Jace Herondale pulled himself to his feet. What little light filtered through the cellar doors wasn't enough to light his path.
He kept his hand on the wall as he walked carefully up the old wooden steps. When he was finally able to get the doors open, sulight and sudden heat spilled into the dank room.
He stepped out and into his yard. Everything was dead and burned.
"What the hell?"
The news reporter must have been right. It was the end of the world.
He walked towards his house, which seemed unscathed. When he was inside, he grabbed his backpack from the table and dumped out its contents.
He walked into the kitchen and put food, a first-aid kit, and water-bottles into his backpack. After he was done, he shoved a few changes of clothes inside as well.
Jace made his way to the front door, taking one last glance at what used to be his house. He closed the door and walked the street towards his friend Alec's house.
After ten minutes of avoiding still flaming piles of what Jace guessed used to be cars and... People, he heard sobbing. Pained cries so high they had to be coming from a girl.
When he turned the corner, he saw her, alone and hurt. She had red hair, but that was all he could see from where he was.
"Hey, it's going to be okay," he said, kneeling beside where she lay in the grass. "What's your name?"
"Clary. Clary Fairchild," she said, her voice sounding small.
"What happened, Clary," Jace asked, liking the way her name rolled off of his tongue.
"Not sure. There was fire everywhere. It was loud and I couldn't find anyone. After I'd been walking for a while, I felt a sharp pain in my arm. When I looked down, it was bleeding."
"Here, let me help," Jace offered, pulling the first-aid kit from his bag. He grabbed a water bottle and handed it to Clary.
She took it, grateful that she had something cold to drink.
Jace grabbed the small bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide. He poured a small amout into her wound and put the bottle back into the first-aid kit. "This will probably sting," Jace told her. He grabbed the rubbing alcohol and poured a tiny bit onto a cotton ball. He rubbed some on the skin around her cut so nothing harmful could get inside and make her sick.
"Thanks," Clary whispered.
"Yeah, I'm not done yet Red."
"How do you know how to do this," she asked.
"My mom was a nurse," Jace told her as he grabbed a needle from the box and some of the thread his mother had used on his cuts so many times before. "You might want to look away, Clary."
She looked off to the side as Jace began to stitch her wound closed. When he was done, he taped gauze over it and helped Clary up.
"Do you want to come with me, Red?"
"Okay," she said. "Only if you stop calling me Red."
"Deal," Jace said, leading her down the street.