TWO
The murky despair of ASSET’s conference room faded into the darkness as Sage drifted from reality. Dazzling colors exploded across a cloudless evening sky, and Sage found herself standing atop a hill as a rainbow of glittering specks fell around her. Great blooms of blue and then red, orange, and purple made for a spectacle that reminded Sage of her childhood. Her mom had always found the best places to watch the fireworks show.
But her mother was dead.
Sage followed the glittering trail of the last explosion as it faded down to the earth. Expecting to see families lying on blankets, grills filled with burgers and hotdogs, and the gleeful expressions of children admiring the Fourth of July celebration, Sage shrieked in horror at the sight of bodies, disfigured and bloody, carelessly
