It had been a perfectly normal day, for a perfectly normal family living in the suburbs of Central City. The day had started out as any other day had. Mr. Marvin dropped off their nine year-old girl at school in the morning, before heading out to his rather boring job in a cubicle. This was something Mrs. Marvin would normally do, if not for her very early and very important business meeting. She did important work for Central City Picture News, and with the particle accelerator making it's debut in the night to come, Picture News was a swarm of busy writers and reporters.
Little Max Marvin, a joyful girl sitting in the third grade classroom of Carmichael Elementary, did not understand the exciting buzz that accompanied Harrison Wells. She did not understand why her mother had left quite early that morning for this man. All she knew about Mr. Wells was simply this: fake smile, thick glasses, and a cheesy smell that followed him wherever he wandered. Max did not like Mr. Harrison Wells, or anyone that stopped her mother from waking her up in the morning with a smile and a plate of bacon for that matter. Max was not a snotty brat, mind you. Her father just wasn't able to cook bacon with enough love like her mother could.
The little 9 year-old did not pay much attention to class that day. The light brown frizz of her curly hair hid her from the activities around her, and the book in her hands was, by far, a more important world than the real one. And anyways, Max had forgotten her glasses at home. There was no way she was going to be able to read the things her teacher was writing on the board.
When Mr. Marvin finally came to pick Max up from school, she had many stories to tell, involving the knight in silver armor and the dragon in red scales, who were both battling it out viciously in the book she was reading. Mr. Marvin, of course, did not pay the slightest amount of attention to his daughter. He only nodded and smiled, much like he did when listening to his wife.
"What's Mama doing home?" Max asked her father as they pulled into their driveway. Mr. Marvin didn't answer, only shrugging his shoulders and parking the car. Max knew for certain that she did not get her adventuring, constantly-curious genes from her father, who liked to shrug a lot.
Max hopped out of the car with a spring in her step, empty bookbag flapping against her back as she ran to the front door, excited to see her mother after her absence in the morning.
The door swung open before Max even had the time to knock. She was immediately picked up into warm arms, giggling in happiness as she was spun about in Mrs. Marvin's arms.
"Sweet pea! It's so good to see you!" Her mother exclaimed, clinging to her girl as if it had been forever since she had seen her. Her heels clicked along the hardwood floor as she spun in circles with her daughter, enjoying the squeals of joy.
A somewhat unimpressed expression produced by Mr. Marvin caused Mrs. Marvin to put down her daughter gently. After all, in her husband's eyes, dancing around in heels with full view to the neighbors was not proper, "perfect" family conduct.
"What are you doing home, Emma?" Mr. Marvin asked his wife as he closed the front door, "I thought you were covering the accelerator tonight."
"I was," Mrs. Marvin responded as she helped Max out of her pink and orange bookbag, "but they put the new intern on it. I would be upset, but poor Linda is scared to death, so I think I can let this one slide."
Once Max was successfully out of her bookbag, and her shoes were thrown close enough to the shoe cubby, she ran into the living room, book clutched in her small hands as she fell into the couch. Mrs. Marvin watched on in adoration, knowing that most kids would come home and disappear into the T.V screen. However, Mr. Marvin did not seem to appreciate his daughter quite as much.
"Sit up, Max. Beds are for laying in, not couches," Mr. Marvin scolded. Mrs. Marvin, however, was fed up already with her husband for the day. Simply laying down on a couch was not a crime, and Max was only nine. Falling on couches with books was something to cherish while you still could, before you got married like she did.
"Well, Frank, if laying on couches is a sin, we're going to have to get another bed. You do it so much at night, I almost thought you were forgetting you used to sleep with me."
That shut Mr. Marvin up very fast, and a pink tinge of something akin to frustration or embarrassment gracing his cheeks did not go unnoticed by Emma Marvin.
Max shifted uncomfortably, unable to focus on her book. She was hoping there would be a minute or two before the bickering started. Her "perfect" family home was not so perfect as everyone thought. Of course, nothing in life was perfect. But she wasn't too young to notice how horrible it was to hear her parents fight.
"May I go out to the tree house?" Max asked, saying something before another hurtful shot could be thrown.
Her tree house was her sacred place. She could disappear into the tree house for hours on end, reading and sleeping and simply being. She could escape words, tears, and scary relatives with her tree house. It was the only thing her dad had ever made her, besides his faulty bacon. And it was a good tree house, because back then he was able to make things with love too, just like her mother.
"Of course, darling. Don't forget to bring a blanket, it's going to get a bit chilly- And don't forget to come in for dinner!" Mrs. Marvin called after her daughter as the young girl sprang about, grabbing a blanket, her glasses, and her book before running out the back door towards her favorite escape.
There wasn't too much to the tree house. There was no furniture or anything fancy. There was simply a roof, four walls, and a floor. But Max loved her tree house, and there could be no better tree house than the one that was in her backyard. There was no better feeling than crawling through the hatch in the house's floor, leaving the world behind her.
Naturally, Max totally forgot about dinner. Her mother brought it out to her, a steamy hot bowl of soup tasting even better in the chill than it did in the warm house. She thanked her mother politely, and enjoyed the food happily. Curling up with a blanket, a book, and soup; it was things like these that reminded her she had many things to be happy for.
But of course, curling up in a happy tree house that day in March was not Mr. Harrison Well's plan for the good Central City.
Max did not hear the storm rolling in, just like she never heard the yelling when she disappeared into her books. She did not hear the distant thunder, or the steadily increasing patter of rain on the roof of her escape. And Max Marvin certainly did not hear the sirens that were blaring from the T.V in the living room, Linda Park shouting over the storm and sirens that something was going very wrong at S.T.A.R Labs.
She didn't hear any of this, until her mother's voice pierced through their back yard, breaking Max's trance in her fantasy world.
"Max!" her mother shouted from the back porch, calling through the thunder claps and torrential rain, "Max, get inside now!"
A loud clap of thunder came after her mother's words of concern, sending her tiny heart into a wild frenzy. Adrenalin crowded her thoughts as she sprung to action, heartbeat thrumming in her ears as she grabbed her book and blanket hastily. Max threw open the hatch to the rope ladder, sending a strong wind into the room that felt harshly cold and very angry. But the adventurer inside her rose in excitement. Shouldering her blanket and grasping her book, she began to make the journey down the rope ladder.
Sudden cold March rain drenched her back as she made her rushed descent from her tree house. Her vision filled with water droplets and she wished, not for the first time, for someone to make the invention of windshield wipers on glasses.
The rain made her cozy blanket grow heavy with weight, and it began to slip from her shoulder. She held onto it, not daring to give up on her blanket. But she went slower down the ladder now, and her mother was becoming quite scared. The sirens that were coming from the T.V were not helping her feeling of anxiety and fear.
"Max, leave your things, you need to get inside!" her mother screamed. But Max did not listen, gripping her book and blanket with all the strength her small body could muster.
Her blanket suddenly fell from her shoulders, flying away with the wind that was throwing her rope ladder around. Max held tightly to her book, squeezing her eyes shut as the gust of wind threatened to take her away. Her mother's screams in the background kept her from stopping on the ladder, however. Max knew her mother had faith in her small and young soul. And after all, it would be silly to be afraid of a storm. The heros in her books weren't afraid of storms taking them away, so neither would she.
Max Marvin almost made it to the ground. Her bare feet brushed the grass blades, her destination almost reached, when the explosions occurred.
The sky turned orange, too much like fire to be lightning. It was a nightmare. It was bone chilling. It was frightening.
All little Max wanted was to be in her mother's arms at that moment. She began to turn her head in her mother's direction, about to shout out for her, when the the orange wave hit.
Max was thrown like a rag doll across the yard, her vision tumbling with dark outlines of trees and bright oranges. She lost consciousness when she hit the wet ground, her neck and head snapping back as they made harsh contact with the muddy marsh.
The last thing she was aware of before she became darkness was the paperback book, still faithfully clutched in her tiny fist, never leaving her side.