In a flash forward, 11-year-old Barry Tucker clings to an oak tree amidst the raging winds and rain of Hurricane Katrina. Barry has recently fallen off the roof of his house into the floodwaters drowning his neighborhood in New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward. As the storm rages around him, Barry wonders what he is going to do. He stares at what remains of his neighborhood as detritus floats toward him such as wood, glass, and even a refrigerator. He tries not to imagine what this means for the inhabitants of the now-destroyed houses around him and worries about his mother, father, and younger sister, Cleo, from whom he has become separated.

For a brief moment, he thinks he hears someone calling his name, but he realizes it is just the shrieking wind. Barry begins to shake, fighting back tears, when he sees the remains of an entire house coming right toward him.

Twenty-one hours earlier, Barry and his best friend, Jay, sit together on Barry’s front porch as Barry puts the final changes on a drawing he has been working on. Barry and Jay have entered Acclaim Comics’s “Create a Superhero” contest, and Barry has been working on the entry drawing for three weeks.