The morning came, harsh and bright and windy. She awoke feeling groggy and still tired, but the wind and the sun wouldn’t let her sleep, nor, her mind told her, would it be a good idea to try. She had to find her way out of this place. Looking to the horizon, she was relieved to see that the sun must only have risen thirty or so minutes ago. From where she was, she couldn’t look down on the street below, but she could look out over the city around her. Farther off, she saw taller buildings. And over towards the mountain, she saw heavy machinery and people starting at laborious work. She guessed they were taking things from the planet to use for some reason. What reason, she didn’t know, but at least now she knew not to head towards that area. She listened, and the city was starting to wake, but she didn’t hear any voices close by, so she decided to, cautiously, make her way down from the roof she was on.

Landing softly on her feet in the alleyway beside the house, she began to again make her way silently from the city. She ended up in the foothills of mountains far afield of the mining operations towards the center of the mountain cliffs. She thought to use them for cover to make her way around the city and find the familiar landmarks she hoped to locate.

As she was making her way through the rocks though, she happened upon a small make-shift dwelling. She immediately hid and was going to make her way around it, giving it a wide berth, and she would have, except that she started to hear soft crying or sobbing from inside – a child, a girl she thought. Her heart immediately went out to her and she wanted to help. But that instinct was battled by caution. The child surely had parents, and would they not do to her what others of these people had, and try to make property of her?

Still though, she couldn’t quite bring herself to leave, knowing the child might be in danger, that she could possibly even die if she left her. These were a hard and unforgiving people, if her experiences with them could be used as an actuate measure. Would they leave a child to suffer? To die? Before her earlier experiences, she would have said no, that no one would be able to do such a thing. Now, she wasn’t nearly so sure.