1| An Unusual Event
In the year 2121, on an ordinary spring night, an extraordinary occurrence began in August City. Although it should have been an average six o'clock evening with people coming home from work and the sun about to set, it wasn't. It wasn't a normal sky with a natural cloud formations either.
Nothing was normal or average on this particular night.
Something was up and some truly sensitive people could feel it in the air.
With once a population of over a million people, due to famine and outbreaks of infectious disease, August City's population had dwindled to a mere five-hundred-thousand during the last three decades. In spite of that, the residents of August City thought theirs was the best and largest of all the cities in the United Sectors. It could have been true, but whatever their status might have been, on this night, it was about to change.
The United Sectors was once called the United States. It was divided into four areas. The two best sectors were located on the coasts, one East on the Atlantic and one West on the Pacific. Then, there was the frozen North Sector, and finally, last and least was the hotbed of revolution and dissention known as the South Sector. The South Sector ran along the Gulf Coast and was once a popular vacation spot, but its waters had been polluted by oil spills and the beaches were now grimy and disease infested.
Like the United Sectors, August City was also divided into four parts from best to worst; however, the similarities ended there. With each of the August City's four parts approximately the same size in land mass, the city was shaped like a rectangle rather than a circle.
Summerhaven was the first and finest place to live and work. Summerhaven was where the wealthiest one-percenters lived, making it the least populated area of August City. With a central business district in the midst of Summerhaven, it allowed for its massive mansions to be located far away from the noise and traffic of the section's business center.
Those huge estates sat on acres of immaculately landscaped lawns and pristine gardens with pools and solariums. Anyone visiting August City would see the best part first. Summerhaven inspired awed circumspect and it always left a good impression.
Springhaven was next in desirability. Springhaven was where the five-percenters lived. Although its residents were also very wealthy, they fell short of those in the much higher tax bracket of Summerhaven. Springhaven held multiple gated communities and private estates, however, neither its office complexes nor its homes could compare to the ostentatiousness – the utter vulgar display of wealth and success – of those in Summerhaven.
Fallhaven was the third section and, in reality, it was divided into two parts of its own: Those living on the edge of Springhaven were almost wealthy enough to live in Springhaven and those who lived on the edge of Winterhaven were almost destitute enough to live in Winterhaven. The true working class of August City lived in the center of Fallhaven although, in general, there was no real middle class anymore and there hadn't been for a very long time.
In August City you were either rich or poor.
The rich were divided into incremental levels of wealth the same as the poor were. No matter how wealthy you were, there was always some who had more. No matter how poor you were, there was always some who had less.
As for Winterhaven, the bleakest and poorest part of August City, no one actually wanted to live or work there. Residents of Summerhaven, Springhaven, and Fallhaven were warned that it was the most dangerous area in their city. The authorities had convinced everyone that Winterhaven was filled with homeless addicts and the most violent criminals.
Winterhaven's residents were the type of people that the rest of August City wanted to forget existed. The authorities gave warning to their residents and visitors that to visit Winterhaven would be at their own risk. Even the police refused to venture into this area.
2| Home
Salazar and his family lived near the middle of Fallhaven. In spite of his father's well-paid job in Summerhaven, they were not well-off enough to live at the edge of Springhaven. Still, they did manage to live as close to it as possible. Not because they were snobbish, but because it was what they could afford and it had the least amount of crime.
Now, on this peculiar night, some residents in all four parts of the city peered out their windows and some ran out into the streets to investigate the loud booming pops and thundering growls they heard. Shivers of anxiety ran down their spines as they searched the horizon for some explanation of the noises.
To the residents of Fallhaven, even though whatever it was seemed far away, an unusual quiet settled over the crowd as they watched the massive red and black clouds in the distance. They couldn't understand what they were seeing even though the answer rolled across the sky towards them.
Summerhaven was thirty-minutes away from Fallhaven by bus. Whatever caused the rumbling roars and red skies first occurred there. Those in Fallhaven hoped it would stay there.
The people who had rushed outside to observe the uproar were too young or inexperienced to understand what they witnessed. They looked at their neighbors with blank faces, hoping for a clue. They found none. Their awed silence lasted only a short while before a few began to speculate.
"It's not like any weather pattern I've ever seen," a male voice hesitantly confessed. Without conviction, his words were not reassuring and he knew it better than anyone. He shrugged his shoulders and looked at his feet as he scuffed an imaginary dust pile.
"It's just a storm. It's nothing to worry about," a feminine voice whispered as she nervously rubbed her arms to dispel the chill she felt. Unsure about her assessment too, she hoped someone else would agree.
"Probably," another voice softly acknowledged without belief behind the opinion.
Those attempted reassurances didn't disperse the apprehension. Their anxiety didn't go away. No one was sure what it was or what to say about it either. They could only hope that, if it was a storm, it would eventually pass by.
That's what storms normally did.
As Salazar watched the gathering crowd and the brewing tempest from an open upstairs window, his spine tingled in warning. He listened to the nervous suppositions of the crowd below and he didn't agree with them.
Salazar's instincts told him that whatever it was, whatever was coming their way, felt like something fierce and violent as it headed towards them. Dread filled him as he realized that it was not the kind of thunderstorm that would soon blow-over. All of his senses cautioned that it was something much, much worse than anything nature could throw at their city.
Mother Nature had been brutal and sadistic at times. For as long as Salazar could remember there had been violent storms and strange weather patterns that meteorologists could no longer classify with their charts and scales – tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, blizzards, and tornados of massive proportions had rampantly moved across the planet leaving devastation in their wake.
Whether winter or spring, any storm system could be severe enough to cause massive destruction and many deaths. However, somehow, Salazar knew this was different. Somehow, he knew that this energy heading their way wouldn't move on after a terrible lashing. He knew things would not go back to normal after it had expended its wrath.
As Salazar watched the scene unfold around and below him, he felt his mother silently join him at the window. An overpowering sensation warned him to run and to get both of them to safety. In fact, a commanding impulse that he could not deny screamed at him, demanding that he flee. There was only one problem…