Burning Skies

Chapter 3 - Revisiting The Nest

March 25th, 2016

One week after Stanley's incident, the group, which had been officially set as the scouting group, were sent out again. Stanley was curious. There was a bloody apocalypse tearing apart Asia as they spoke, and their first thought was to rescue more people. More people to feed. More people to care for. To heal. Despite his argument, Stanley gritted his teeth and forged towards the Czech Republic. Rumours spread that the Civil War was dying down, but unfortunately, the rogues, or Rebellion, were winning. Somehow. Stanley had an iron fist, but it still frightened him to go into The Nest. The Nest was effectively Prague, shrouded in bones, wildlife and all that good stuff. They decided to go for the more sensible, but difficult stealth option. If all goes to shit though, I'm sure the group know how to spray and pray.

Dylan, being young and naive, shouted: "I'll ninja right in there just like Jesus would! After jumping in, hearing the unmistakable sound of limbs being chopped off, he jumped right back outside and said: "Nope, no innocents!" But in a darker voice : "And no survivors."

The boy scared Stanley. But in retrospect, who wouldn't be scared by a pyromaniac naive teenager with a machete. Stanley failed trying to compress a smile. Kristjan glanced at him, and mistook it for confidence.

"Go on then you smirking bastard!" teased Kristjan.

Stanley chuckled. "We'll go in together."

It was almost as time stopped for Stanley, as he pondered on what he'd been through after these last couple of months. After landing back into reality, Dominik alerted the crew. Whilst Stanley had been fixing his injuries in the healing ward, Dominik had vastly improved his audio radar, tracker...thing. Stanley was never one for technology. Again, another smile. According to Dominik, satellites had been destroyed by the meteorite showers, but there were still a minute amount of radio stations still up. He picked up one in Slovenia. Luckily, it was in English:

"Reports of survivor camps have been scattered throughout Europe and Asia as the meteorite showers continue to pummel the East. Central and Southern Africa have been reported unscathed, but there is word of fatal infections spreading throughout slums in South America. The United States are setting up protections against the sea and radars set on the skies, as an attempt to protect themselves, the best they can."

Static again. Dominik cursed and put the tracker away. The others glanced at each other in awe at what they had just heard. This wasn't a coincidence. An unlucky event. This was real. This was the end of the world. And as if on cue, there was an explosion of epic proportions as a meteorite hit The Nest, and flung the group backwards. Stanley hit a rock and blacked out.

He woke roughly 2 minutes later, as the group had taken cover. Stanley had only just half realised what in the bloody hell just happened, and when he fully came to, he scrambled towards the rock the group was using for cover. Again, Stanley was extraordinarily lucky. He came back with a few burns and blisters. Delila wasn't so lucky. You can tell someone's in a bad shape one of their lungs was 50 feet away. No time for grief. They had more important things on hand. The explosion had blow out what Stanley presumed was the gates to the Nest. He saw charred bodies everywhere, scattered around one big ass meteorite. The Rebellion were shooting at them, guessing they saw them after the hit.

After your standard 'shoot-at-something-until-it-falls-over' technique had its turn, Dylan and Mary came to an agreement that even in war, there needs to be variety. They both unsheathed two fairly sharp weapons and began work on a seemingly perfect hacky-slashy routine. It's almost as if they'd had amazing experience. A couple of bloodstained minutes later, they were free of what disorientated guards that had attacked the group. It was almost laughable on how unorganised and inexperienced the Rebellion were. Another meteorite crashed and burned somewhere to the message and scattered before they had anymore number to add to the casualty count.

They decided to go half stealth and half hacky slashy shoot-at-it-until-it-dies technique, as the Rebellion surely knew that they had tress-passers. They would attempt the stealth route at first, but if they were spotted they wouldn't resist firing a few live rounds into their body. Continuing into Prague, they managed to stay unnoticed. Dominik picked up transmissions off and on, but otherwise, all was well in the Czech. Until a meteorite, small one at least, comes down around 100 feet away. Stanley sighed. The shock and awe of all this apocalypse crap had been over passed. It was getting annoyingly tedious now. Alarms started to blare again. Their cover, was blown.

The crew cursed as they knew that Lady Luck turned against them and eradicated any chance at stealthing this mission. Alarms were still blaring, but Stanley noticed no-one was coming out to blow their brains out. On closer inspection, they noticed that Lady Luck wasn't so foul. The meteorite hit the Nest's core, which Kristjan, on the spur of the moment, decided to call it 'The Egg'. Funny looks all round. Fire started spreading across wooden floors and trees, incinerating natures attempt to grasp straws in the concrete and steel hell of the city, now crumbling. Prague was dead. Trees were dead, dying or on fire. There were enough meteorites to fill Belgium, and all wildlife, including humans, were effectively ash, or charred skeletal remains or memories. Skyscrapers, that were once towering giants, are now crumbling man-made stalagmites. Kudzu exploded out of office buildings, entangling it to no return. It was quite depressing.

After a couple of hours exploring 'The Egg', they finally found another rogue. This one was just a civilian, so they left her be. They were survivors, not monsters. Even in the death hole that was the worldwide apocalypse, terrorism shouldn't be legal. Even if law and order had been eradicated long ago. They picked off lethal forces on their way to the middle. When they finally reached the center of 'The Egg', they found...nothing. Stanley took a step back. He was infuriated. They had spent days upon days looking for these god forsaken survivors only to find there was nothing here. Glancing back at it though, he realised that as there was no-one here, less people to feed and care for. At the time, Stanley may have seemed like an ass, but it was true. Even if they didn't like it. The group returned to Tartu, to return to the insane leader of Jaan. Not exactly good news, but at least it was an excuse to return to what they call 'home'.