"At the time, I don't remember feeling much of anything. It was just something that happened all the time. I guess I just thought it was normal." Dana paused for a moment, trying to think past the pain and back through the memories. "It was later, when I was about thirteen or fourteen when I realized that this didn't happen in normal families."

The therapist's pen made scratching noises on the yellow legal pad that sat on the desk in front of her. Listening to the pen, it felt like her brain was being written on with a very sharp scalpel. A wave of nausea had her taking a deep breath, willing her stomach to calm down.

"Look, I am not feeling very well right now, could we cut this short today?" The therapist looked up from the legal pad and appeared to notice Dana for the first time. Faint beads of sweat were starting to gather on her forehead and her face was drawn and pale. The therapist took her glasses off and set them on the desk next to her notes. Looking up at the clock, she sighed. It was getting close to five o'clock.

"Okay, you only have about ten minutes left anyway. How is your prescription holding out?" she asked.

Dana reached down into the purse she held on her lap and pulled out the orange bottle, knowing it was empty. She looked across the desk, held up the bottle and shook it. It didn't rattle.

The therapist tightly controlled an impulse to roll her eyes, reaching down to open a drawer and pull out the prescription pad. Writing quickly, she marked the box for one refill, tore the sheet off the pad and handed the paper across to Dana.

Slowly reaching out, she took the prescription and folded it carefully, slipping it into her purse. With a small smile that was more of a smirk, she stood up carefully and walked across to the closed door.

Outside was gray and gloomy, the wind blowing sticky damp leaves across the sidewalk as Dana dug through her purse to find her car keys. Fall had come early to Portland, and the rain had been nearly non-stop since the beginning of October. The cold made her head hurt even worse as she inserted the key into the lock of the decrepit old Toyota. Pulling the door open, she slid into the driver's seat, tossing her things onto the passenger side.

With a defiant roar, the car started on the third try, reminding her that she needed to take the damn thing in for a tune up. The spark plugs were shot and she knew it, had known it for a long time, but in her current mental state she had no desire to talk to anyone.

Pulling away from the curb, Dana turned the corner to get back onto Twenty First Avenue to head home. The drive took all of about five minutes until she was in front of her apartment building, the Winchester Building as it was locally known. Making sure her parking permit was visible in the window, she pushed the lock button down and slammed the door shut. Pressing the code into the keypad by the front door, she heard a click and the heavy door unlocked. She pulled the door open in time for a heavyset, gray haired man to shove past her, nearly knocking her down. "Jerk," she muttered and headed toward the stairs. The climb to the third floor apartment she shared with Rachel felt like an expedition to the top of Mount Everest.

At the landing for the third floor, Dana turned down the hallway toward her door at the very end of the hall. With her eyes closed and shuffling mostly by feel, she prayed silently that there was one last Imitrex in the medicine cabinet. Opening her eyes just before she reached the door, she was only vaguely surprised to see it wasn't completely closed. Rachel had a terrible habit of not closing the door completely. Dana was the one with issues about security and making sure everything was locked and bolted. Her obsessive-compulsive disorder was second nature from living in the city, something she cultivated as a skill rather than a disability. She pushed the door open and stepped in, tossing her purse on the couch as she walked though the living room to get to the bathroom.

Without turning on the light, she reached toward the mirror to pull the door to the medicine cabinet open. In the dim light she could see the label with no problem, if she had flipped the switch the brightness of the bulb would have blinded her and nearly sent her into convulsions. The dull throbbing had subsided, but the slightest movement of her head to either side drew a searing pain that flooded her entire body, from her skull to the bottom of her spine.

She twisted the cap off, emptied the contents into the palm of her other hand and swallowed both pills dry. As she turned to leave the bathroom, her left foot slid out from under her. Her arms swung out as she tried to recapture her balance and she landed hard on the edge of the tub. Then she noticed the dark fluid on the floor.

Dana watched the black puddle slowly grow larger, moving closer toward her as she sat on the linoleum floor. Confused disbelief crowded her mind, and she carefully held her fingers out and touched the slick liquid. It was neither warm nor cold, and the texture was suddenly recognized by her distressed mind. Her heart began pounding heavily as she lifted herself back upright. One of the doors to the bathroom opened into Rachel's bedroom, the other into the hallway. Dana grasped the doorknob to Rachel's bedroom and tried to turn it. It was locked from the bedroom side. As quietly as she could, she stepped softly into the hall, the carpet cushioning her footfalls. Rachel's door was cracked open only about half an inch, so Dana pushed it the rest of the way open. Her breath caught in her throat and heart nearly stopped as she staggered backwards, down the hall and across the living room.

Her screams echoed through the entire building as she stumbled out into the third floor corridor.