She

[Ahab9]

Amalia "Amy" Cassady: Pregame Start

Amy liked jogging in the rain. Maybe because she loved running in it, with her sweat washed away and the feeling of little droplets hitting the few bare spots on her face. Maybe she just liked the lone moments ahead, letting her worries fade in the steady rhythm of her shoes hitting the ground. Or maybe she just hated the sun; judging how often it turned her into a life-sized tomato, she had a right to. They were all good reason, ones she could relate to.

They were also false. When she was younger she found rain as a great excuse for when her body, well, 'relaxed'. So good in fact that it worked on both random passerby and good samaritans, and nobody ever noticed the slightly darker stains on her pants or the faint smell of ammonia in the air.

Or maybe they pretend not to. She wasn't eager to know.

Anyway, rain. Wet, sometimes too cold, sometimes too much, usually avoided by people by staying at home or with ancient relics referred by the local populace as 'umbrellas'. All obvious things, and yet she could find people up and around on Sunday morning as she ran on the sidewalk, up early for her daily routine.

As she strolled away from the highway she slowed down, enough for her to catch her breathing and actually pay attention to the first apartments down the road. They were a familiar sight, as she often passed through this neighborhood whenever she wanted to indulge in her own masochism. It took two hours at a brisk pace to reach it, by running on the small sidewalk of a busy highway full of raging cars and nothing inbetween her and a bumper hitting her at high speed but the rare lamp post.

Great stuff. Moving on...

It wasn't really such a bad place; sure, there were plenty of empty buildings (probably more than anywhere else in the city, actually, but it was great for her, so she can't really complain about it) and cars were a rare sight. The homes here were well kept, though, if a bit old. Too bad that it doesn't change much about their age; paint didn't really cover the cracked concrete or the rotten wood.

Sometimes, she thought Spartan Keyes looked like it was a disaster away to turn into a pile of rubble, but maybe it was just her pessimism talking. She was also sure she had something good to say about the area, but for the life of her, she couldn't find it.

Next time then; right now, as she stopped right behind a small apartment with a great garden-not that she'd know, she's anything but a green thumb-she just had some quick stretching left to do, and then she was going straight to the nearest bus stop. Then she'll have the day free for herself.

(Amy Cassady continued elsewhere...)