[Prompt: describe the same daily commute from two character's point of view, one feeling good, one not so] Alyson woke to the phone ringing and shook her dream away. She picked it up, hearing only a click and dead silence. She shrugged and rolled out of bed. She grabbed a jar out of the fridge, leftover soup from the night before, and glanced at the clock. 6:53. Seven minutes before her alarm. She stretched for a few minutes and drank her soup out of the jar. She pulled on jeans and rummaged through her pile of clothes for one not too dirty to wear to work. She figured that if she could re-use a shirt three times this week, she could avoid a trip to the laundromat. Ten more dollars saved. She could almost live on it for two months if she had to. When she'd moved to the city, she'd used her savings to rent the little apartment and to live on while she found a job. She drank the last of her soup and washed the jar. 7:15. She grabbed a book from the pile by her bed and threw it in her backpack. She didn't get enough of a break to read during lunch at work, but she thought she might be early enough to read a chapter before her shift started. She slipped out the apartment's door in the back of the house, and instead of leaving the front, she hopped the back fence and right onto Brook street. She ducked through the already thickening traffic and got to the bus stop just as the 7:18 bus pulled in. She found a seat, something hard to do on any later bus. She watched the stops roll past, a little faster than she was used to. She said to herself "I might have to do this more often. Six or seven minutes earlier and I can get a seat on the bus." A woman across the aisle looked up and said "Pardon, dear?" "Nothing. Sorry. Half talking to myself." She got off at her stop and went around back to wait for the day manager to open the door. She leaned against the wall in a small patch of sun and opened her book. Jennifer sighed and rolled out of bed, one hand slapping her alarm absentmindedly and groaned. She figured it was going to be one of those mediocre days where the weather was too wet to be outdoors and not dramatic enough to be at all soothing. She pulled on her sweatpants and reached for her hairbrush. She snarled as the brush hit her tangled hair. She started to remember the dreams of the past night, fighting and running, the moving in her sleep leaving her hair tangled. The memory was abstract, just leaving a feeling of terror but no concrete reason why. She hated not knowing why things happened. She shrugged and tried to put it out of her mind. She dug under her bed and pulled out the UCLA sweatshirt that her friend Denise had left in her room, which she'd never returned after summer vacation. She inhaled and tried to remember Denise more clearly. She hated how faces faded from memory so fast. The smell reminded her a little, and she smiled a little. She pulled on the shirt and headed out of her room, down the stairs. She saw the television on in the den as she passed the door, and even though it was only seven, her father watching something, beer and breakfast on a tray next to him. She stepped softly to avoid his notice. She drank the last of some orange juice from a container in the fridge and considered making toast. She found only an empty bread bag and a couple stale hot dog buns in the breadbox, and she threw the empty bag into the trash as hard as she could. The gentle settling motion it made on the top of the heap seemed to mock her. She jabbed a fist down on top of it, pressing it down onto the pile. She decided she'd just buy something for breakfast at the market where she got off the bus. She left the house, not slamming the door only because she didn't want her father following her out with a lecture. She jogged down the damp driveway and along the curved street of the housing development toward Brook Street. Brook street curved too, nearly back the way she'd come. As she jogged another four blocks along Brook, she looked up the hill and saw her house only a hundred or two feet away, across a neighbor's yard. She glared at it and kept jogging. She jogged around the corner and into the bus stop just as the bus was pulling away. She flopped on the cold bench and tapped her toes to keep her muscles from cramping. The 7:40 bus pulled onto Brook street five minutes late. Jennifer cursed. She was going to be late again. She pushed into the crowd on the bus and was jostled until she was standing behind the white line. The bus jolted into motion and bodies pressed into her. She managed not to fall only by leaning into a middle-aged man behind her. He glared at her and pushed back as he tried to move the newspaper he carried into a position he could read it. He drew glares from the other passengers as he moved and after a few moments, he gave up and glared at anyone who looked at him. She saw her stop coming and reached for the signal, but got jostled and couldn't reach. The bus was too full to take on passengers, so it didn't stop. She cursed and shoved her way closer to the driver. She yelled "Let me off at the next stop!" The bus driver slammed the brakes a little and pulled to the next stop almost immediately. Jennifer fell into the space by the door. The man with the newspaper glared at her. She pulled her things with her and stepped out of the door. She looked to get her bearings and jogged back along the bus route to the stop she had intended to get off at. She passed by the market, already chaotic with shoppers. She looked at the crowd and decided she didn't care if she had breakfast or not and jogged past and up the hill to the school.