[color=2e3192][h1][center]Alison Fitzpatrick, 1949[/center][/h1][/color]
[img]http://68.media.tumblr.com/8acbad786995aea4f1199940d033a198/tumblr_nlcf9h7oK51suh24yo1_1280.jpg[/img]
[color=2e3192][h2][center]Brooklyn, 4:46 PM[/center][/h2][/color]

Alison wiped her hand against the taxicab's filthy, dust-molested window. New York wasn't going anywhere, but she was. Sooner or later, she'd be right in the thick of these unearthly skyscrapers and the clarity of the city's skyline would be gone. She'd seen places somewhat like this before -- Chicago, New Orleans, among others -- and they were always so mesmerizing to look at from the outside. It was once you found your way into the maze and rooted yourself into its reality that the city lost its appeal. The cab driver, a black man wearing a weathered fedora, hollered back. "...Like what you see?"

"Yes, yes," was all Alison could offer him in response during her very short break from the hypnosis. She was under a spell.

It was easy to tell, though, that New York was nothing like the others. From here, it looked like someone had smashed Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles into pieces and meticulously put them back together into one massive, impossible sculpture. Alison could hardly believe that she -- and this nameless taxi driver -- was headed straight toward it.

In a sense, Alison was tremendously proud of herself, but when she allowed her thoughts to be honest with themselves, she hadn't the slightest idea of what to expect from this place. She was intelligent enough to know that the reality of New York City was masqueraded by its beauty, but she had not yet learned just how much was hiding behind its mesmerizing lights.

[color=8882be][h2][center]Club Carousel, 7:31 PM [/center][/h2][/color]

415. This was the one. Alison set down her suitcase and banged on the door. She looked around at the grimy walls of the apartment hallway and grimaced. This explained why she had managed to afford an apartment on Manhattan Island at all. The building was pretty disgusting and they sat directly above a nightclub, and she could already tell it would gruesomely subtract from her beauty sleep. Neon lights bled into the room from the window at the end of the hall.

The door barely opened and a the face of a gorgeous albeit makeup-smothered woman wearing hair-curlers poked out. "What?" 

"Are you...uh..." Alison looked down at a piece of paper with Julia, room 415 scribbled onto it. "...Julia?"

The woman narrowed her eyes and further opened the door. "Uh huh...and you're Allie?"

Alison looked down at the floor. "Alison."

"Come in," Julia said. The girl, to Alison's surprise, was in some sort of sparkly underwear and looked to be in the middle of getting ready for something. The pure splendor of it juxtaposed the apartment, which was about as ugly and decrepit as Alison had feared.

"It's not much, but it's Manhattan. With luck, you won't be spending much time in here at all," said Julia as she winked back at Alison. The living room, which the door entered into, was small, but had a single couch, a small television, and a large window with a neon-tinted view of the street below. Julia pointed at an open door. "That's yours."

Alison nodded her head thankfully and said nothing else. She departed into her new room and looked around. It was empty. There was a bed, standing lamp, a desk, and literally nothing else. She tossed her suitcase onto the mattress and its steel supports clanged against its impact. She sat down and stared out her minuscule window. Alison couldn't see jack shit out of the glass. She took a handkerchief from her pocket and rubbed against the window. Nothing. It was if the grime had encrusted onto the window. She hollered back into the living room. "I can't see the city in the dust on my window!"

Her future roommate hollered back. "Well? What do you want me to do?"

Alison sighed and closed the door. She let her bodyweight fall onto the bed. She was so unbelievably tired that even the unopposed neon from the outside could not keep her from drifting into sleep.