".

- The reference to the TV seems unnecessary, and I think it'd paint a darker picture if you left it out: "Everyone was talking about buildings falling down and people dying and it terrified her."

- By the third paragraph, it's already implied that she's risen from the ground (back in "forced herself to her feet"), making the seemingly second rise kind of awkward. You might consider having her see the dark spot when she's starting to run again?

- In the last sentence, the "thin, ragged shadow" is kind of awkward, though I can't quite put my finger on why. Perhaps it's that you used the word "shadow" three times in the same paragraph without paralleling (is that a word?) them. It might flow better if it were a 'thin, dark mystery' or something of the sort.

Agh! My only other problem is the brevity of your post: This is intriguing, and I want to read more!

[This message has been edited by J. Alfred Prufrock (edited July 29, 2004).]
 

Second, I don't think I can accept that this is a five-year-old. When five-year-olds have troubles they cling to their mommies rather than run away. Try visiting a local elementary school on the first day of kindergarten. Now an eight- or ten-year old? That I can accept. But my five-year-old (and the two others before her) comes to me over EVERY complaint, large or small, easy to explain or difficult. She is still young enough to need me to help her sooth out her worries and pains.

Other little things:
"...tall thin dark spot..." The word spot makes me think of a dot, not something tall and thin. Because of this I'm not getting a picture at all of what you're trying to describe.
"...what seemed to be a shadow..." Are we still talking about the tall thin dark spot?
"Didn't people on TV hide in shadows?" I'm hoping that a five-year-old doesn't watch the kind of TV where people regularly hide in shadows. An eight- or ten-year-old might--watching things like the Batman cartoons as an example of shows that have that mysterious thematic element.
"...the thin, ragged shadow..." This is the third description of the shadow she is heading for, and the third description of the shadow she is heading for. In other words, you've described it three times, adding some new detail each time. Show it to me once, describe it in enough detail for me to see it clearly, then use a single simple word to describe it after that.