Ditches and Desolation
New York City is cluttered with hundreds of the usual afternoon buzz, people of all different shapes, sizes, and smells zipping around from building to building, sidewalk to sidewalk. I sit watching them in amusement, comfortably situated in a bouncy red chair outside my favourite chinese shop, right on the corner of third, where I can see four channels of jostling people coming to intersect. Taxi drivers constantly lay on their horns, the shrill little beep of their irritation resounding off of the glass and metal mountains that stand tall on all sides. Foreign aromas dance around on smoggy breezes and fluently float past my perch. Vanilla, jasmine, coconut, and cinnamon pour like a waterfall of scents from the richly-dressed women. Chicken, beef, rice, and vegetables erupt out of the busy kitchen behind  me.
I smile lazily at the beautiful beehive swarming around me. Colors sway on the city canvas, rich oranges and pinks and reds flitting about on silver wings, greatly exaggerated due to the thousands of reflecting windows up and down each street.
I glance at my watch. 6:00 on a Friday afternoon. The absolute perfect time of day. I grin and take another bite of my flavourful, delectable general tso’s chicken, trailing my fingers absent-minded across the thin, smooth glass of the table, back and forth in a lulling rhythm.
Maggie, my mom, is probably back at the apartment by now, but I doubt she even acknowledges that I’m not there. She spends most of her time scurrying from the apartment to work and back, trying to put the hectic, erratic puzzle of her life together and not realizing that she’d missing a pretty big piece: me. In fact, it’s highly probable that she’d passed on the sidewalk more than once, too absorbed in herself to notice me.
The feeling of neglect starts to boil hotly in my stomach, but I push the feeling down where I won’t find it for a while. I’m determined to enjoy the rest of the day and I won’t let my bad family relationship be a tyrant of my thoughts.
Pasting on a fake smile, I take a cautious sip of the mystery soda I ordered. I have just enough time to decide that I like the taste when the kitchen behind me explodes.
Glass rain pummels my back as I lay on the rough sidewalk, ears ringing, body hurting, eyes threatening to close. The explosion thrust my body out of the chair and I rest spread-eagled just an inch from the traffic that would have ended me.
I can feel blood on my face, mingled and mixing with shocked tears. My body feels like a beaten drum, bruised and pounded to a pulp. People are yelling and pointing, confused and chaotic. They don’t stop to help me or ask if I’m okay. They just run in every direction, ignoring the girl in the ditch.
More explosions sound out all over, a cascade of fuzzy noise that I’m barely awake enough to notice. Everyone is frightened, frenzied, and in a panic. I slowly pull my arms into the cradle of my stomach and wait for whatever will happen next. I can feel my brain shutting down, my eyes drooping and tired, my body and mind too weak to cooperate.
The explosions get louder, but I don’t run because there’s nowhere safer than this little stretch of ditch in which I try to hide. Nothing could be more reassuring or comforting as laying here, aware of the catastrophe happening around me, and not caring that it’s happening.
When I open my falling eyes again, all I can see is fire and bodies, ash and blood. The colors I was admiring a minute ago have been smothered by black ash, reds and pinks and rich oranges disappearing into desolation.
One last crash envelopes me and then the sky goes black.

I wake up abruptly, sweat threading its way over my cold skin and panic soaring in my heart.
The clock reads Friday 6:00 a.m.
I have 12 hours to save the world.