Her first impression of her home was that it was loud.
She clenched her eyes shut, slammed her hands over her ears and pressed, hard, trying to block out the noise. This didn't jive with what she'd been told before trying this. Hadn't everyone else's worlds been silent and deserted? This place was deserted, all right, but there was a wailing shriek--fast wind, she thought, wind ripping through something, something firm and tall and existent. Something metal. And, as she slid her hands down her curls, she heard the crackling of fire and the rumbling of thunder; momentary light flashed through her eyelids. There was no comfort of raindrops on her skin, not even the comfort of humidity, just dry and baking heat. After the next roll of thunder finished, she opened her eyes to stare out at her world for the first time.
The world was cast in a strange light, a sickly bile-green like the city was enveloped inside a glass Coke bottle. Storm clouds covered the sky, gray at the center and redder towards the edges. Occasionally the ambient light stretched towards purple, where there was a break in the clouds. With the illumination mostly gone, her world was dim, very dim, and it took her eyes a moment to adjust. But adjust they did: she began to be able to make out the shapes of skyscrapers, or something like them. Lightning flashed and blinded her once more. When the spots faded, she stepped forward on the concrete (concrete? it felt rougher) to peer at the skyline.
There were skyscrapers all right, but they were half-collapsed; the sides were torn open, steel-like girders hanging out into the ether like outstretched arms. She inhaled, smelled smoke. It wasn't clean, good woodsmoke, but an oily kind that left the inside of her lungs feeling choked and disgusting. Gunn looked down through watering eyes to the sight of a burning city. But there were no screams, no bodies that she could see; just this city, burning, and in the very distance a tower. It had levels, rings extending up into the sky in a manner somewhat like a spiral. While the rest of the city looked almost modern (except for the fact that it was in ruins, and slowly being pulverized by the lightning storm overhead) this spiraling tower had colonnades. An entire section of the front was gone, but the rest seemed to stand strong enough to support the construction at the very top.
What was that?
She stepped to the edge of the building she'd appeared on, looked up to the greenish sky again. The storm was moving away, lightning striking and igniting more fires; some sections of the city she could see were almost leveled, while others were remarkably well-preserved except for a few scorch marks. Which led her to believe that maybe some buildings weren't built of the steel-like metal of the far-off skyscrapers. This city had grown organically from several settlements, all under the dome she could just barely see from an overhead crack in the clouds. She gripped the lip of the building--it had some tooth to it, pulled on the fabric of her gloves and then shredded them as she slid down the side. It wasn't a long drop; but when she got to the street level she almost regretted it.
From here, her city was imposing.
Gunn closed her eyes to compose herself. This was her place, and she had no need nor reason to be afraid of her place. Still, she jumped when a particularly world-shaking roll of thunder intruded on her thoughts.
When she opened her eyes, the world was different. Instead of a greenish-brown light, the street was bathed in a warm rosy glow; overhead, the skies were still cloudy, but there was no lightning, and the fires were no longer burning. The buildings were tall and pristine, and she could hear children laughing. A few steps forward towards the sound shattered the idyllic vision, replacing it with a piece of a nearby building. It crashed down only a foot away.
Startled and in a panic, she dialed home.
