Shakti adjourned the after-school meeting of the student council and prepared her belongings as the other council members slowly made their way out of the meeting room.  As the last to leave, she made sure everything was locked.  While her family had considerable wealth, it wasn't anywhere near the point where she had a chauffer or security guards, so she merely walked home for the day as she did everyday.  She walked from the area around her school, which was much more ordered and clean since it was a place that had significant British influence, to the surrounding areas that were much more disorganized and showed a juxtaposition of the rural and the urban, where technology and tradition mingled as cultures, old and new, rested, staring each other down in an uneasy alliance.  She wandered past marketplaces where a vendor could be seen selling cellphone accessories right next to one who sold fruit.  People looked at her and could see her prestige based on her uniform and the way she carried herself.  She was educated, she was wealthy, she was destined for greatness, and she was destined to leave this backwards morass behind.

Turning a corner, she found herself surrounded by smoke and dark colors.  Believing she had wandered into a hookah bar or opium den on accident, she wandered backwards looking for the exit, seeking the waning afternoon sunlight of the market place.  But when the smoke cleared she found herself in a shadowed devestation; no place in India looked like this.  Was she hallucinating from second-hand opioid inhalation?  Out of the corners of her eyes, shadows stalked her, giving her no clear look at them.  She picked up her pace, rubbing her arms furiously to abate the itch of anxiety, as the stench and cold got under her skin, figuratively.  As she ran she seemed to converge on the path of other girls like her, but not like her; they looked like foreigners.  A voice called out and Shakti turned to see another girl wearing something ridiculous and holding a weapon. Yet the armed girl seemed to be keeping the shadows at bay.

"Wh-what's going on here?" Shakti asked in English with barely an accent; most foreigners knew English.  She tried to hide her fear, to show strength and dependability and, if the girl with the spear proved to be unreliable, to take command as necessary.