The Fulton Street Station was the usual mass of bodies at rush hour: people pressed into suits pressed together in stairwells and platforms and train cars. A bouquet of colognes and perfumes mingled with sweat and cigarette smoke.

Anya Nowicki grunted as she was jostled on the stairs leading down to the platform, unseen by much taller men and women in sleek winter coats. She felt like a potato, short and wrapped in so many layers that her walk was turned into more of a waddle. On the plus side, the extra padding shielded her from getting elbowed too hard.

“Ow! Watch it, dickhead!” Anya snapped at a man who knocked the side of her head with his elbow as they stepped onto the subway. The man glared at her and continued into the car.

“Y’know, someday somebody’s going to smack you,” a woman said beside Anya. Tori from accounting was bundled up almost as much as Anya, but managed to not look like a swaddled spud. She was taller, much thinner, and managed to weave through the crowd of commuters instead of bumbling into them.

“He did smack me. That’s why I called him a dickhead,” Anya said as she and Tori got into the subway.

“Do you sass this much at work?” Tori asked. “Because that might make me want to transfer to your department. I’d pay good money to see you call the boss names.”

Anya smirked. She’d fantasized about giving their boss, Mr. Harris, the finger for several months. But since rent was expensive and food was a necessity, she kept her fingers on her keyboard and her mouth shut. She shuddered to think about her rent going up yet again. She would have to move out of Brooklyn and deal with a longer commute, or go back home. The possibility of the latter option made her shudder again.

“I’m meeting some friends for a drink,” Tori said. “Probably more than one, to be honest. You wanna join me?”

Anya thought about it. She could certainly stand to get out of her apartment more and talk to more people besides Tori. She also needed to call her mother tonight, and the thought of staying in her work clothes for another few hours didn’t appeal. And knowing Tori, she likely had some trendy place in mind that served bespoke cocktails that cost $25 at least.

“Maybe next time,” Anya said.

“You said that last time,” Tori said. “I don’t wanna force you or anything, but it’s good to unwind with other people, y’know? You seem extra stressed out lately.”

“Yeah. Just…work stuff. Family stuff. Lots of stuff in general,” Anya replied. “I promise. Next time, okay? Next Friday.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Tori said. The two of them chatted until Tori got off with a wave a few stops later. Anya was left to cling to one of the dirty poles alone as other commuters came and went until she got off and switched lines. It was another fight to get on the next line to Brooklyn, another round of getting bumped and knocked around by the stampede of people, but she made it.

Anya had a few new bruises by the end of her commute, and was glad she had decided not to go out with Tori. She was exhausted, and her bed was already calling to her, several blocks away in Bushwick.

Brooklyn, and particular Bushwick, in winter was not the loveliest part of New York. The snow from a week ago had had enough time to pile up into black and brown piles of slush and discolored ice along the edges of the streets and sidewalks. The barren trees scratched at the night sky with their naked branches. The wind from the ocean bit sharply as it swept between Bushwick’s stumpy buildings. It was a far cry from the pleasant breezes one could feel on Coney Island in the summer.

And Anya still needed to call her mother. She grumbled as she pulled out her phone and selected her mother from her contacts list. A picture of her mother rested in the center of the screen: a woman with hair the color of concrete and a face that had all the gentleness of a cannonball. Anya remembered taking that picture years ago. She had told her mother to smile, and her mother had looked her up and down once before asking, “What about?” and then frowned when the camera flash had gone off.

Anya’s thumb hovered over the dial button, and as she did every week, she wondered why she even bothered.

Because she’s your mom, she thought, then grimaced. Factually true, but not really it.

Because ever since you moved away your bank account’s been in the shitter and she’s a safety net, Anya thought and grimaced further. That was a little too accurate.

Anya sighed and hit the dial button and walked along the frozen sidewalk as she listened to the phone ring. Her mother picked up after a few moments and answered, “Hello? Anya?”

“Yeah, Mom, hey,” she replied. “Just calling to check up, see how things are.”

Their conversation had the tone of strangers in an elevator for a while. Anya would rather have been at the dentist, or back on the subway getting elbowed in the temple, or listening to Mr. Harris tell her she needed to get her figures up, or anything. How’s the weather? Seen any good TV shows? Try any new recipes?

Anya knew The Question was coming. It came every week after this inevitable attempt at civility. The Question was why her thumb hovered over the dial button with indecision and dread. And, as always, The Question came as the pleasantries petered out.

“When are you going to come back home?” Anya’s mother asked. “Your sister comes home all the time.”

“She lives a twenty minute drive away from you,” Anya said into her phone. She almost dropped it when a man walking his dog bumped into her.

“Asshole,” Anya said as she almost slipped on some ice.

“Excuse me?” her mother snapped on the other end of the phone.

“Not you, Mom. Some guy,” Anya sighed. Her apartment building was just ahead, and Anya slowed her pace. She’d finish this out in the cold rather than bring the well-trod argument into her home.

“This is why you should come back. People here are never rude.”

Anya snorted. People in Clemson, South Carolina could be plenty rude. Certainly not all of them, but the ones who were tended to make it personal. At least rudeness in the city was indifferent; just a general apathy for other people. She’d take that over some nosy neighbor taking passive-aggressive digs at her any day.

Especially when said digs came from her mother.

“Don’t you snort at me. I’ve tolerated your carousing long enough. It’s time for you to come back and be an adult. Get married, have some kids, like your sister,” her mother continued.

Anya saw the rest of the conversation playing out as it had dozens of times before: I’m not ready to have kids yet, there isn’t anybody I want to settle down with, I’ll come back eventually, maybe next year, definitely for Christmas, I gotta go, bye.

And then again next week.

And again.

Anya bit her lip and tightened her meager grip on her phone to the point where her hand hurt.

“Are we going to go through this every week, Mom? Really?” Anya snapped. “I’m sick of this shit. I’m twenty-eight, I have a job. I have a life. You’re the one acting like a kid.”

“Anya Sabrina Nowicki! You do not talk to your mother that way!”

“Pretty sure I just did,” Anya said. “Look Mom, you can accept this or I can stop calling. But I’m tired of having the same conversation every time I call. I got enough shit to deal with and I don’t need you adding to it.”

“Anya——”

“I’ll try you next week,” Anya said and hung up. She exhaled, and the cloud of her breath drifted away with her words into the winter night.

When Anya finished climbing the stairs up to her apartment (”Elevator under repairs, Sorry,” the two-week old notice from the Super taped to the first floor read), her feet and ankles ached, she had a throbbing headache from the smells of the subway, and she was starving. She entered her tiny studio apartment and sighed with relief.

Her apartment wasn’t much bigger than the family room in her old house in South Carolina, but at least it was hers. Her favorite overstuffed armchair sat in the center of the room, not far from her bed, and angled toward her desk and computer. A patchwork rug she’d bought online covered most of the scuffed and scarred wooden floor, along with a layer of dirty clothes that she swore she would clean up some day. Her bed was a lumpy mess of thick blankets and soft sheets and it sang to her like a siren, but she needed to wash the stink of the subway off her.

Anya triple-locked the door as she always did, then shucked off her work clothes like a cocoon and entered her closet-sized bathroom. One of the benefits of having such a small space to bathe in was that it doubled as a steam room quite easily, and Anya luxuriated in the hot cloud. She sighed with some relief as she washed the aromas of the day off her skin and out of her dull red hair.

Her pale skin turned a bright shade of pink under the hot water, and she felt a bit like she wasn’t so much bathing as slowly boiling herself. She knew from experience that when her skin got this red it made the constellation of dark freckles across her nose even more distinct. She got into her loose, comfy pajamas before climbing into bed with some reheated pho noodles to watch a movie.

She tried to focus on the film, but her mother’s voice kept seeping into her thoughts, overriding the voices of the characters on the screen. She finally gave up and shut her TV off. She tried to play something on her laptop, but none of the games in her Steam library spoke to her. The taint of her conversation with her mother leeched any enjoyment she might’ve gotten from any of them.

“God dammit,” Anya swore, and flopped back onto her bed, tossing the wireless controller aside. Even hundreds of miles away, she couldn’t shake her mom. Or her sister. Or god damn Clemson, South Carolina. She went into her kitchen and made herself a rum and coke. It was Friday night, and she had two blessed days of not commuting to the office. Getting a hang-over wasn’t how she wanted to start her Saturday tomorrow, but it had been a rough week. Her first date in ages had ghosted her last Saturday, which brought her dry-spell up to nearly a year and a half; her boss had tried to look down her top a record-breaking eight times in a single day; and between her mom and her sister, she’d been inundated with guilt-trips through texts and e-mails and finally, tonight’s call.

“Be like you sister, be like your sister,” Anya said in a mocking tone as she decided that two shots of rum in the coke was better than one. “Just pump out kids and stay at home and make casseroles.”

She pulled her desk chair over to the window to stare out at the city while she drank. It was crowded, expensive, smelly, and a constant rat race. But after several years, it felt like home. It was her city, and she didn’t owe anyone there anything. This was partly because she didn’t know anybody outside of her job. The financial district of Manhattan was its own world, and the investment firm she worked for, its own nation. It demanded allegiance and service and sacrifice, and it kept Anya from entertaining serious fantasies about a rich social life.

But that was okay. She had Tori, and some other friends from the neighboring firms, and she knew enough people in her neighborhood to feel welcome.

Anya sipped at her drink and shuddered as the alcohol hit her stomach. She looked up at the light-polluted sky, the winter night burned a faint orange from the countless lamps below. That was the only thing she truly regretted about the city: no stars. The only twinkling in the sky came from satellites or airplanes. Still, small price to pay to have her own life.

She watched an airplane pass by, the red and white lights at the tips of its wings blinking at her from high above. Red, white, red, white, red, orange.

Orange?

The plane moved on, but there was another light in the sky now, tiny but bright. It sparkled a deep orange, visible even through the lights of the city, glowing like Mars itself. Unlike the satellites or aircraft, it wasn’t moving. It remained still in the sky, winking at her. She stared at the light above her and winced when it shined on her, directly into her eyes.

“What the f——” she started to say when her window shattered and then her entire apartment was spinning around her. Her drink flew out of her hand as she tumbled backward, only somewhat aware of a burning sensation in the center of her chest. She smelled something burning. Her head hit the wooden floor of her apartment with a loud crack and then the apartment went dark.