Perhaps you are correct. Perhaps, without a ‘shepherd’’, as you put it, humanity is doomed. Perhaps we are truly destined to destroy ourselves and everything we come in contact with. Even if that is true, I can’t help but question, nay, wonder if that will always be the case. Perhaps the humanity of the past and even the present is a pure destructive force. But what of the future? Can humanity change?

- A Response From The Arbiter To On Humanity by John Doe

The world was frozen. A word half-way uttered. An anchorman gesturing on the tv screen. A mellow orange sunset hue glowing through the window. It all combined in one single still. An ordinary moment, no different from any other, hanging suspended before Valence’s eyes; a preface. There was no time for her to wonder at the brief pause, to guess at what would follow, or to hardly even notice it before everything came apart. It started, as most explosions do, with the window, which imploded. Then the wall and the roof joined in as well. Glass and splinters of wood ripped through the bedding, the floor and everything in between, only to be completely stopped by a pair of shoulders in batman pajamas hunched over a 16 year old boy.

Val didn’t wonder what was happening. She didn’t ask why something blew up her bedroom. She didn’t question how her entire room was pulverized but she felt mostly fine. No, she was too busy running like hell. Val charged out of the room, dragging Cade with her. Her focus was on one thing. Get her baby brother away from danger. Everything else was secondary.

First things first was getting out of the apartment building. Normally the single stairwell would be the immediate choice, but she had no way of knowing if the stairway was even intact. So that left the only other option: the fire escape. Val ran down to the end of the hallway dragging Cade behind her, and with one hand wrenched open the window to a view of the rickety metal fire escape and a city in shambles.

Out of the burning buildings in the distance, the constant ring of sirens, and the gunshots echoing in the air, what caught Val’s attention the most was kneeling in the rubble of their half-collapsed apartment building. It was a fire in the vague shape of a person. And it was crying. Loud, hysterical sobs that echoed from the roughly humanoid shaped flames. As horrible a scene as it was, Val immediately decided it wasn’t her problem and rushed Cade down the fire escape.

Upon stepping off the last rung of the rusty ladder of the fire escape and planting her feet firmly on solid ground, Val grabbed Cade’s arm to start running to the street. Where she was headed, she wasn’t sure yet. But anything was better than here. Her efforts were met with immediate resistance, though, by a shouting Cade who struggled to get her to let go. Val was still tuning him out and didn’t bother responding. Instead, she continued pulling as Cade struggled and shouted at her. It wasn’t until he suddenly stopped yanking at his arm that Val glanced back at him. Cade’s face was covered in tears. His eyes were swollen red and his nose was running. As their eyes met he spoke again and this time his words came through crystal clear. “Please Val.” His voice was hoarse from shouting. “Please.” He pointed at the fiery figure. “They need help.”

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Of course. Where Val had immediately put the person on fire out of her mind, Cade’s first reaction was to help. Val loved that about him most of the time, but they couldn’t afford to stop. The person back there got unlucky. But that could have just as easily been her and Cade. And Val was sure as shit no one would have helped them if the tables were turned. It was a shitty world they lived in, but that was the reality. Val couldn’t afford to care about the person back there. And she almost certainly couldn’t help them even if she wanted to. I mean what do you even do to help someone on fire? Maybe if she had a fire extinguisher on her, she could help. But as it was now, there was nothing she could do. Tough luck.

Val turned to keep heading back to the road, but stopped half-way. She’d seen it out of the corner of her eye. Cade had the look. The look on his face that he’d had back in court when she had been fighting for custody of him after their parents died. The look he had when they had been evicted and had to spend two months living under Seventh Street Bridge. The look that said in big bold letters “My big sister can fix anything.”

Val started swearing nonstop as she gestured to Cade to stay put and started running back. She didn’t know what she would do to help, but as much as her mind was screaming at her not to, she had to try. Cade would never forgive her if she didn’t. Hell, Val, wouldn’t forgive herself.

It was a surreal scene approaching the wrecked apartment complex as the light from the figure kneeling in its rubble painted everything in orange and yellow hues. It wouldn’t have been out of place as a work of art in one of the upscale galleries downtown, but instead it was here in the real world seared into Val’s eyes as she rushed towards the wreckage. The figure -no the person- was still crying, which surprised Val. From what she knew about fires, it was generally hard to breathe in them, let alone cry. As she moved closer, Val frantically tried to come up with a way to put out the fire. Her eyes darted around the wreckage looking for anything that could help. As she did so, Val yelled at the person wreathed in flames, doing what she always did when Cade was hurt or having a panic attack, reminding him that someone was there and that soon it would pass.

“I’m here!” Val yelled, barely able to hear herself over the roar of the flames. She started digging through the pieces of rubble looking for blankets and water bottles that might still be intact. As Val searched, she yelled again, “It’s going to be okay! I’m going to help you!” She didn’t listen for a response. Val wasn’t even sure the person could hear her. Not that it probably mattered. Then something caught her eye. A brief splash of blue amidst the gray rubble. Val scrambled over, shifting chunks of debris out of the way to reveal a somewhat whole blue bathrobe. Val immediately snatched it up. It wasn’t a blanket, but she could make do. Now she just needed water.

A minute went by with her search coming up with nothing. Two minutes. Three. Val was certain the person was, if not dead already, going to die. Val yelled again, certain it was pointless, “You’re going to be okay!” She was half-trying to convince herself. One more minute, Val decided. One more minute and if she couldn’t find some water to soak the bathrobe in, she was just going to chance it and try to smother the actively flaming person with a dry old bathrobe. She desperately hoped she would find the water. Thirty seconds passed. Her search grew more frantic. With every piece of rubble overturned and every pile of wreckage dug through any hope she had slipped away. Fifty seconds. Val could feel her eyes start to water. She wasn’t going to be able to do anything. The flimsy bathrobe would probably just be fuel for the fire and this person was going to die and she wouldn’t be able to do anything. Again. Val yelled out at the person, out of desperation more than anything, “I’m here!” Her voice dropped at the end, barely a whisper. Sixty seconds. Then everything went dark.