Patricia took the last step, her head disappearing into the sharp fragrant rocks or broken glass or whatever, that scraped her face on the way down.

Rich-smelling bones and scraps buried her alive. Her feet touched a floor or the ground, and then it tilted, went sideways. She realized she was in a container that was being tipped. She opened her eyes, which she didn’t realize she’d closed, and she saw the inside of a Dumpster, full of lovely and rotten food, which was being emptied into a truck. Someone saw her squirming in the midst of all the garbage and gave a shout.

She spilled out of the truck, and the garbage collectors and the restaurant manager and a woman in a smart pink trench coat stared at her: a girl covered in restaurant waste, which no longer smelled sweet at all. She didn’t know if this was real or what city she was in, and her clothes were ruined and she was still barefoot and she couldn’t bear to look at her own grimy feet. They were all yelling but she couldn’t understand anything they were saying. She took off running, out of the secluded backstreet behind the restaurant and onto a bigger street where everybody stared at her.

She had only one thought: I have to get away from people.

Everything was too bright and tinged sort of blue-gray, like it was dusk and noon at the same time. She looked up to see where the sun was, but the whole sky was too bright to look at, and it stung her retinas.

This wasn’t the first time Patricia had been dropped in a strange town where she knew no one and had no money and did not speak the language. Even being shoeless and covered with stinking garbage was no great extra challenge—and yet she felt panic steal her breath. She was trapped, there were too many people wherever she went, they were all looking at her, faces looming and bulging, and some of them were trying to talk to her. Just breathing the same air as other humans made her feel like needles were being drilled into her skin. The idea of even touching another person’s skin made her retch—if anybody would even want to touch her, as filthy as she was.

The city—whatever city this was—pressed in on her. People came out of dome-covered wooden doorways, climbed through broken shop windows, rose up out of cars, and descended from high buses, pinning her down. Wherever she looked, faces and hands. Big staring eyes and grasping fingers, mouths gaping and making guttural roaring noises. Awful creatures. Patricia ran.