The night over downtown San Diego burned with an unnatural glow as flames climbed from damaged vehicles and reflected across shattered windows, while frightened civilians rushed through smoke-filled streets searching desperately for safety and praying they would reach it before the chaos consumed everything around them. Sirens wailed from every direction. Emergency lights painted the darkness in flashes of red and blue. The city no longer resembled the place people had called home only hours earlier.
Elara stood in the middle of the ruined avenue while cold wind moved through her dark hair and carried the scent of smoke across the street, and although she had witnessed fear many times before, witnessing it on this scale felt entirely different because these were not warriors or supernatural creatures running for their lives. These were ordinary people. These were families. These were innocent lives being crushed beneath a nightmare they could not understand.
