*Okay, so this is where it starts to get really complicated. Paul Shapera took a sledgehammer to the fourth wall of this play within a play thing. So the best I can do to explain this is that somehow, Ellen the actress has now become Ellen the character. Why? I dunno, because Mike's a jerk in this story.* 

And so, hunted and devoid of options, Ellen heads to the tunnels below ground. Stumbling beneath the dark labyrinths of the city, Ellen-

"Wait, wait... you-"

Finds herself pursued by-

"Don't... don't I know you?"

No, no. Shh... don't break character, Ellen. 

"No, I mean, there was a... um, there was a, like a radio broadcast. I wasn't me, but I... was?"

Another life in another world, Ellen. 

"Who are you?"

Whoever the story needs me to be. Now come, let's just slip back into character. Shh...

While Ellen wanders around the underground, why don't we dip back into her backstory once more? Dear listeners, remember when I explained the laws surrounding divorce in New Albion? Ellen saw the result of this firsthand. As a young girl, she was friends with another young girl, Katy. All day, the two would rage about the streets, being as wild as they could, smoking a McKnight cigarette here and there, and at night, Ellen would stumble to her mother's grave, where she would pass out on top of it. Her Aunt Jane would always find her, put a blanket around her and stay with her till morning. For a while, that was enough for Ellen.

 But when Katy's father tossed her mother aside, she was gone as well. And Ellen couldn't do anything to stop it. But she did have an idea of what to do afterwards. 

Her father, though a bit of a drunkard, had given her some very good advice when she was much younger, even before she met Katy, even before her father left. He said to her, "If there's only one thing I will ever teach you, it will be that you must not stay down." And being one of the very few things she actually remembered about her father, Ellen took it to heart. After Katy was gone, Ellen stood back up and fought. Not just for her, but for all the women who may go through the same thing as Katy and her mother. All her life, Ellen fought and thrashed and lived; never taking a second to breathe. 

But with this, the betrayal of her best friend, the confusion she felt with her aunt, and this absolute feeling of loneliness, she feels herself slip back into the self-pitying mindset. Not quite all the way, but falling into it. She doesn't linger on the thought for too long, but she could use her father's words at the moment. At the moment, she just can not stand up. 

Ellen's head perks up as she hears a soft clicking behind her of boots on the cement.