Shana Vasquez was having a very, very bad day. Horrible in fact. First off, her mother-daughter shopping trip had been cancelled when her mother was called into to work.

So instead of buying cute clothes and delicious snacks, Shana was stuck at home with her two older brothers. Which hadn't sounded so bad at first, but the youngest, Brian, had a date scheduled with his girlfriend. A nice dinner and a romantic comedy at the cinema. A nice dinner and romantic comedy at the cinema that he had refused to take her to, even when she promised she would be quiet and sit at a different table. She had even offered to pay for her own ticket and meal with her allowance money. But to no avail.

The oldest, Will, had just gotten back from a trip to Japan and was suffering from jet lag. He had been conked out on the living room sofa nearly three hours before retiring to his room, muttering something about sandwiches. Shana had been watching a fascinating documentary on dragons, and was annoyed at the sudden slam of a door. Tapping the screen of her tablet to pause it, she twisted her neck around to see the fridge open and a bag of bread left on the counter. The girl sighed, sometimes it felt like she was the adult. Warm chair abandoned, Shana set out to shut the fridge and make her own lunch.

Conflicted between a bowl of vegetable soup and a sandwich, she chose to have a small serving of both. And with that thought, the small copper bottom pot that had hung above the over ever since Shana could remember, was taken down and set on the stovetop. Carrots, celery, tomatoes (she knew they weren't technically a vegetable, but her mother had always put them in soup), leeks, corn, and green beans were chopped up and thrown into a pot with some water and a stock cube.

"Now the heat," Shana muttered eyeing the knob to the burner. Her mother had warned her not to use the stove alone. But I'm not truly alone, she thought. Will was home, though still asleep. Maybe I should wake him up… or just get his permission? I'm eight and that's old enough to use a stove. He needs the sleep anyways.

"Okay," she muttered to herself, walking towards Will's door, "here we go."

KNOCK KNOCK

No response. "Will!" the girl whispered. Still nothing. She grasped the knob, opened the door a sliver and knocked on the frame.

KNOCK KNOCK

This time she received a groan of annoyance.

"What?" a tired voice came from the darkness.

"Will," she stated delicately, "I'm making soup and need to use the stove. May I please have your permission?"

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever…", his voice drifting off. Soon the only noise Shana heard was Will's snores. Mission accomplished.

With that out of the way, it was finally time to cook her concoction. She took the knob and set it to medium-low so that it could eventually simmer. "Simmer" was a word that she really it made her feel so grown up. Her mom had taught it to her when it came up in a cookbook last year during Christmas. They had been looking for recipes with softer foods because her Gran's teeth couldn't handle the normal dishes. Later, Shana's mom told her she didn't understand why Gran didn't just get dentures. Shana couldn't blame Gran for not wanting the things. If she were old, she would want to hold on to her original teeth too. Plus, in the cartoons, dentures always fell out and you had to take them out at night and put them in a cup of water. Gross.

Shana pushed thoughts of dentures aside and got out the ingredients for her sandwich: a can of tuna, a jar of mayonnaise, cucumber slices, and the last of a baguette. First, she cut open the small portion of bread in half. Then she opened the can, drained the tuna, and emptied it in a bowl with a spoonful of mayo." Mix, mix, mix," she sang quietly. Finishing that, she spread the tuna mixture on the bread, topped it with the cucumber, and put the top of the bread in place.

However the soup was still not done, and her stomach was complaining rather loudly. So, in a matter of minutes, away went the sandwich into her belly.

Oh, that was good, she thought to herself proudly. Even if it was a simple sandwich, she had made it alone. No assistance. Grinning, she went to check on the soup again, only to find it still wasn't done! That was irritating. Maybe it was the heat… No, Shana thought, it just takes a while. Maybe an hour? She should have looked up the cook time. Telling herself to be back in an hour she went to find something to do in the meantime.

She went over all the things she could do. Her tablet was almost out of batteries and the charger was in Will's room, so using that was out. As was the computer, because her mother had changed the password again after Shana cracked the previous. Maybe her dolls? No. Those had been getting less and less fun. She rarely played with them. Her last option was drawing, which she really liked, but once, a girl at school had told her her drawing was dumb and the colors were wrong. Ever since, Shana had been aware of what she drew at school, drawing 'normal' things, like green fields with flowers and square buildings instead of red fields and a big, glass, bubble building. It was strange. When she pictured grass in her mind, it was red. Looking at the grass outside though, felt wrong. Like it wasn't 'home'. That's why Shana didn't like going outside much. She felt like something was completely off, but everyone else was fine. They weren't disturbed that everything was green.

Her colored pencils and blank paper were snatched up and placed neatly on the kitchen table. Plopping down on the cushioned wooden seat, the girl picked up a normal, graphite pencil, and began to draft her next masterpiece.

That had been five hours ago, which meant the time was now seven o'clock in the evening, and Shana had about two more hours until her mother came back. As it turns out, the soup took two hours to be completed. It needed a bit of salt, but Shana knew it was worth the wait. The vegetables had been soft and flavorful, and it was a nice lunch-ish snack.

Sunlight dwindling, Shana decided she was finished drawing. There was just something about natural light that made her draw better. At least, that was how she felt. Sighing, she rose from her seat at the kitchen table and stretched her arms above her head. Arms still in the air, she glanced down at her picture. Bright stars winked up at her from the page in the constellation of a dragon. Shana liked dragons. They were fun to draw and think about when she was in a boring class.

Exiting the kitchen, the eight year old strode into the living room and plopped down on the worn burgundy sofa, nestling herself into an old quilt. She picked up the television remote which had been resting on the cushion beside her and pressed the 'ON' button.

"Ugh," she whispered to herself as a kissing scene materialized, "no thank you."

She started flicking through the channels to find something interesting. Crime show. Romantic comedy. Sports talk. History channel. 'Horror' movie.

Honestly, Shana thought, I could create better special effects than that.

Sighing, she continued her search for some decent tele.

"Where are all the good shows!" Shana practically hissed. "Why can't there be a channel dedicated to dragons? I would watch that. I bet there are a ton of people that would watch that," she blabbered "I could make a petition." Suddenly thoughtful, she stopped her channel changing, the TV settling on a sci-fi show.

"Petition for the Dragon Channel- no! The Dragon Network! Yes, perfect." A truly revolutionary thought. She would be thanked by dragon enthusiasts everywhere for her idea.

I'm so awesome, she thought, everything on my channel will be so much better than whatever this crap is. Finally paying attention to the screen, she saw a blond girl and a man with huge ears run into a blue box.

She was surprised when instead of crashing into the back of what appeared to be a wooden box, the two simply entered a different room. And it was a huge room. It appeared to Shana that the inside of the box was bigger than the outside.

"Weird," she muttered. How did that work?

Her thoughts were cut short when she heard a noise coming from the box. It was a familiar noise. But it couldn't be. She hadn't watched this show before. It was a wheezing, airy sound that resonated through her mind and soul.

Speechless, she continued to watch as the box disappeared from view, screen fading to black and the ending credits began to roll. She saw the title of the show.

Doctor Who. Huh. She would have to check if Netflix carried it. The show looked to cool, but she would need to watch it from the beginning to fully understand it.

So maybe not everything is crap, Shana thought.

Suddenly, she heard a rumbling noise. Thinking it was the TV, she turned down the volume, but that accomplished nothing. She shut off the TV. The rumbling continued. Then, she felt it.

It was violently abrupt, everything shaking. The sound of plates crashing to the ground came from the kitchen. The TV fell on its side and had cracked its screen. Nick-nacks were flying off the shelves of her grandmother's bookcase. The sofa felt like she had put a massage chair on its highest setting, and then strapped it to the top of a car and was driving over countless potholes. It felt like an...

Earthquake.

It was an earthquake. What were you supposed to do during an earthquake? The girl struggled to think of solutions to the emergency, frozen in place on the sofa. But its pretty impossible to solve an earthquake. Especially if the only thought in her mind is: I'm going to die. Alone. In my own house.

But she wasn't alone. She had forgotten again. Oh my God. Will!

"Will!" she screamed. "Will are you okay?"

Surely the earthquake would have woken him. Unless… no.

"Will! Are you okay! I need help! Please!" she cried, "Please! I don't want to die! I don't want you to die!"

Her cheeks were warm and damp with tears. Everything was still shaking. And it was getting hot. It was so hot.

Oh no. Please don't let there be a fire too! Shana couldn't smell smoke or see flames, but she was burning. Her mouth opened, releasing a scream of agony.

Unable to form words, she clawed at her burning skin. Her arms turning red from the merciless scratching. She buried her face in her hands, trying to shield it from the heat.

Yet the burning continued, almost as if it was coming from inside her.

Finally the pain was too much to bear. Shana's vision faded to black, and she slumped unconsciously to the floor, unaware that she had traveled an unimaginable distance, and that she was still alive.