New York City is a loud place to live.
Day or night, voices will always be heard. The sounds of cars and sirens and industry will always be heard.
Lucia had long grown used to the clamoring of the city. There was rarely anything that couldn't be fixed by a cheap pair of headphones and music raised loud.
There was nothing like classic rock to drown out the chatter of the masses.
The day was a usual one for Lucia. A night of sleep cut short by a ringing alarm. A breakfast left half eaten on the table. A long morning spent at work, helping those in recovery through their physical training. She had a degree that would allow her to do more, advance further, but there was something about how personal her current position was that made her stay.
Lunch seemed to take longer to reach. The half eaten breakfast made for a long, hungry morning.
As Lucia entered her hour break, she near sprinted out the lobby of the building. She was heading for the outdoor food courts about two blocks away. It would be busy, very much so, but as long as she got there early enough she should be one of the first for the Greek place that had been there longer than she'd been born.
And she was.
First in line meant the freshest food.
"Lamb gyro, extra sauce. Fries," Lucia spat out at the cashier.
"Yes, ma'am," the kid behind the counter was looking down as he responded.
Lucia handed a ten to the boy and walked to the pick up line.
She had slid her headphones back over her ears and muted the world once more. Staring into the kitchen, Lucia's anticipation kept climbing.
She watched as the lamb was cut off the spit and layered into the wrap.
The chef placed the prepared gyro on the counter and a second waiter brought the gyro to Lucia, whose eyes were now closed in fear of shedding tears of joy.
Lucia opened her eyes to see the gyro fall from the waiter's hands.
"Agh, No!" A gasp and a startled yell flew from her lips as she watched the gyro plummet to the ground, far too late for her to try and save it.
She looked up at the waiter, tears of joy now tears of sorrow.
Seeing the face of the waiter, one painted in horror and despair, Lucia straightened her face.
"Wait! It's not that big a deal." She was half yelling at this point, trying to hear her own voice over the sound of her music.
Tears were now spilling out of the waiters eyes as she raised her hand to point behind Lucia.
Furrowing her eyebrows in confusion, Lucia began to turn around.
Before she was even halfway spun around, she could already see what looked like hundreds of people running towards her. As she completed the turn, she saw the first group of people fall.
As the crowd began to disappear row by row, Lucia started to remove her headphones. The world that was muted, toned out by the rocking and rolling of Elton John was now plunged into chaos. Screams, yells, and other sounds of terror rang out across the food plaza.
Behind the group of people that couldn't seem to outrun the growing hole in the ground, Lucia noticed cracks spread on one of the large buildings bordering the food court.
It didn't take more than two seconds before, much like the crowds of people, the building started to crumble.
The building started to fall inwards toward Lucia and the plaza. Luckily, the collapsing ground reached her first.
Tons of broken concrete and metal began to land in the spots near where Lucia had been standing.
But she was no longer there. Lucia had begun to fall into a dark abyss. As she was falling she would pass corpses that had been flung into the remaining walls of the abyss she was falling into.
As she went deeper and deeper, the walls seemed to grow thinner and chunks of Earth at the size of skyscrapers would peel of and be pulled into the, seemingly, endless hole.
Thirty minutes passed quickly and Lucia noticed hundreds and thousands of people get hit by concrete, cars, and other people that had fallen along with them.
As more and more people died, Lucia began to praise and thank whatever it was that was keeping her from harm.
Lucia watched more and more people die until, finally, her own world went black.
***
"Gah!" Lucia sat up with a start, clutching her head and feeling like she had just been crushed.
---
In fact, she had been. Though she herself may never know, a bolder five times larger than herself had made impact with her back just as she disappeared through an unknown vortex. Every bone in her body had been broken, her organs nearly crushed. Yet, through some power, as she entered through that mysterious portal, every bone and organ and injured part of her body was restored to perfect condition.
She was just lucky her heart hadn't stopped. Had it, then she would be just like those hundreds and thousands she saw on the way down. Dead. Though, that's not something she'll find out. Not yet.
---
As the headache began to fade, Lucia took a look around her surroundings. Having just been falling in an endless hole, she felt that there was no reason for her to be in the grass plains that she finds herself in now.
Even if everything just then was a dream or hallucination, she should be in the city. Not wherever she is now.
Being described as a grass plain probably gives her location more credit than it deserves. It was an exceedingly boring area. The grass, while making up some portion of where she found herself, was surrounded by large patches of dirt and emptiness.
Lucia stood up and spun in circles. The sun was low now, but it did look like it was rising. Wherever she was, Lucia knew it could be dangerous if she didn't reach some kind of shade before the sun reached the center of the sky.
Any tree growth could also indicate a water source, something that would come in handy if she was stranded out in the middle of nowhere.
"Haaa," looking around, Lucia sighed in disappointment.
Nothing but expansive flatness in every direction.
Lucia began moving. She couldn't stay in one place long.
'If every direction is the same flat grassiness, then I may as well head West.
I won't outpace the sun, but it may buy me more time.
Either way, I need to get moving. If that abyss was real and not some kind of drug trip, then that means I survived some kind of wicked event. I won't die to thirst if I survived that.
I'm not that fucked. I refuse to be.'
Several hours went by as Lucia fled from the sun. As the sun entered the center of the sky, Lucia recognized that shit was going bad.
The temperature had increased and seemed to keep doing so. If she didn't find water and shade, it was likely she would be cooked to death.
'I don't know why they do this stupid shit in the movies, it doesn't work.'
At this point the heat had gotten so bad that Lucia had taken off her T-shirt and wrapped it around her head.
In reality, the shade and relief that the shirt provided her head was significant, but it was a combination of the heat and her pride that kept her from admitting that fact.
It was just over an hour after she wrapped her head that Lucia saw a protrusion from the ground.
She kept walking, not letting her hopes get raised, and the protrusion grew taller and more numerous.
A smile spread across her lips and Lucia broke into a hobbled sprint-walk, effectively doubling her pace.
It took fifteen minutes, but she reached the trees in tears. As she prepared to collapse onto the floor, a voice in the back of her mind screamed and she kept waddling forward.
'NO. No, no, no, no, NO. If you stop here, you stop for good. Water. We need water.'
Her pace began to slow again, but she kept moving forward.
The voice in her head was correct. If she stopped moving now, she probably would never move again. The shade provides a nice relief, yes, but without water she won't live to see tomorrow.
Lucia kept marching forward. It was a slow, drag-footed march, but a march nonetheless.
More and more time ticked by, but she did not stop moving.
Her eyes began to cloud over in exhaustion and her expression grew increasingly dazed.
One step was taken, and she stopped. A second step was taken, thought seconds later, before she stopped again.
A third step was taken, interrupted by her collapsing forward.
Instead of being greeted by flat ground, Lucia's downward fall greeted air.
A two second fall ensued, followed by a large splash.
The water didn't get the chance to settle as Lucia broke through the surface, eyes bright.
"HAHAHA! I'm Alive!!"
Lucia's voice echoed across the lake.
Pure joy filled her eyes as she spun around looking for land to swim to.
The joy disappeared as she saw the shore twenty feet behind her. Fear shook her bones and she swallowed a mouthful of lake water.
The cliff face she had fallen from was all but ten feet from land. Had she fallen half a step earlier, it would have been hard Earth that greeted her landing, not cool and refreshing water.
Lucia quickly pushed those thoughts aside and swam towards shore. She climbed out of the water and dipped her face in once more, guzzling down the cool drink, forgetting for a second whatever bacteria or organisms she may be swallowing down, as well.
As a drop of water fell from her sharp chin, she leaned against the shaded cliff, closed her eyes, and fell asleep with a soft smile.