Emily had always thought she dealt well with pressure. Even after her parents died, she didn’t panic. She stole and fought to make sure she could survive in the rough slums. Luckily, she was right. As the flaming balls of death start to fall towards her, she is calm.

Time appears to slow to a grinding halt as she observes everything around her.

The ship detonated five seconds ago.

The fragments currently falling are small, big enough to cause some serious damage if they hit but spread out enough for some wiggle room.

The largest fragments have eight seconds before they start hitting the ground.

The closest building is over thirty metres away, at least a twelve-second sprint.

Too slow.

I need something to hide under.

A large wooden door twelve metres away.

Too weak.

A sheet of steel five metres away.

Shit, too many small fragments in the way.

A sheet of bronze eighteen metres away.

Doable!

Time returns to normal as Emily breaks into a sprint across the scrap heap towards her goal. She scrambles over metal and wood hoping she didn’t overestimate herself as she feels small pieces of metal slicing her left side and both arms. She yelps in pain but doesn’t stop, feeling the searing heat from the metal falling around her.

She ducks and grabs the edge of the bronze sheet to lift it. It is far heavier than she was expecting, but it’s not perfectly flat to the ground. Held up by what appears to be a few broken old chairs, there is a small gap underneath that Emily jams herself into. Loud impacts begin to ring out as she struggles to squeeze herself under the heavy metal just in the nick of time. Panting, with adrenaline running through her veins, Emily listens to the sound of the falling wreckage and hopes the metal will be thick enough to protect her.

A few heavy impacts send shocks through her bones despite her protective shield. Several dents hit hard enough to leave bruises. But nothing breaks through.

After thirty seconds of cowering with a cacophony of crashes filling her ears, the world goes quiet.

Fires are burning all over the scrap heap, but nothing else is threatening to land on her head, so Emily slowly pulls herself free. Cautiously glancing around at the destruction, Emily stands while clutching what she suspects is a bruised rib. A grin creeps onto her face as her eyes are drawn to the falling remains of the ship in the distance.

The large balloon that should keep the ship afloat is ablaze with the outer layers peeling off. The metal bow of the ship ploughs into the desert sands and crumples, the smooth form folding in on itself and breaking apart. A thunderous clap shakes Emily’s core, and a large sand cloud erupts where the main body of the ship crash lands.

If it blew up…. No one's gonna miss the pieces, right?

“Might as well get some compensation for my injuries!” she winces as she begins to climb towards the top of the scrap heap to look for the best pieces to collect.

Cresting the heap, Emily scans her surroundings for the cargo boxes she saw falling before. She notices kids from the slums scrambling towards the wreckage to do the same and clicks her tongue.

Covering the ground littered with randomly dumped furniture and appliances, she notices several burning boxes shattered to pieces with their contents spilt around them. She slides down the hill to the closest burning pile and stomps it out to reach her bounty. Her eyes shine as she sees expensive looking, albeit damaged now, machine parts covering the floor.

“Jackpot!” Emily starts picking out the best-looking pieces, looking for any that have fewer dents but ignoring any scorch marks. She combs through three different piles before she finishes filling her knapsack to the brim. As she’s doing up the metal buckles to hold her bag shut, out of the corner of her eyes a glistening stone near the last smothered fire catches the sun and draws her towards it. She picks up the fist-sized piece of coal-black rock with small shards of blue crystal distributed throughout. Emily marvels at the rock and gazes into it until she sees small sparks of lightning flowing through it and almost drops it in surprise.

Woah, that can’t be normal. I wonder what it's worth. Some sucker’s gonna miss this…. Too bad it’s mine now!

Emily grins as she pushes the rock to the bottom of her bag, past the collected machine parts to keep it secure. She congratulates herself as she prepares to leave and stands up, swinging the bag onto her back. But the grin drops from her face as she realises, she made a mistake. Standing five metres in front of her, between her and the slums, are five boys she doesn’t recognise. They look to be twelve to thirteen, slightly younger than her but some larger than her already. All their eyes are solidly locked on the bag behind Emily’s back.

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“What are you looking at?” Emily asks, slowly lowering herself and tensing her legs ready to spring at any moment.

“That’s a pretty-looking rock you found there,” the largest boy in the middle, clearly the leader of the group, grins at her. The other four start slowly moving to surround Emily.

“What’s that got to do with you?”

“I’m gonna be the one selling it, that’s what!”

“Don’t you know the rules? Finders keepers, so back off!” Emily growls, shooting off towards the boy directly to her right.

The boy she aims for is the smallest of the bunch, shorter than her by a head, and looks startled that she wasn’t scared of the five of them. Emily quickly closes the distance and swings her bag into the small boy’s face, hearing a satisfying thud as he falls backwards onto the metal heap, blood flowing from his nose.

“You bitch!” the leader of the group yells. “Get her!”

Emily sprints past the fallen boy, running along the edge of the heap to create some distance from the surprised thieves. She jumps over a few boxes and slides down the slope a little as she starts turning back towards the buildings of the slums. The boys are half as graceful as her, but unfortunately slightly faster, so the distance she gained with her few seconds head start slowly reduces as she continues. By the time Emily reaches the first building, the thieves are only four metres behind her, with the leader, the fastest, in front.

She knows that, now they don’t have to scramble over lose scrap they will catch her in no time, so she decides to make things interesting by testing their knowledge of their home. She runs between two buildings onto the rough stone paths and begins weaving into the different alleys. After four sharp turns and a few very tight alleyways, she has lost one of her pursuers. Now she only has two metres between her and a very angry-looking boy.

The next alley Emily turns into is a dead end and the boys are finally confident they have her trapped, so they begin to slow their sprint down, only to be confused as Emily continues full speed towards the wall between the two low buildings. Emily springs off one foot and plants the other against the wall, pushing off and stepping up with her back foot to gain maximum height. She catches the lip of the wall with a firm grip and hauls herself up. Turning around panting lightly, she flashes a triumphant grin at the stunned thieves.

“Later dipshits, thanks for the exercise!”

She gives them a mock two-fingered salute before turning around, dropping her bag and jumping off the wall into a roll. She picks up her bag, slinging it back over her shoulder and begins a slow jog out into the main street of the slums, listening to the fading sound of the thief leader yelling at his lackeys to boost him over the wall.

Emily turns left after leaving the alley and sees the gates two hundred metres away. After a couple of minutes, she reaches it and glances behind her to make sure the boys haven’t followed. She reaches up and knocks on the gate then steps back and waits.

The small hatch in the middle of the right door slides open, and a pair of eyes glance around before locking onto Emily, slight shock appearing in them as he sees her state.

“Oh hey kid, you alright? That ship looked like it went down pretty close to city limits.” Howard asks before turning to his right and telling Todd to open the gate.

“Yeah I’m good, a few cuts and scrapes but I’ll live.” Emily flashes Howard her bloody arms before he steps back and closes the hatch as the doors slide open with the distinctive loud hiss of steam.

Seeing the blood and rips on Emily's sleeves and side, Todd raises an eyebrow as she walks through the gate that he closes behind her. She winces as she adjusts the bag on her back and starts to clutch her left side, which took the worst hit from the rubble. Now that she is back within the city walls and feels safe, the adrenaline runs out, and she feels the pain and exhaustion in full.

“Go home quickly and get those looked at. You don’t want an infection or something,” Todd urges her.

“Sure, Anna’s gonna freak when she sees me.” Emily chuckles as she walks away waving at the guards over her shoulder.

“Good luck!” Howard offers as they go back to leaning lazily against the wall.

Emily makes her way slowly back along the familiar streets of the city, earning a few curious gazes for her wretched state, but nobody bothers her.

She makes it to the front of the old clockmaker's shop and pauses to collect her thoughts and prepare herself to deal with Anna’s usual anger when she comes home bloody and beaten. Though, usually, it’s because of fights in the scrap yard over spoils, not being in the wake of an airship explosion.

As she steps through the shop doors, Emily hears the usual half-rusted bell above the door jingle, followed by the rushed thudding of feet against hardwood. Anna bursts into the room teary-eyed, makes eye contact with Emily and, to her surprise, rushes at her. Before Emily can process this new turn of events, Anna has latched onto her, burying her face in her chest. Emily winces as pain shoots through her side from where Anna’s arms are pressed against raw cuts and bruised ribs, but she ignores it and hugs Anna back, patting her head to reassure her.

“Jeeze, you’d think I came back from the dead or something.”

“I heard an explosion and saw a ship going down near where you gather scrap, I thought you might have been hurt!”

“Only a little bit. I’m fine. The ship itself went down pretty far from the city so only rubble came near us.”

After a couple of seconds, Anna seems to calm down and slowly releases Emily to step back. She looks her over and pauses at the areas of fresh blood on her shirt.

“Are you sure you’re okay? That looks like a lot of blood for only a little bit.”

“Haha, yeah I kinda made it worse by running from some kids who wanted my loot.” Emily scratches the back of her head awkwardly as Anna’s concerned gaze turns into a glare at her words.

“Why do I even worry about you,” Anna sighs. “At least you won’t wear that shirt again now. Come on!”

Anna grabs Emily’s hand and begins dragging her through the shop back towards their rooms. She opens the door to Emily’s room and pushes her towards the bed.

“Sit down and take your shirt off, I’ll be right back.”

She then turns around and disappears back into the hallway. Emily obeys, dropping her bag next to her bed and then stripping her shirt off before throwing it into a bin on the other side of the room. Anna quickly returns with cloth, gauze, and alcohol. She cleans and wraps all of Emily’s cuts in silence, being careful not to put bandages over her bruised right ribs, before dumping the bloody cloth in the bin and walking to the door.

“You should really take more care of yourself and stop worrying me.”

“I’ll think about it, thanks sis. Love you.”

“Love you too idiot.” Anna huffs while shutting the door.