The cold air stuck in her lungs like oxygen had never ventured there before.  That was the one thing she remembered well of that night, that and the pain in her foot.  The pain had woken her and despite the way the foot throbbed now, pulsing with each heartbeat that passed blood into it’s swollen tissue.  Having it crushed had probably saved her life.  She could just as easily have asphyxiated; dying in her sleep without even knowing that she was breathing in smoke, or that the house was on fire.  But, crushed her foot had been, and that in itself was a saving grace considering such a traumatic blow was probably the only thing that could have roused her.  She’d blacked out some time around midnight after hitting a vein wrong and getting a little too high.  Hours later, some reckless junkie, a stranger who’d been crashing that night, knocked over a burner on the second floor and lit the place up.  As the second floor was engulfed in flames, the already rotten timber of the shack they’d been squatting in started coming apart, causing a section of the rotten ceiling above her to come crashing down on her right foot.  She’d shot blot upright, realizing first that she was in intense pain, and soon after that the whole house was filled with smoke, and she couldn’t breath.  Pushing chunks of ceiling of her leg and dragging herself to her feet, she’d whistled loudly and waited for the sound of nails clicking against wooden floor.  Moments later a large pitbull appeared out of the smoke, and grabbing the collar, she made her way out of the house using the large dog for support.  Once outside the first task was to fight for air.  Her throat was chapped and soar from the heat of the house and she couldn’t stop coughing.  Running came next.  Someone had obviously called the authorities, and as she exited the house it was clear the fire department and police had wasted no time in showing up.  She released it’s collar and hit the dog on the flank, urging it to run off into the night, then she took off going as fast as her swollen appendage could carry her.  It was three painful minuted of running before a large hand caught her around the back of the neck.  She was yanked off her feet and felt herself falling backwards towards the pavement, then the sensation of the wind rushing out of her lungs as her back hit the asphalt, then the feeling of skull hitting concrete, then darkness.