Dana pulled into Roy's drive way and shut off the car, leaving the keys in the ignition and Roy sleeping in the back seat. Gathering up her things she started the long walk home from Roy's house, setting her pace to the music that came from her portable CD player. Roy lived just off of Route 76 in the old steel mill area, Dana had made the hike before. The old buildings covered in dust and soot, gave Dana the creeps. She had made the trek hundreds of times, but every time she swore that someone or something had been watching her from the shadows of one of those buildings. She kept her pace brisk, keeping to the open streets and near the lights. This made her feel safe, until she got to 32nd Street. The buildings here were in ruins, no lights had existed in this part of town for a long time. Dana ran through this part of town, no matter what time of day it was. She could hear scurrying as she ran, and she had seen rats several times as she ran through the cluttered streets. Roy had told her many times of bodies that had been found in the derelict buildings, the cause of death unknown as the rats had eaten more than half of the corpse before it was found.
Definitely a bad place for a young girl to be in, let alone running through. Dana rounded the corner and saw lights up ahead, she was almost in the Cualder district. Not exactly a nice part of town either, but it had lights and cops. Dana took the short cut between her neighborhood and this one, a long narrow alley that ran between several high rise apartment buildings.
She reached the middle of the alley before realizing she was not alone, a skinny ragged looking man in stained clothing stood at the end of the alley she was heading for. Dana stopped dead in her tracks, starting to turn she noticed movement behind her. Another man dressed similarly had risen from behind a dumpster, her heart started to beat wildly as she started to panic.
Dana looked around and spied the end of a fire escape ladder hanging down from the one side of the building, she leapt for it without hesitation. Her hands caught the bottom rung and dragged the ladder down to the street level, scrambling up quickly she narrowly avoided the two bums that thought they had her trapped. The men cursed and spat as she climbed above them, Dana smiled with relief that she had eluded her pursuers. Finding an open window she crawled into the abandoned building, the smell of mildew was strong in her nostrils. Dana gagged at the smell, as she made her way across the room to an open door. As she entered the hallway, stars crossed her vision as she was struck in the head by a hard object. The blackness of unconsciousness overtook her as she fell to the floor.
