Seated on her bed, knees drawn to her chest, Christine absentmindedly stared at the wall, having given up trying once more to burn the house down with a death glare. Her mind had settled since school, the confusion and fear changing to curiosity and restrained frustration.

Paramedics had arrived at the school almost immediately after the flying monster of a man had vanished, the pursuing mech en tow. Apparently the medical staff had been called by the soldiers and had a rapid response team ready to go that had shuffled in behind the military convoy and high-tailed it to the school. 

A rapid response team. For giant robot attacks. Ready to go.

Was this normal? Was such an occurrence so commonplace that it was a shift to be manned on a staff rotation? It must have been, given the sirens and directional lights imbedded in the floor of the school. Of course it was. That’s why the paramedics had been so quick to move once they arrived at the school: the nurses at the school were directing them to the wounded. The wounded the nurses were already treating with speed and precision. Had they been paramedics themselves, stationed at the school on the off chance superheroes and soldiers fought alongside Mechagodzilla?

Everyone had been so calm once the noise had subsided; calmer than any normal person would be in the circumstance. Yes, children who were hurt were crying and teachers were scrambling to make sure everyone moved away from the debris, but the transition was almost seamless. No one had appeared shell-shocked or manic. Save her.

And her haymaker.

After one of the soldiers had taken her to a medic that proceeded to clean and tend to the few cuts and scrapes she had, the principal had called her parents to come and take her home. While everyone’s parents had been notified to retrieve their children – as the remainder of the school day had obviously been cancelled – hers received a personal call; not many students immediately began fighting after witnessing a… What had they called it? Low-Atmosphere Aerial Confrontation with a Hostile Entity? 

What. The. Hell.

While her parents were assuredly leaving their own lunches half-eaten on their desks and racing for the parking lot, Christine had started walking home before the principal had even hung up.

Dropping everything at the front door, she had grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and climbed the stairs to her room almost on autopilot, her head foggy. She plopped onto her bed and lay down, the bottle falling out of her hand and rolling onto the floor. After a few minutes of out-of-focus staring at the ceiling, she sat up and began to sear a hole in the wall with her gaze as her temper began to cool.

She heard a car pull into the driveway outside and the engine shut off, its door opening and closing with barely a second between them. The alarm bell chimed as the front door was thrust open and left there, footsteps racing up the staircase.

“Christine!” her mother gasped as she entered the bedroom, still dressed in her lab coat from work. Christine remained huddled on her bed, unmoved. Marianne ran across the room and threw her arms around her daughter, her breathing still rapid. She stroked the girl’s hair and settled onto the bedspread, tears welling in her eyes.

“Oh, Christine,” she sighed. “The school called and I dropped what I was doing and rushed over, then they said you’d gone home by yourself and I didn’t know what was going on or what to do, and I just, I’m so thankful you’re okay.”

“What. The. Hell,” her daughter said calmly. Marianne looked up quizzically.

“Chris?”

“What. The. Hell,” she repeated.

“Sweet?”

“A robot landed outside our school and fought a flying man who could shoot bolts of lightning. Then the army showed up and a wizard chased away the lightning man.”

Marianne moved some hair out of Christine’s eyes. “I heard on the radio, yes.”

“What. The. Hell.”

“Easy on the language,” her mother cautioned. “I know you’re still frazzled –”

“Frazzled?!” Christine yelled. “Frazzled? A freakin’ sci-fi novel unfolded during my lunch break. I’m not frazzled, I’m terrified!”

“Christine, please -”

“Why’d we have to move here? This never happened at my old school; this never happened anywhere outside of a comic book!”

Her mother held her at arm’s length, dusting off her shirt. “I realize that what happened today was traumatizing, Chris, but…” She paused, trying to find the words. “All branches of the military have mobile suits; Bourenna is where the technology was created and refined, so naturally there are going to be a high number of them near the city.”

Christine’s expression was flat and empty, her eyes fixed on her mother’s.

“Christine,” Marianne continued, “I’m not going to pretend that this is a common occurrence. MAR units, or any mobile suits for that matter shouldn’t be as close as they were to a civilian area, certainly not in combat. However, even at their best, some threats do make it past the perimeter, and at that point it’s the military’s job to respond in kind.”

“And the lightning man? And the wizard?” Christine asked dryly.

“You know the answer to that,” her mother answered. She took off her jacket and folded it on her lap. “Powered individuals exist; it’s not exactly a secret.”

“Back home they never fought giant robots during passing period.”

“What about that show you used to watch, with the girl who could turn into liquid and was being chased by the government, but still had to stay on top of her classes?” She smiled at her daughter who maintained her stare. Marianne sighed. “I know, up until now the most you’ve ever interacted with a Powered individual was through television, but that’s because of forces like the MAR and Bourenna. This city is home to one of the highest concentrations of Powered people in the world, and has benefitted because of it. Just today, I met three Powered coworkers who are helping us make leaps and bounds with our research.

“Of course, for every benevolent Powered, there are some whose goals in life aren’t to help people. But you know this; everyone does. Rarely do they get so close to civilized areas, but when they do others are there to stop them, and keep you safe; which, given that you’re sitting here with me, means they did just that.”

Christine turned away and fell on her side. “I hate it here.”

“I know you do, and I’m sorry for what happened today. That being said, I won’t apologize for moving us here.”

“Or for putting me in danger, apparently.”

“You’re not going to goad me into lashing out,” her mother said sternly. “I will hold you and console you about what happened today, but I won’t coddle your poor attitude.”

“Excuse me for being in a warzone today!”

“Had I known what happened would have happened today I wouldn’t have sent you to school; I would never put you in harm’s way.”

“But you did! You moved us here, knowing full well that superheroes and robots fought just outside the city limits regularly!”

“The city is safe.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Young lady.”

“What the hell, mom?”

“Language!”

“You knew it was a risk moving here, and you still did!”

“What happened today was the first time a conflict has happened inside a civilian sector this year!”

“Well, lucky me! I got to be present for a statistical anomaly!”

“Christine!”

“No!” she shouted, shooting up. “Do you not get it? That thing landed at the school, crashed into the school right where I was eating lunch. I could have died! This isn’t okay! None of this is!”

“Of course it’s not!” her mother returned at full volume. “Do you think I don’t feel guilt because of what happened? Do you honestly think that I ignored the risks, intentionally jeopardized your safety just for a job opportunity?”

“You were pretty quick to throw us in a car and box up our stuff.”

“So, you think you know everything, is that it? You’ve seen through my ruse, my diabolical plan to crush you under a military vehicle just so I can further my career.” Her sarcasm, while understandable given her daughter’s, was not exactly helping.

“I know we shouldn’t be here! What happened today –”

“- was equivalent to a domestic terrorist attack,” her mother finished. Christine blinked back tears, trying to maintain her demeanor. “I’m not going to lie to you; I never have. What happened to you today shouldn’t have happened, to your or anyone else; but it did. Somehow, someone with power, too much power, bypassed a defensive perimeter and made their way into a civilized area and engaged in combat with military forces. It should never have happened; that person should never have gotten that far into the city, but they did, and I am so, so grateful that no one was seriously injured.”

“But it did happen...”

“We can’t change everything we don’t like about the world we live in, Chris.”

“But we can change where we live…”

“Oh, will you please let that go Christine?”

“We wouldn’t be having this conversation if we hadn’t moved!”

“Is that really all that’s bothering you?” Marianne asked forcefully. “Is this honestly all about you having to pack up your belongings and move?” Christine was silent. “Well? What is it?” her mother pushed.

“If I have to keep dealing with super-powered freaks on my walk to the bus stop, then yes!”

“It was a one-time occurrence,” her mother sighed, shaking her head.

“Was it? Those soldiers rolled in pretty quickly; so did the paramedics. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they’ve practiced that scenario once or twice. How often does this really happen, huh?”

“What, would you rather they take their time and traipse about, uninformed? Of course they’ve trained for this; they’re soldiers and doctors and nurses! We live in a city that has produced some of the finest military advancements in history, so yes, there are teams of people who are trained and practice how to respond to those advancements being used within populated settings. That’s introductory material, and I for one am glad that they’re prepared for these situations.”

“I don’t want to live in a world where this is normal!”

“It’s not!”

“Then how the heck was I able to just walk home, huh? The principal was still on the phone with you by the time I’d gotten my backpack and headed out the door.”

Marianne held back her response for a minute, trying to regain her composure after a steadily escalating yelling match with her daughter. She looked around Christine’s room at the stacks of unopened boxes, still neatly packed with clothes and toys and picture frames, all memories of a life that to her daughter seemed so distant and dead.

“Do you know what your father and I used to call you when you were little?” Christine didn’t respond, her fists still clenched on her bedspread. “We used to call your our little Crystal, because you had this way about you: even at a young age you were this beautiful little thing, so precious, but at times you could be so hard and sharp. You would always end up telling off the other children at the playground, always cutting a little deeper than kids your age should have.

“At times it was funny, almost cute.” Marianne smiled to herself. “There was one time, when you were being babysat, where you didn’t want to talk to your babysitter anymore, so you took your little chair and put yourself in time-out. You just set the chair in front of the wall, and stayed there all night until we came home.” The memory was warm to her, but failed to resonate with her child.

“There’s a sternness to you that I’ve noticed you use with a certain precision, at least in recent years. You can tense up and shut down everything other than your drive, your intent. There are times when you’re far too intimidating for a teenager, and I always thought it would serve you well as you grew older. It would appear that today it got you out of a – how did you put it? A warzone? It wouldn’t surprise me if your principal determined it would be safer for everyone, himself included if you made your way home on your own. From what he told me you did hit another student.”

“Given the circumstances, I think I’m allowed that one,” Christine said quietly. 

“We can talk about that later. Right now… Right now, I don’t know what to do. Christine, I don’t expect you to understand everything, let alone all of my choices, or your father’s, and I don’t expect you to simply take what happened today, what’s happened these past few weeks in stride. What I will ask you to do is to keep an open mind, and be open with me; not necessarily in an accusatory manner. Today has been… an impossible experience for a child to go through, and I am so sorry that you had to go through it. But know that I love you, and –”

“Get out.” Marianne turned to her daughter, both surprised and confused.

“Excuse me?”

“Get out,” Christine repeated.

“Young lady –”

“I said GET OUT!” Christine screamed, her voice cracking. “Get out! Get out now! I hate you! I hate you for dragging me here, I hate you for taking my old life away, I hate you for everything!”

Her mother blinked, then lifted her jacket and slowly stood up. She straightened herself with a forced resolve and walked across the room to the door. Christine didn’t protest, and her mother didn’t hesitate. The door closed behind her in silence, Marianne’s footsteps barely audible in the hallway. Christine’s chest heaved as she collected herself, tears welling in her eyes. She picked up the bottle of water on the floor and threw it against the wall. It hit with a thud then fell onto a stack of taped moving boxes. Christine made her way to one of the boxes in the corner and tore at its seal, forcefully digging through its contents until she found her bike helmet.

#

The day had carried on as any other would as it transitioned to twilight then dusk, the sun setting beyond the mountains that guarded the city and its suburbs in olden times. As the light faded, porch lights flicked on as their timers activated, parents pulling into their driveways with ties undone and heels moments from being kicked off. Children were called inside to tidy up for dinner, and the faint tinges of charcoal and propane wafted in the air, accompanied by the sounds of nocturnal bugs.

Christine rolled her bike out to the street quietly, thankful that her dad had left the garage door open when he had come home. She strapped on her helmet and swung herself onto the seat, kicking at the pedals as she shot down the neighborhood corridor.

She turned out of the development and onto one of the primary roads, streetlights illuminating her path. Admittedly, the neighborhood wasn’t all that different from her old one back home, though she’d never admit that to her family; no way was she going to ever accept this place. The families she had seen had been nice enough in passing, the kids not terribly off-putting at first glance. Were she older she might have noted the abundance of two-car households and the socioeconomic implications of such standards of living, but at her age she simply noticed how boring most of the car colors were. Maybe one of the dads had a bright hot rod stowed away under a tarp, waiting for that last engine component before being brought back into the world.

The streets were almost quiet, picturesquely so. If she hadn’t of been there, even she wouldn’t have guessed that earlier that day a military unit had almost crash-landed at a public school. There were no traces of the armored convoys filled with soldiers and trained medical staff, no wailing sirens or half-calm declarations from authority figures urging citizens to stay calm. Was this really normal to them?

Yes, of course it was. It had been normal for everyone. Growing up she had always seen the stories on the news about Powered individuals doing all sorts of deeds, both good and bad. Every now and then someone with super strength would be near a car crash and would rescue trapped drivers, or an above-average genius would slip up and make too big a scene at a casino or racetrack. A few Powered people had made it big in show business: actors able to change aspects of their face and save time in the makeup chair, singers who could reach octaves previously thought impossible, expert marksmen hosting reality TV shows.

And then of course there were those who wanted to make an even bigger name for themselves, aiming to become stains in history books. There had always been threats bridges and buildings blowing up, embassies coming under attack, hospitals, neighborhoods; anything one could think of. People had been held hostage, banks robbed in broad daylight, waves aggravated on memorial anniversaries.

But that had all been seen from behind a screen or on the front page of a newspaper. Parents taught kids from a young age to watch out for strangers and what to do if your school was ever attacked, but they had been such hallow warnings, such empty threats. Heck, the display earlier that day had proved it: even at a school in a town that regularly dealt with borderline extreme fantasies come to life, protocol had been quickly forgotten in a panic. So what if there was a procedure?

Christine stopped at a light and waited for the cars to slow. The light changed and she dashed across the street, veering off on a side road that quickly ended in a poured parking lot, a worn trail extending up a hill. She gripped the handlebars and continued on the dirt path, pumping the pedals as she climbed.

After a few minutes of climbing she came to the hill’s summit and slowed. A large plot of land had been cleared of grass and made into a picnic area, benches and tables rooted in the ground but not anchored by hardware. She had noticed the spot when the family had driven in days ago, its path small in the distance outside their car. She figured it would lead to some type of recreation area, or at least an undeveloped open space; that’s how the trails and spaces worked in her old neighborhood, at least.

“Thanks, Universe,” she said to herself. “I get it, okay? Maybe things aren’t so different after all, yadda yadda yadda.” She blew a raspberry and flipped the bike’s kickstand, dismounting as the steel rod dug into the dirt.

The sky had darkened considerably on her ride over, a few stars visible even with the mild light pollution. Christine walked over to one of the picnic tables and sat atop it, her feet resting on the bench. She craned her neck upward and waited for her eyes to focus, more and more stars quickly coming into view.

They were the same stars. The same ones she had looked up at from her backyard in her old home. She scoffed. Well of course they are, she thought. Just because you move to a new city doesn’t mean you have a whole new set of stars to gaze at. She paused her internalized voice for a moment, considering her statement. Okay, I guess that can be true, if you move hemispheres. But in the end you’d always be looking at the same stars, just at different times of the year. She shook her head and smiled.

“At least the stars don’t suck,” she said quietly.

She looked around at the hill, bike tracks and footprints from other guests still visible in the dust. Down the side of the path she could see the suburb, its streetlamps melding with the trees and outlining lighted pathways winding into a developed forest. Behind her, off in the distance, was the city of Bourenna.

Honestly, it was beautiful.

It looked like a dream against the fading blues and the quickly oncoming blacks of the night, colored buildings seeming to flash at the late hour. At a glance it could have been a topper for a slot machine in a casino, but less garish and almost… brilliant.

Christine furrowed her brow, scowling at the metropolis. In the calm, in an image it was gorgeous, but even in the wild, some of the most beautiful creatures were the most poisonous.

Her eyes turned back to the sky, her vision blocking out the surround pollution and focusing solely on the black negative space that made up the vastness of the night. She had always wondered what the best way to see just the stars was: look to the nothingness and let them come into focus, or try and find the brightest one and wait for others to join it. Of course, sometimes one would do well to look at the sky and the celestial lights as a whole, taking in the night for all it was. Tonight she chose the first option, her heart fluttering as more and more twinkles came into her periphery.

How many of those glowing orbs were made of crystal, lumbering masses of geometric lattices dancing in the ether of the cosmos? Okay, none. She knew that. The thought made her smile, though. Maybe not a star actually made of crystal, but one with a precision sternness. She laughed at the notion of a gruff, direct mass of burning gasses soaring through space, berating other suns and planets.

Christine looked up again, the sky full of stars as if in a dream. This, she thought. I’m okay with this. She traced the constellations with her finger, remembering what little she could from science classes past before making up entirely new ones. Leo never really did look much like a lion.

She pointed at the brightest star she could find and held her finger out, turning her hand over and opening her palm. She beckoned it closer, waiting for it to rest in her hand, a tiny spec of cosmic warmth and light. Her eyes wandered for an instant, drawn to something at a glance. A new, brighter star had appeared with the others, as if in a flash. No, that wasn’t possible. Stars couldn’t just appear. Moving her finger, she focused on the supposedly new sky light, squinting in the darkness.

The star appeared to be getting brighter, growing bigger.

Christine blinked and rubbed her eyes with her free hand, keeping the other pointed straight at the star. She blinked several times and refocused, trying to find the star again.

It wasn’t hard.

Having grown significantly larger and brighter than its brothers and sisters, the new star was clearly visible up above. Christine lowered her finger and stood up, instinctively trying to get a better look. Just what was going on? Her eyes widened as the impossible realization struck her: the star was coming towards her.

The beacon of light was fast approaching, appearing to be on a direct course for her, or the hill she was standing on. Or what would soon be left of it. Her mind began to race as she kept a firm lock on the star, running the options and possibilities in her head.

This isn’t possible, she thought. Stars can’t appear out of nowhere like that, or grow like, or move like – And then the realization hit her. Comet. It’s a comet. It’s a comet coming right at me. Right at me!

The rock had maintained its velocity through her rumination, its trajectory unchanged. Colors flashed around it, whites and blues tinged with sparks of red visible even at a distance. Christine could hear it now, a simultaneous smoldering and whistling cutting through the quiet. She had to move. If she could hear it, it had to be close, and unlike the robot earlier that morning, she most likely wouldn’t survive another rapidly falling object.

She spun around and reached for her helmet, her movement rushed and clumsy. Her foot caught the underside of the table and sent her tumbling to the ground, somersaulting as she landed. Dirt filled her eyes and stung the scratches on her face as she pushed herself up and scrambled to her bike. She had to get off of that hill and out of the comet’s path immediately.

Ignoring proper safety procedures, Christine grabbed the handlebars and swung at the kickstand, her helmet still dangling by its strap from her hand. She brought her foot up to slam on the pedals but froze, a chill running through her body.

“Herald…” a voice whispered in her ear. “Help…”

She whipped around, looking for the source of the call, only to be reminded that she was the sole visitor at the picnic ground. She shook her head and placed her foot on the pedal once more, every fiber of her being screaming to get off of the hill. 

“Don’t go…” the voice called again, echoing in her head.

Christine turned around again, frantic. “Who’s there?” she shouted. “Where are you? We have to –”

She looked up once again, trying to gauge what little time she had left before the comet struck. Tears rolled down her face as her knuckles turned white on the handlebars.

There was no time.

She ducked down covering her head with her arms, and screamed.

Next Chapter: Chapter Three