***
Chapter 3
I'm gonna rescue you......
***

It was quiet.

Too quiet.

Only the vague, barely detectible high pitched sound from whatever
creatures were out there existed.

Occasionally the sound would grow stronger, only to die off into near
silence.

She hated that silence. Even more than the creepy sounds from the
monsters. At least the monsters were alive. This city seemed dead.

To make things even spookier, various sections of the city had sunken in,
as if an earthquake had happened. Occasionally, the roads would end in a
cliff, with no visible ledges or ground underneath.

She had wandered the same 6 blocks of the city for seemingly forever, with
no way out. She was sure that a zipboard wouldn't work without power in
the city, and all Glitch could provide was a map. She found some
abandoned supplies, but nothing else. There didn't seem to be any way to
the school. In frustration, she sat down on the steps of a small house,
to think about what to do next.

Then that noise again. Faint in her ears, and then louder. Glitch's map
dissappeared and the static appeared again.

Animals about half her size surrounded her. They vaguely looked like
dogs, but had no fur. They looked a bit like the bat creatures for that
matter.

Standing up, she loaded her crossbow. The animals attacked and her world
slowed to almost a stop. She dodged and fired as the animals lunged at
her.

Shoot, hit, reload...........This sequence played out multiple times until
the last one fell at her feet. They shattered into a million pieces as
their disk space was recycled. The static and high pitched whine ended
as slowly as it began. She sat down to catch her breath before
gathering her arrows, then decided it was time to try again to find a way
out of the plateu she'd been trapped on. She wondered if she could get
through to the other side from behind the houses.

A car sat in the middle of the road, diagonally, door hanging open, as if
it had been abandoned in haste. Out of curiosity, she looked inside,
finding a keyring, with a housekey. Sudden inspiration hit her,
and thinking of the various things she'd heard people kept in cars, she
looked through the glove compartment, finding insurance
papers............and the address of the car's owner.

And the house the car belonged to was right behind her. Checking Glitch,
she learned that going through the house would theoretically lead to
another street, provided the land behind the house wasn't gone as well.

She entered the house, to find a dojo. Swords were hung on the walls,
similar to the ones Mouse used to use. For a moment, she stared at the
walls in awe.

Finally, she picked up a sword. The katana's weight felt uneasy since she
was just a kid. She took a few practice swings, and gaped as the sword
slashed right through a table.

An accident with this thing could be deadly.

She looked around again, eyes falling on a small compressed file,
containing a first aid kit. She slapped the first aid kit to her belt,
then made her way out the back door.