The nightly cacophony of sirens, thumping, whining music, and shouting were muffled when Lora was finally able to slide home the metal door on the alley side of her squat. The building was brick and it had been cemented blind decades ago. The roof was only partially collapsed, but the place was four stories tall, so the upper floor made a good enough roof. Lora had been lucky to find it still empty, and she kissed her fingers, touching them to the door in blessing, before cranking her hand light. Her ritual ten cranks would give her enough to add security to the door, though the alley provided much already.
Lora had only squeezed down the alley because she was trying to escape the Yard Dogs, the gang that had taken over her former street and caught her out after dark. It was tight, and full of garbage, and she prayed it was not a dead end. Feeling her way blindly, she touched the metal lever for the door. Hearing the Dogs howling, she was frightened enough to try to move it, and by a miracle, the door opened. Hoping she wasn't stepping over a threshold through a collapsed floor and to her death from a long fall or a basement drowning, she managed to close the sliding, metal monstrosity and wait, panting, tense, until the morning.
Without any light inside, Lora had to keep risking opening the door. Eventually, it was light, and she saw where she was. The building she was in was the oldest, and the brick hulk next door was built right up to hers, without regard to any of the windows or doors already in place. Her building had been closed for much longer, and nobody much cared to access it, so, they didn't. The alley was narrower than she had initially thought, and the scrapes on her shoulders proved it. Adrenaline had allowed her to push though, but in the future, she'd turn completely sideways. Lora left the mouth of the alley filled with garbage, occasionally supplementing it when it began to look trampled. The alley was uninviting, and she made it more so, with nasty-smelling bags left near the entrance.
It was the longest she had ever been able to stay in the same place since she was a child, and she warned herself every day not to become complacent. Lora added rituals to her locking and checking and booby traps and intruder indicators. She followed her rituals every time she left and every time she returned. Making her way up to the second floor, she checked her intruder indicators--twine strung, dust undisturbed. She made sure her "alarm" system was in place--boxes and tin cans, crunchy gravel and thin metal sheets. Finally, she made it to her nest.
Lora kissed her fingers and pressed them to the room she had made from materials found in her building. A precious sewing kit had allowed her to create luxuries, like cushions stuffed with old clothing and even blankets. One patchwork blanket made a roof over her crate and scrap wood nest. Others lay on the floor or folded neatly in the corner. Ducking in through a flap, Lora knelt down and removed her shoes, untying the scavenged laces carefully and putting them on her shoe mat. There was another ritual she followed that had nothing to do with security of her body. It was, instead, security of her memory and her heart.
Kneeling on her blankets, she removed the coat she always wore. She had sewn in special pockets on the inside, carrying her memories with her, in case she couldn't come back. Lora pulled out a grey packet of cloth, and laid it on the cushioned floor of her nest. Cranking her hand light twenty times, she perched it on a low pillow. With her right hand, she unfolded the first flap. With her left hand, she unrolled the packet. With her right hand, she unfolded the top, bottom, and remaining flap. Inside were the only connections to her former life: a four-inch real graphite pencil, no point; a tiny piece of a formerly yellow blanket; two, one-inch pieces of red crayon, no label; and a folded photograph, one-inch square. Lora arranged the items in a line then picked them up one at a time, holding each to her nose, and reminding herself of who she was.
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