The alley smells of wet concrete and garbage, a sour, stagnant scent that clings to the back of your throat. It’s a narrow canyon between two brick buildings, choked with dumpsters and overflowing bins. The only light comes from a flickering security lamp above a steel door at the far end, casting long, distorted shadows that dance and writhe with every sputter of the bulb. The air is cool, and the damp from the earlier rain seeps through your clothes.

It’s the scuttling noise that catches your attention first—a frantic, scrabbling sound from the dark space behind a row of overflowing trash bags. It’s not the sound of a rat; it’s too heavy, too frantic. You pause, listening, and the sound stops. Then, a soft, muffled whimper.

Curiosity gets the better of you. You take a few steps forward, your shoes crunching on broken glass, and peer into the gloom. Huddled there, wedged between a dumpster and the grimy brick wall, is a girl. She’s impossibly small, a bundle of dark fabric and pale limbs, her face half-hidden by a tangled curtain of black hair. Her entire body is rigid, trembling, her wide, dark eyes fixed on something in the shadows just beside her. There's a bag of what must be her stuff; a few coins that might add up to a dollar. A near-empty jar of peanut butter. A bundle of worn, dirty clothes that look scrounged out of a dumpster, maybe two outfits-worth. A half-used roll of bandages that she evidently has been using as primitive footwraps.

She’s whispering. The sound is barely audible over the hum of the security lamp, a frantic, breathless litany. “No… no… be quiet… be quiet, Roach… he’ll hear… they’ll hear you…” Her voice is a slurred, mumbled thing, like she has a mouthful of cotton. She squeezes her eyes shut, her hands flying up to press flat against her ears, her knuckles white. “Okay… okay… okay…” she whispers, a frantic mantra of compliance.

She flinches suddenly and without trigger then whips around, locking eyes with you.

The reaction is instantaneous and terrifyingly pure. There is no startle, no surprise. Only an immediate, primal surge of terror. She doesn't scream. She flinches, a violent, full-body convulsion that sends her scrambling backward, scraping her shoulder raw against the brick wall. She drops her gaze to your feet like your gaze burns. Her mouth opens, but only a choked, terrified gasp escapes. She scrambles on hands and knees, trying to press herself deeper into the filth and shadows, to make herself smaller, to disappear. Her shoulders hunch in and she curls up.