<div class="floatleft">(http://slodive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/dreadlock-hairstyles/red-dreads.jpg)</div><strong>Name:</strong>Eva Bellamy (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=250173.msg12432737#msg12432737)<br/><strong>City | Date | Time:</strong>Philadelphia, PA | August 23, 2015 | 1:00 pm<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Wyatt C. Faulkner (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=250173.msg12370769#msg12370769)<br/><strong>Content:</strong><em>A Tangle in Fate's Skein</em><br/><hr/><br/>Eva's steps remained ghostly silent in her Converse sneakers, though the<em>tick-tick-tick</em>of her companion's nails against the old concrete and tile left an audible wake in their trail.  There was no fear in her though, she might attract unwanted attention from anyone - not in this place at least.  No matter the great long hallways, with its graffiti-marred subway tiles all the way to the vaulted ceilings; no matter the detritus of dust-filthied sheets and torn, rusted and wrecked chairs and bed frames, attesting to generations of the destitute come through these abandoned halls, Eva would know long before another human being was upon her.<br/><br/>Two months and a mere two hundred dollars had seen her to Philadelphia, trekking the breadth of the continent, from one coastline to the other.  Only once did she travel by any mode but her own two feet, and that by Greyhound bus through the endless miles of desert of the American southwest.  The experience had been... Painful,<em>agonizing</em>, just as she knew it would be - but even Eva knew she could not yet survive on her own in those unforgiving lands.  The unbridled emotions of the other passengers, unknowingly unhindered by any sort of barrier Eva had yet to build, saw her crawling into the very backseat, weeping softly as she clutched her poor head mile after mile - but she had no choice.  It had been such a blessed relief to disembark on the outskirts of Dallas, and disappear once more into the wilds that were become nigh second nature to her.<br/><br/>And places just like this (http://opacity.us/site10_philadelphia_state_hospital_byberry.htm), long abandoned but for the rats and the cockroaches and feral cats, the destitute and the gangbangers and the teenagers looking to party, were all the shelter she needed anymore.  The mastiff-sized dog trotting at her side, feral and scarred, was all the good company she could wish.<br/><br/>Her long, fiery red dreadlocks swayed down her back as she trotted up the stairs, her fingertips lightly running along the grimy metal stair railing.  The room she and her companion claimed for their own was, she believed, once a patient bay, great louvered window panes reaching from floor to ceiling, all facing to the north.  Not a few of those panes had been broken, shards of glass littering the ancient linoleum floors and the dead brown grasses one floor below.<br/><br/>No matter though:  with her sleeping bag, a few pieces of rope and some old sheets, Eva had made quite the comfortable shelter in one far corner.  The north-facing windows provided plenty of light during the day, a spectacular moonlit starscape at night and, at this very moment?  A breathtaking view of the thunderheads rolling in now, steely-blue-grey on the far horizon.  The leaves were only just beginning to flip over, displaying that distinctive silver-green that promised the coming storm some hours from now.<br/><br/>Taking advantage of the temperate northeast Indian summer, she still wore a pair of cut-off jean shorts and an old Def Leppard concert t-shirt, both courtesy of the Salvation Army donation box.  She settled cross-legged onto the sleeping bag, patting the spot beside her with an inviting smile.  Eva reached into her bag as the enormous dog lay beside her, settling its great shaggy head on one of her folded legs.<em>"Beggar,"</em>she whispered, not truly bothered in the least by those large, wet brown eyes turned up to her pleadingly.  She produced a single can of Vienna Sausages from her bag, pilfered... Er...<em>'Liberated'</em>from a local 7-Eleven.<br/><br/>The can's lid peeled back with a satisfying<em>pop</em>and a soft hiss of metal.  Eva fished one sausage out, lifting it to her lips for just a moment - and then giving it over to her friend with a grin.  "C'mon, don't look at me like that," she laughed beneath the baleful, wet-eyed stare of her friend.  The dog whimpered, a low, puppyish whine deep in its chest as it gingerly plucked the Vienna sausage from her fingers.  "Oh stop - it was just a<em>joke!</em>"