Thank you for reading the story, @negativer! I have been feeling really weird about it ever since I posted this. It explores all the things you mentioned—the self-absorption we very humanly experience during tragedies, and the desire not to be personally impacted, or relief when we realize the impact is several levels removed from us. These are the feelings we may not even be aware of, or if we are, we certainly are not proud of them. But I found myself not liking this protagonist much, even though she represents one of my memories of myself and what I felt and experienced at the time. It’s an almost entirely fictionalized version, of course, but it still feels eerily revealing. Does that ever happen to you with your characters?