Background

Lacey Lane was born in Detroit, Michigan in the summer of 1972. She was the only child in her family as her parents weren't able to have any more but her parents worked very hard to take care of her, her dad often worked long nights at a mechanic shop and her mother worked as a waitress at a diner . The family wasn't rich by any means, but they managed to get by. Lacey often stayed at her grandmother's house while her parents were at work, she had a very close relationship with her. Her grandmother would spend time with her and teach her how to sew clothing as she was an excellent seamstress. When Lacey was 13 years old her grandmother tragically passed away and she was devastated, it was a very difficult time for her as her first experience with death. As Lacey grew older she began to experiement with her appearance, dying her hair purple and getting piercings, much to her parent's disapproval. Always considered a bit of the 'weird' girl at school, her focus was less on doing homework and more on exploring abandoned places. As a teenager she would frequently break into abandoned places in the city, places like shopping malls, movie theaters, and warehouses with her small group of friends. She would take a camcorder to record these adventures to try to find evidence of anything spooky or supernatural, and sometimes the group of friends would have to make a quick getaway once the cops were called. One night when she was exploring an abandoned warehouse she could have sworn she saw a figure in the dark, one that looked like her grandmother. She had no proof and it was likely a trick of the light, but since that day she was convinced that ghosts were real. Once she was 18 Lacey got a job at one of her favorite VHS stores, BrickBuster, to help earn her own money. There she would spend her time helping customers select a movie, rewinding the tapes, and keeping the store clean. Lacey was a huge fan of horror movies, having many posters on the walls in her room. In 1992 she began to hear the stories from likeminded people about strange lights appearing in Knox County, as well as rumors of the strange things happening there and became more obsessed, trying to find as much information as possible. She tuned in to the radio stations and participated in the online forums discussing the events, but eventually She wanted to investigate these stories herself so on March 1, 1993 she and a few of her close friends decided to take a road trip to Kentucky but nothing could have prepared them for what happened when the rifts opened. When Lucy saw a rift open for the first time she felt a combination of wonder and then terror.. what little survival instincts she had kicking in, she knew she had to get to safety. During the panic she was separated from her friends and wasn't able to find her friends again after that. She hunkered down in that motel in rural Kentucky for what felt like weeks before finally running out of food and water, she knew she had to find a safer place and began to wander out on her own. She walked and walked until she eventually came across a farm, where she met a nice but extremely paranoid older woman that reluctantly let the strange girl stay with her. Being a native to Kentucky, she told Lacey the farm had been in her family for generations and she needed help doing chores and defending the area, so Lacey agreed. The woman, named Mabel, turned out to be very distrusting of the government and taught Lacey the number one rule was to never trust strangers. The two lived together for a few years in relative peace as the farm was quite isolated, but on a rainy night a group of bandits arrived to loot the house, and ended up setting the house on fire. Mabel didn't survive the attack, and Lacey was forced to escape with only the clothes on her back, something she would feel guilty about later. She wished she could have saved her, but she knew she had to seek a safe place and had heard rumours of the Mega Cavern Mega Mall being a safe place so she decided to start there.