I've lived in New York City all my life. As a child, I explored everywhere from Coney Island and East Brooklyn to Williamsburg and Brooklyn Heights. The pulse of the city had always flown through me. I always assumed that would be how the city would continue forever. Forever moving in a constant state of predictable chaos.
And that's how it was all my life. New York chugged on passed every obstacle and pulsed through the years. That was, until, everything change. Not only in New York, but everywhere. The day the sky opened up above Stark Tower and jolted the world to a hard left.
The day of the Battle of New York started off like any other day. I woke up like any other day and got ready for work. As I gathered up my laptop and lecture notes, my phone rang.
"Dr. Scaffer, how may I help you?" I asked in my professor voice.
"Easy Luc. It's just me," My best friend said.
"Hey Thalia, what's up?" I asked.
"Wanna take the bus into Manhattan with me?" she asked.
"Uh, yeah sure," I said.
"What time is your first lecture?" she asked.
"11, yours?"
"11:30," I glanced at my watch.
"Well it's 9:45 right now and the Manhattan bus takes an hour. So I'll meet you outside in a few minutes?" I suggested shoving my keys into my satchel along with my lecture notes.
"Sounds good! See ya!" she hung up. I pocketed my phone and left my apartment, locking my door behind me. I skipped down the stone steps and waited for Thalia.
"Lucy! Lucy!" I heard heels hitting the sidewalk behind me. I spun around to see Thalia hauling her way toward me with her jacket thrown over her arm and her satchel across her body.
"If you could not look like a model walking through Brooklyn, that'd be great," I faked annoyance and threw a smirk over at her. She stopped and did a coy turn and laughed. She stepped in line with me as we walked toward the bus stop.
"And who are you, calling me a model? You make jeans and Oxford shoes look like runway fashion!" she said motioning to me. I glanced down at my outfit. It was a simple outfit of blue jeans, an off white blouse, and a white blazer.
"Please, jeans and Oxford shoes? At least you look like a professor! I look like some weird, grad students," she laughed.
"It's not that bad. Maybe Mr. Right will come falling out of the sky today," Thalia laughed and elbowed me a couple of times. I laughed and looked down at the ground.
"I don't have time for dating. Not with all our research for our project-" I trailed off, thinking of all the things I had to fill out today.
"Hello? Earth to Lucy! Lucy are you home?" she asked rapping her knuckle on my forehead lightly. I blinked and looked over at her. Before either of us could say anything, the bus pulled up next to us. We stepped on and showed out University I.D.'s and took our seats.
"Seriously Luc, our dig isn't for four years. You've got plenty of time. You have to get out and live a little or you'll live a sad life," she said suddenly serious.
"I have fun!" I laughed. She shifted to look at me fully.
"Oh yeah! When's the last time you went on a date?" she asked. I opened my mouth to argue but she held up her hand, "I don't count!" She smirked. I shot her a look before turning to look out the window as we neared the University's stop.
"Look, all I'm saying is to have some fun-" I'd stopped listening. A huge dark circle and opened over Stark Tower.
"What is that?" I asked.
"Seriously? What's fun? Honestly Luc-" I looked over at her.
"What? No-Thalia shut up! What's that!" I pointed at the dark circle above Stark Tower.
"What the hell?" She breathed, leaning over me to get a better look at the circle. Just then, the bus screeched to a halt, sending me and Thalia tumbling to the floor. There was a communal gasp from everyone on the bus.
"You okay?" I asked to Thalia. She nodded and pushed herself to sit up.
"Everybody please stay calm-" the rest of what the driver said was drown out by a piercing shriek. I sat up and turned back to the window. There were things coming from the hole in the sky. It looked like ants scurrying away from a kicked anthill.
"Come on!" I jumped up from the ground and pulled Thalia up after me.
"Where are we going?" she asked stumbling after me.
"We're sitting ducks in here, we have to get cover," I said attacking the emergency open button for the door. A high pitched alarm went off through the bus as I pushed Thalia of before me as the rest of the passengers scrambled off the bus. As Thalia stepped down, she stumbled.
"Lucy, wait," she called after me. I turned to find her pulling her heels off. She dropped them and swept over to me. She shifted her bag and looked over at me.
"Where to now?" she asked. I slung my bag across my body and looked around. The things flying around seemed to be sticking to Stark Tower. If we could just get past that street, we could make it to the University's old fallout shelter.
"Remember when we had the tour of the University and they showed us the old fallout shelter?" she nodded, "If we can just make it across, we can hide on the shelter," I said. She nodded along with what I was saying and looked off toward the streets we had to cross.
"You ready?" I asked. She took a deep breath.
"As ready as I'll ever be," she groaned. I laughed once as I shifted my bag again.
"Come on!" I ushered as I ran forward. She ran along after me, picking along the broken glass. There was a deafening sound to the city. Screaming, shattering glass, gun shots, and inhuman sounds made up the cacophony around us. The things were flying around erratically, shooting at the scattering people below. We skidded to a stop behind a car. A group of flying things zoomed over head. Not noticing us at all as they shot at a group of running people. Before we could say anything or move, the car next to us was blown up into the air. Glass and metal rain onto Thalia and me.
"Move, move, move!" I pushed at her, covering my head to protect from raining glass. I put my hands on her back and pushed her forward and out of the way of the falling car. We ran down the rest of the block and to the corner. We crossed the street quickly and plastered ourselves against the wall of a building. In our pause, gun shots, glass shattering, and animalistic roaring filled the air. I sucked down air as fast as I could before getting ready to run again.
"Come on Luc-" Thalia pulled on my arm. I shifted my bag and turned to run after her. Suddenly, I felt a yank on the collar of my blazer.
"Thalia!" I screamed, clawing and after her. She whipped around. Her eyes widened in horror.
"One-one of the th-things," she breathed out. I tried to run forward but I was stuck in place. The thing behind me growled in my ear, the smell of death radiating off it. I threw my arms back and launched myself forward. My arms pulled out of my sleeves and my blazer tore off me. I twisted slightly so the jacket pulled free of my bag strap. I shot forward and grabbed Thalia's arm and pulled her after me. A frustrated road pierced the air behind. I pushed the panic out of my mind and focused everything on running. As we reached the corner of the block, we took a hard right. When we turned to look at the street we now had to cross, we faltered to a halt. The wide street looked like a war zone; there were destroyed cars, over turned and shattered; rubble from the broken road and shattered buildings; and bodies of people and those flying creatures littered the ground. Thalia and I stepped away from the street.
"Oh my god," Thalia whispered. There was a shrieking roar from right next to us. We jumped and looked next to us. We jumped and looked next to us. The thing rounded the corner, still clutching my blazer. I backed up into Talia as the thing started toward us. We were both too frozen with fear to move or even scream. The thing was about 15 feet from us when out of nowhere a hammer flew and collided with he thing, sending it into he concrete building next to it with a crash of thunder. As suddenly as it appeared, it flew back. Thalia and I backed away from the dead creature slowly. Before we could get much further, we both backed into something hard. We looked at each other before turning around slowly. Behind us was another one of those creature, twice as big as the last one. Fear ran a cold chill down my spine and I was frozen to the spot. The creature glared between the both of us, a sort of smirk played on it's face. It broke it's mouth open and let a deafening roar out in out faces. We jumped back away from it and gasped. Thalia reached down and gripped down on my hand. The creature raised it's scepter and pointed it at Thalia. The next moment seemed to slow down to a crawl. Thalia's face paled and tears filled her eyes. I tried to pull her out of the creature's path but I was too late. The creature pulled the trigger and a jet of, what looked like a laser, shot out and into Thalia's chest. Her eyes widened and her gasp stuck in her throat.
"Thalia!" I screamed as she crumpled to the ground. I fell down next to her, her hand clenched in mine. She looked up at me and tried to speak but she choked on blood. I pulled her satchel off of her and slung it over my body.
"You're okay, you;ll be fine. We're supposed to go have fun remember?" I said. She shook her head. She couldn't speak but brought her finger up shakily and pointed at me.
Live she mouthed at me. Tears welled up in my eyes as I gelt her hand go limp in mine. There was a growl next to me. I looked back over at the creature, accepting what was coming. I level a stoney look at the creature as it raised the scepter to be pointed at my forehead.
"Hey! Haven't you heard of being a gentleman?" a smooth voice said from behind me. Suddenly, I was being scooped up and lifted into the air, "Old man, why don't you teach him," a blur of blue, red, and silver flew out of nowhere and slammed the creature through the wall.
"Where are you going sweetheart?" the voice asked again. I turned to look at the man and came face to face with a red and gold metallic mask. I looked down to see I was encircled in red and gold arms, flying high over the ground. My breathing hiked up and I started panicking again, "Easy, easy sweetheart. I'm not gonna hurt you. I just wanna know where you were trying to go," he said calmly.
"Th-the University," I stuttered out, "CUNY."
"Right, they have a fallout shelter right?" he asked. I simply nodded. It didn't take longer than a few minutes to get to the University. He set me down on the ground near the fallout shelter. I turned to thank the man but he was gone.
"Dr. Scaffer! Thank God! We were so worried. Where's Dr. Lausion?" the Dean ran over to me and grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the fallout shelter.
"Thalia's dead," I whispered.
"Jesus," the Dean breathed, pausing slightly, "Come on Lucy," he pulled me into the shelter. Before the doors shut, I could have sworn I saw a red and gold blur shoot toward the hole over Stark Tower.