After a long day of your attending yelling at you, you change out of your scrubs and get on the subway. The air is cold and the small amount of snow on the ground crunches under your feet. Buildings around you look white and every time you exhale, it isn’t hard to see the puff of condensation.

You walk down into the subway and avoid the piss puddles as well as various pieces of trash that lay about. To any outsider, the streets of New York were more disgusting than any sort of fake magical picture that movies paint. To you, this was normal. You’ve lived in this city your whole life so things didn’t faze you anymore. Especially not after what you’ve seen in the hospital.

As you get out of the subway and head to a nearby deli for a soda, your phone buzzes. To your surprise, when you take your phone out of your pocket, it’s your stepbrother Michael (or as you call him, Kaiser). What could he want? He’s never called her first before so it must be important, no?

You step into the deli, petting one of the cats that sit on an empty shelf as you walked past some “Mamdani for Mayor” posters, heading to the back by the freezers while putting away your OMNY card, preparing to answer the phone. Once you did, a deep and impatient voice came in through the line. You could clearly hear the frown in his voice as soon as you answered the call.