[center]The bitter wind tore through the abandoned alley-way, brushing aside litter and empty soda cans. Its eerie moan echoed off the brick walls and dissipated into the connecting streets. Hidden behind a broken dumpster came the faint sound of metal scratching together and a lowly grumbled strand of curses. A scrawny excuse for a woman was curled tightly against the wall violently twisting two strands of aluminum scraps together. Her brows were pulled together tightly in concentration, and the tips of her raw fingertips were beginning to break into blood. Strands of her turquoise colored hair hung limply around her face, but the rest was messily fishtailed into pigtails whose ends teased the tips of her small breasts. She finally connected the ends of the aluminum into a misshapen circle and set the creation carefully at her feet with a pile of others. 

Juliana sighed heavily and shakily wiped a cold sweat from her forehead. She was hungry, dehydrated, and possibly experiencing the early stages of pure exhaustion. She hadn't slept in 2 nights after her run in with a band of thugs. They had taken her off-guard in the night. With the barrel of a fun pressed firmly into her throat, Juliana had no choice but to forfeit most of her earnings. Luckily, she was smart enough to conceal $200 in the bandages concealing her grotesquely scarred arm. Her mind continued to encourage her to remain in the shadows for a bit longer, but her weary body and grumbling stomach were loudly protesting. She had spent the majority of her day fashioning bits of aluminum into hollow circles and focused her steely blue eyes on her accomplishment. 

She looked quickly in both directions, the gesture making her head spin, and removed an empty beer bottle from the confides of her lap. The sharp sound of glass shattering resounded throughout the atmosphere, and Juliana held tightly to the neck of the jagged bottle as a precaution. With her free hand she began stacking the circles of aluminum atop each other. When she had finished, Juliana removed a piece of the athletic tape from her arm and ripped it into equal pieces using her teeth. She concealed the bottom of the hollow cylinder securely and threw in a handful of mulch to cover the adhesive side. Juliana gathered up all the sharp pieces of broken glass carefully and dropped them inside the cylinder. She slid her hand behind the dumpster and sealed off the container with a discarded Folgers lid. 

All she needed to complete the trap was a conducive metal plate and a heat source. Juliana sat the trap securely between her legs and leaned her head back on the brick wall. The dark, hollow circles beneath her eyes were clearly visible and her lips were cracked from the cold temperature. Her eyes closed briefly, and she tried to breath normally despite how it burned in her lungs. She decided to wait until nightfall to go out into the streets, it was her best chance to collect more supplies and relocate to a more secure location.[/center]