Chapter 3

Sometimes the streetlights spin like stars. In the slums it's always dark, but the sky is an empty scrape of metal that stretches over the inhabitants like a cage. Still if you dance in the damp, shadowed streets, you can see stars. She sees them above her like hope, like the slice of glass on bare feet, like rags on skin. She reaches and reaches and dreams around her shattered mind.

Her memories are thick like drying sludge and they sift to the bottom of her. She can't seem to bring them back. Something happened, but she doesn't know what. There was someone who she used to be, but the memory slides around her head. She shivers. Cold is swirling around her. The goosebumps are followed by a second sensation. A low growl rumbles from her stomach. Consciousness bumps at her mind like a stray mutt searching for a meal. She drags her face away from the cement.

She feels that somehow it's okay that she can't remember that other self right now. There are more important things. Above her a drainage pipe has been dripping over her shoulders and down her back. The wet, heavy feeling of her clothing tells her she has been here for a while. She eases up to her feet and glances around. A rat scurries into the deeper darkness, but otherwise she is alone in the cramped passage way. All the other pieces of gutter trash are too smart to sleep in the cold puddle of the Shin-ra's sewer system.

A strap is twisted around her arm. The bag attached to it bounces into her arm. She winces as it strikes the bandaged section of her arm. Curiously, she pulls at the tape on the edges. Underneath the wrapping is a rough patch of blistered-over skin. She stares at the wound feeling something painfully surfacing. Someone hit her with a hot pan. She shoves the image away, quenching the growing nausea that comes with the memory. She doesn't need to know right now.

She looks in the bag. A half a loaf of bread, some vegetables, and a piece of cheese rest next to a long knife. The cheese is warm and molded on the edges. She tosses it in the direction of the rat. Blankly she wonders how long she has been curled here. Her muscles hurt, like she strained them recently. She separates herself from the pain to focus on her first goal--shelter. Part of her is shocked that she hasn't frozen to death yet.

She edges out into the street to try to get her bearings. Something tells her that she landed in Sector Six. No, she came here. She did not want to be found. She avoids remembering why. Across the street the florescent signs from a bar light the puddles. She sees herself dimly reflected at her feet. Her hair straggles over her face. The once bright red is smudged with the filth of her latest home. Her clothes are also stained a muddy brown, a combination of pavement and sewage. Growing up she had always hated the shit smell of the slum. Now she embodies it.

She loathes the mirrored her and smashes her foot into the water. Her image splatters out in droplets that slide down her legs. She wants to feel clean. Instinct, however, tells her that she had nowhere to go. She huddles inward and tries to pull on the knowledge that a lifetime of slums can lend her. A sort of mantra crawls into her brain. Avoid the pimps. Look out for the drunks. Stay in the shadows. The words repeat in her head. She nods to herself and enters the street. She creeps into the next pool of darkness while looking for a likely place. She can't go to a shelter. They'll be looking for her there. Temporarily she questions who "they" are, but she leaves the thought. She can't go to a place for help. A bathroom.

She stares at the bar. The sign across the top declares "Mel's" in large green letters. Internally she's recalling the gossip associated with the name. Half-recalled whispers tell her that the place is safe enough for her ends. She wipes the hair from her face and neck and knots it into a loose bun. She swings the door open and gets a scent of old cigars and spilled liquor. In the after midnight haze, few heads turn to see the new arrival. After seeing her, all of them turn back to their own problems and drinks. She hovers like a rabbit against the door, staring at the bartender, and then she strides out on to the floor like she has been here all her life. She doesn't want to be stopped before she gets a chance to clean up. She shoots into the hall where a sign advertises the bathrooms are located.

The door has a crudely painted woman in a dress on it. She turns the handle and feels it give with a flutter of relief. The room is unoccupied. She darts in and shuts the door behind her. Leaning against the firm wood, she already feels safer. She clicks the lock into place and studies the tiny room. A single light bulb lights the room. It throws light over a single toilet and sink. The faucet begins running with hot water after she experiments with it for a moment. She plunges her head under the stream and takes the bar of soap to her hair. Rivulets of tainted water run over her neck and into the sink. She keeps soaping her hair until the water in the sink turns clear.

Quickly checking the lock again she strips out of her shirt and pants and stuffs them into the sink. The water clouds up with the accumulated filth off her clothing. She drains off the dark mess and lets the sink refill. While she waits, she takes the edge of her shirt and begins washing her skin off. She scrubs her skin until she can see a reddish glow begin. Her clothes finally are clean enough to remove. She drapes them over the sink to dry and sits on the toilet to wait.

She leans toward the door, listening for the pounding of a fist, someone to tell her to get out. The silence settles around her with a presence all its own. Her other self needs to return. It is swimming around her, looking for an opening to flood back into her, but she guards carefully. She can't let the pain come back. She concentrates on the light bulb. The shadows bounce over the walls much like they do at home. With the word "home" the world falls away. Her spine crunches over the porcelain as she crumples to the floor. She vomits on the wood slats as her last view of Johnny floats back into her vision. The pain is shoving into her body all over, and she realizes with a burst of air into her burning lungs that she has stopped breathing.

Kate, she was Kate. Poor abused Kate that no one would help. The wood splinters dig into her naked skin and she cradles a hand around the rim of the toilet. She can taste the acrid remains of her vomit in her mouth. Kate's dead. Kate's dead. She's not Kate. Kate's dead. Dead. Her legs feel empty like all the bone has poured out through her toes. She drags herself to the sink and gargles the water. It's sweet like sugar after the rancid stomach acid. Dead. Dead. Dead. She wouldn't be abused anymore. She reaches around the aching inside for an anchor, anything that could move her past the head splitting pain. If she isn't Kate, who was she? She isn't dead. Not like Kate. She could be strong. Stronger than rock.

Somewhere in her confusion, a word floats to her. Someone who is stronger than rock. "Mason." She is Mason. Not Kate. Not dead. Mason can get to her feet. Not Kate, Kate would still be on the floor dead. Mason picks up her partially dried clothes and slips them over her body. She will have to find somewhere warm to stay tonight. She has to leave the bathroom. Vomit stains the floor by the toilet, she is clean and this is a dirty place. She cracks open the door and glances into the hall. Mason doesn't want to draw attention to herself. After seeing the hall is clear, she moves into the open. She soon passes through the bar and onto the street.

She searches for a corner out of the wind, a place where she can rest until day. After a few minutes she spots a fallen wall that will act as a wind break for her small body. Mason drops behind the solid rock and curls up for warmth. Her drying clothes cling stiffly to her body. The color of night is the same shade as when she awoke. As she presses herself against the harshness of the cement, she wonders why she bothered to get up at all.

Her muscles still stretch tensely across her back. Inside she can sense a lump of ice that is colder than the night air around her. The aching is still curled inside like a dead infant. Mason realizes that she didn't leave Kate on the bathroom floor. She carries her first death inside her like a cancer; Kate waits to be reborn in pain. As Mason tilts to sleep, she knows that she is still dying, she has just slowed the process.



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