A cold, gritty surface pressed against her cheek as she came to. She pushed herself up onto her knees and looked around; she was in an alley between two tall buildings, gray-stoned and blurred by a thick fog. Looking back down at the ground, she drew a sharp breath; a massive pool of blood trailed back from where she knelt. In panic, she scrambled back against a side wall, a dull pain stretching across her hands from the cracked concrete. The blood wasn't hers, the amount of it was inhuman, and it was so terribly dark and oily, and smelly; she wrinkled her nose; the alley smelled like decay and death, much stronger than at the theater. It all led to the back of the alley, where it looked like someone had dumped a bucket of gore. A sharp sickness filled her stomach as she slowly stood. A glint caught her eye, sparkling as she moved. Plugging her nose and focusing on the glint, she walked toward it with great caution. It became a key as she got closer, and upon picking it up and feeling how smooth the red was, she realized that it wasn't blood, but a dark red paint. Or in the very least, she hoped. After a failed attempt to wipe the paint off of the key with her pants, she decided to put it in her vest pocket for safe-keeping and continue on down to the other end of the alley. There was a persistent and intensifying static noise coming from all around accompanied by the fog, which grew thicker with every step.

The noise stopped and the fog steadly lifted when she reached a point where the alley opened to a shopping square. The signs were all destroyed and the bricks around one door didn't match those of another. As she looked more closely she realised there were the doors to homes between them too, most surrounded by a foot or so of nice siding, one by crumbling plaster. There was also a path down to a subway, and the sound of water on a shore and birds chirping as if in a park or forest was faintly heard. Heather went up to a large window and peered in. It was the real world inside, or so it seemed. There were cages with little animals and shelves with pet supplies.

"Hello?" she called. A man was moving inside and she started knocking on the glass. "Hey! Can you hear me? Let me in!" But he just stood at the counter, checking the register and smiling. She gave up, deciding this was all some sort of trick, and went to the next door which had two large glass panels in it. She knelt to look through and saw two small shadows behind them, the laughter of children could be heard.

Heather stood and looked back at the alley, absently wondering if she had maybe missed something while back there, but instead there was a door surrounded by old looking wall paper. She walked up to it and sighed sadly. I feel like I'm in a Dr. Seuss book, or that one painting with the stairs... It was an apartment door, with the numbers 302 on it. She tried to peer in through the peep hole and look around. She could barely make out couches and windows when she heard steps behind her, causing her to turn and slash back with her knife, but there was nothing there. The air started feeling extremely heavy and there was a throbbing in her head. She heard a gasping noise, like someone choking, then the static started to come back, a child's cry of fear rang out, and a man yelled before all hell broke loose.

An automatic gun went off, followed by the yelping and howling of animals. A kid was screaming so loud for her mother and let out a painful gasp and grunt.

Heather felt every wound she heard, her heart beginning to fill with terrible pain. She began to cry. "No..." she whispered, but it couldn't be heard over a young woman crying and bargaining for her life before she screamed so terribly. A chorus of death surrounded Heather, and she couldn't block it out. The door with the decaying plaster began to billow smoke and men were praying hymns. The hymns stopped abruptly with a wet noise, and the door burst into flames, someone shouting something about a devil within.

She curled into a ball against the door behind her and buried her face in her knees with her hands covering her ears, even though it did nothing to block the sounds of murder. She felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Terrible, aren't they? The things I've done." His voice seemed so proud; too proud. A loud crash rang out, then all of the sound stopped. She slowly peered up, shaking. The doors were all open, some outward, some in, some smashed down. Each had a shadowy figure or two looking out, standing and crawling in blood that started to pour out of their rooms, save the apartment door, which remained shut and untouched. In the middle of the square was an industrial elevator whose grated shaft rose up into the fog, high above the buildings, with visible rust on the bars. The doors creaked open, pieces falling off as they scraped together.

"So is this how you kill me, then? Are these my doors? Your next 'terrible thing'?" Heather questioned sarcastically but with great pain as she stood. She looked at each figure; they were all bloodied and looked like the color from their clothes and flesh had been drained. Most of them were standing there, shoulders slumped. One was kneeling, flames engulfing its head and chest, and another twitched erratically, crackling with snaps and zaps. She looked at where the children's voice had come from before and saw a giant shadow looming deep within the doorway. She stepped towards the mess of an elevator, determined to live though scared beyond belief. She went in and turned, still shaking, as the doors screeched close, the blood from the rooms starting to trickle into the elevator. She heard whispers. It lurched and moved quickly upward, into the fog, and as it rose so did the volume of the voices.

"Trapped, so trapped..."

"Mommy! It hurts!"

"...eh-it would buh-be fire..."

"...will I wake up?"

One last voice spoke before all went silent. It stood out to her, not sounding as if in pain but tranquil.

"Call him out on his bluff. Break him, because you know he can't break you." It was an older male, and he was speaking to her instead of commenting on his fate. Heather looked down through the gaps in the grating and saw that the shade who twitched erratically was watching the elevator. A shudder passed through her spine. She looked up and stared at the closing fog for a while, wondering why it didn't get clearer as she ascended, but she quickly remembered where she was.