The sky fell at dawn.

Just as the soft, newborn sun peaked out from the horizon, it split open with the sharp crack of a gunshot and bled furious fire onto the world below. Roaring in agony, it shed ashen tears that seared our skin and clogged our lungs. The streets burned, the buildings collapsed, the people scattered. Wealthy and poor became frivolous adjectives as homes of all classes turned to dust and smoke, their escaped residents blurring together to form an amorphous mob. Young women clutched their salvaged silk and pearls to their chests, lost children in singed pajamas screamed their parents' names, firemen abandoned their posts in fear of their own lives. It was a fond reunion of Chaos and Destruction...

...and I was standing in its midst.