[b]Linda Laughlin (and her siblings):[/b]
16 years old
High School Junior, Inwood neighborhood of North Manhattan

[b]Day 1, after dark:[/b]

Everything was going crazy outside the Laughlin house in Manhattan's northern neighborhood of Inwood. Linda had never seen so many people on the streets at one time except maybe on holidays like July 4th or New Year's Eve. Some of them were carrying or dragging bags as they rushed to get out of the city for one reason or the other. Others were breaking into houses to loot them.

Linda's siblings were all huddled together in the home's basement where she'd sent them for their safety. Their parents had left their eldest child in charge while they tended to the family's ill maternal grandmother in Newark. This wasn't anything new to the nearly 17-year-old; Linda often babysat for her 14-year-old brother Robert, 12-year-old sister Sara, and 8-year-old brother Carl. But this was the first time Linda had been in charge when there'd been an emergency situation.

Making matters worse, nothing was working the way it should: electricity, natural gas, landline, cell, computers (even on battery) were all duds. They gathered up every candle they could find, blankets, water, and food and went to the basement to hide. Linda made sure the house was looked up tight, then split the following hours between keeping her siblings calm and entertained and checking the street out front and yard out back for lootings and vandals. 

All they could do was wait for their parents to get home.