Carina carefully pulled the wrapping around wrist tighter making sure the light from her bands couldnâ€™t be seen in dark alleyways. Despite her semi-optimistic hopes of being able to find her mother within the first few weeks of her arrival in New York, it was turning out to be more difficult than she had planned. Carina had quickly assimilated back into the lowest tier of the population going from shanty town to shanty town, from ghetto to ghetto trying to find the smallest trace of her mother. She even utilized the grapevine to send the message around that  a â€˜young blonde-haired womanâ€™ was spending an awful amount of time looking for â€˜Dianaâ€™,  hoping that maybe the rumor would spread to her mother.<br/><br/>Unfortunately the grapevines werenâ€™t being very helpful in spreading her message around too much, mainly because of all the other news that seemed to be taking up space. The war has escalated to a point that even the people who kept an â€˜out of sight, out of mindâ€™ attitude towards it were starting to have their blinders removed.  A tense feeling had fallen over the city, like the calm before the storm.<br/><br/>Carina found herself wanting to head north, maybe check the other shanties she and her mother had used as their home over the course of her life. Butâ€¦that would require leaving New York. Every time she packed up one of her bags and worked up the nerve to start leaving something always told her to stay.  The feeling as becoming increasingly persistent. She had even made it all the way out of the city, past even the suburbs before a panicking almost paralyzing feeling gripped her chest and before she knew it she was turned around and her feet were taking her back to the inner city.  Something was keeping her here.<br/><br/>Or rather someone.<br/><br/>If she were honest with herself, there was a large part of her that truly believed she would never see Aiden again. That when they parted ways that was it. She would move on and so would he. So why t did she keep looking for him? Why did her heart stop when she caught a flash of blonde hair on the streets? She was starting to search for him just as much as she was searching for her mother. She had to stop this. She HAD to! With a deep breath she started out again, she was leaving New York once and for all.<br/><br/>As she walked along the outskirts of the city, another feeling gripped her . I t wasnâ€™t the same that usually told her to stop and turn around, it was the one that told her  that something was just not right.  â€˜Itâ€™s quiet.â€™ She thought to herself â€˜Quiet like the Center.â€™  She looked around her, so caught up in her brooding, she didnâ€™t notice the paths most of the wondering lower class took was empty. Carina paused looking around warily. She hadnâ€™t been listening to the grapevines for a while, was there something she missed?<br/><br/>And then the humming started. It was low and steady, but slowly rising in volume with a distinct *whoosh* *whoosh* *whoosh* pattern to it. Carina did a complete 360, trying to find the source, it wasnâ€™t until a dark shadow passed over her did she look up. Only to drop to the ground crawling into a large open pipe on the side of the hill. She looked up into the air disbelievingly as plane after plane invaded the skies, some large, some small, but all of themâ€¦all of them heading towards New York. She inhaled sharply recognizing the insignia on the side.<br/><br/>The calm was over, the storm had begun.