A city floated in the sky. Glass towers rose from a chunk of stone that hovered in gray mist. Nothingness surrounded the city on all sides, from all directions, stretching infinitely around its inexplicable escape from gravity. 

Moments ago, the city materialized in the empty place in a flash of atomic light. On Earth, millions of people had died screaming, thinking they had escaped the nuclear blast. They did not. The only people who survived came to the empty place with the floating city; they were at the center of the nuclear blast, and therefore almost instantly vaporized. Or so it seemed to the rest of the world.

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The empty place was silent for a moment, with only one, lonely city. The Sears Tower stood sentinel over an empire of mist.

Then, not too far away, another flash of light. Another city blinked into existence, flashed, cooled, solidified; and on Earth, millions more ascended into ash.