1

Adira twirls her finger around the single strand of hair. Her hand twists, then tugs, and with a single, solitary twinge of pain—one that doesn't really hurt her anymore— and the strand is out. It falls to the ground.

She watches it descend, gently and slowly. Distracted.

She feels a strange sense of regret. She's never really quite gotten rid of this habit. Or any other habit, actually. Plucking hair from her scalp. Scratching her fingers till they bled. Biting her fingernails till even the base bled. Habits, habits, habits.

It's not like she hasn't tried to get rid of them. She knows that they are harmful. She knows that she shouldn't do it. But often she only realizes what she has done when she sees the aftermath, or when someone points it out. The rush of embarrassment from when someone says, "What have you done to yourself?", if not in words but in that slightly horrified look they have on their face—no matter how hard they try, Adira can sense the disgust—

Then the cycle begins again. 

Her eyes hurt. She closes them for a minute, and then pulls out her phone. Her newsfeed is yet again filled with exploits of supers. Lightspark's new movie released, apparently. Ignore. Salvert City signs M.O.U. with Israel for research into supers. Bookmarked. Earthquake in Nepal caused by supervillain. Ignore. 

MNSTR attack in Sector 11.

That one catches her eye. Silas lives in Sector 11. As does his grandma. She recalled his smile, all white teeth and crinkled eyes in an interview she'd watched. 

"Of course, Dubai is great," he'd said, "But Salvert is where the future is." 

He'd grinned awkwardly. Never been one for the cameras. 

Even after what happened... Adira couldn't help but keep him on her 'Interested Topics' list. 

She hasn't seen him in person in over a year, or hell, even talked but... He's still her friend, right? She clicks.

There's a blurry image of a large, black creature. It was probably taken by some kid with a smartphone. 

MNSTR ATTACK IN SECTOR 11
ASR | Aug 8, 2121, 11:21 A.M. AST updated

ASTROCITY: A Class V MNSTR attacked Sector 11 of Salvert City at around 10:20  a.m. and has left around 300 stuck in evacuation and closedown procedures. Three reported causalities have been reported so far, but experts estimate that numbers may be higher. The damage procedure has been heavily impeded and phone lines are down. 

Supers were dispatched to the scene with an hour delay. A inside source states that this delay could have possibly been because of Lightspark's "tantrum"...

Adira does not read any further. Her hands fumble, trembling as she calls up Silas. The ring goes once, twice. He's not available. Of course. Phone lines are down. And... well.

She's not even sure he uses this number anymore.

Fucking hell.

She sends a text to him.

Hey Silas its adira

 Her fingers can barely form the words. She wants to leave now, find out where Silas is. But she can't. Not with the closedown. Or the fact she doesn't know where he lives.

 No matter how many times this happens, she always gets that horrid, horrid, sinking feeling in her stomach. It never gets easier. It never does in Salvert.

Are you ok

I heard there was an attack in sec 11

Evac went alright?

She sends three, in quick succession. And then she sends a prayer. 

"Miss Cappello? Adira Cappello?" 

Adira turns. Her teeth are still clamped down on her lower lip. She sees the look of disdain on the pale-faced secretary. Rush of embarrassment, like always. The secretary holds a white tablet close to her chest. Her thin blond hair is pinned in a tight bun, so tight that the hair seems to be glued down on her scalp. 

Adira nods, firmly. 

"Your interview is now, please."

Another prayer clings to her lips silently. Adira isn't particularly religious, but in a land when men consider themselves gods and monsters exist, prayers are the only things that seem to help.

2

Adira stands outside the Metro Gazette's office. 

Lights from passing cars lights up the wet roads. Her fingers are too cold, turning pink at the tips.

She stuffs crumpled papers into her big leather bag, checks her phone for the bus schedule—it's 6 p.m. Rush hour. There's a bus scheduled for Sector 11 in twenty minutes. Evelyn Green, the editor of Metro Gazette, had been giving her the introduction to the building. She'd been excited too excited, too chirpy when showing Adira her very own cubicle.

She got the job. 

She should feel a sense of relief. She really should. She can pay rent now. She can eat something other than just fast food and ramen noodles. She can finally go to the dentist. But a small little part of her—a vocal minority, I suppose you can call it that—feels a teensy bit of a loss. 

Something in her feels like shit. She feels like shit. 

She really didn't expect to get the job. She doesn't have a good reputation, after all. No degree, series of infamous exposé articles and job terminations for said series of infamous exposé articles in her resume, clear disapproval of superheroes—She doesn't really know how she got the job. 

The vocal minority snidely points out: She was hoping she wouldn't get the job.

Adira shoves the vocal minority back into whatever ugly, emotional recess of her mind it came from. Now is not the time to be childish. She is an adult. She needs to fucking adult. All these juvenile thoughts of freedom and expression and not being bound by a corporate: they're either for the very young and very stupid; or for the very rich.

She's not any of those things.

Her phone rings. It's Silas. She quickly answers it, gasping, "Silas? It's me, Adira. Silas, are you okay?"

Her hands cup the phone so preciously. A flash of light from a nearby passing garbage truck almost blinds her. 

"Hey. Um. Long time no see," Silas's awkward, deep voice. He's alright. At least, he sounds alright. "It's me, uh... Yeah, I'm okay. Sort of okay."

He laughs, but the laugh sounds more like an awkward cough. 

"Do you—"

"Can you—"

They both start at the same time—then apologize, urge the other to speak first. A little tussle of words later, Silas wrenches his words out, "Can you, um, come over to Sector 11? I need some help. It's my grandmother. I can't find her. . . Evac is supposed to be hectic, but it's been long and I—I know—It's been, well, long, but honestly, I can't call anyone else. I don't really have—"

Adira can imagine him placing his hand on side of his neck, just where it met his shoulder. Trapezius muscle, she recalls Ragini, memorizing structures of the human body, way back. 

"I'm on my way," She cuts in, spotting the bus.

The bus stops with a shriek of brakes, the door slides open. Adira taps her phone against the scanner and climbs aboard. She brings it back to her ears, "I just got on the bus. Give me fifteen minutes."

"Thank you, Adira."

She whispers something back, something along the lines of—

"The doors are closing." A robotic voice announces.

Adira looks around for a seat, and notices harrowed faces all around her. Clinging to seats till their knuckles went white. A prayer clinging to their lips. They are all heading to Sector 11, she thinks. 

To count the dead.

The bus bounces over potholes. That's not true, she corrects herself as she stumbles to a seat. After one hundred years of supers, evac procedures have minimalized all possible causalities. What could result in around fifty dead, would now result in three dead. Things have improved.

But the fear remains. The unspoken question. 

Adira murmurs an apology as she sits between a middle aged woman and what she presumes is her kid and an old man. The man is praying, fingers counting a necklace of beads, but unlike Adira, it isn't silent. It's an audible, set prayer—for protection and for mercy. 

Religion did increase when gods descended upon the earth.

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