Braginsky Apocalypse Home

Chapter 2

"Call us when you get to Istra! Also don't get yourself in political messes, we don't need any of that." Katerina was talking fast, and maybe unclear at the time. Ivan couldn't really comprehend what his sister was saying, not that he really wanted to.

"I will, Katya." The male sighed, annoyed as his older sister proceeded to fix his scarf, and checked his entire schedule, maybe for the fourth time already.

"I really need to get going now, I can't be late."He picked up the rather large suitcase, and dragged it to the front door.

"Alright. Stay safe!" Katerina smiled, her eyes tearing up. She knew how much her brother was going through, and she wanted to help him, but how do you help someone when you don't know their problem exactly?

The male nodded, and looked at the group standing in front of him. His younger sister's face didn't express any emotion, and maybe if it did, that it would be a mix of pain, despair, emptiness. Ivan knew exactily how she felt, only hoping her the best. Natalia held a spiritless look in her eye. The male knew that she didn't want him to go, but he couldn't do anything about it. His eldest sister, tears welled up in her eyes, a look that a mother would hold when her son is going off to college. It may have been seen as odd, but understandable. Gilbert was in his usual stance: arms crossed, and his face formed into an annoyed pout. But if he wasn't mistaken, Ivan could see a glint of worry in his garnet eyes. The albino had never taken a liking to him, especially after his country was dissolved, but that didn't mean he hated the other, even if he had stated it a number of times. The Baltics didn't look much different than any other day, either. Lamenting, unnerved. None of them were looking him in the eye, seemingly lost in their own thoughts.

"See you later." Ivan muttered almost silently, his words followed by a few goodbyes, he opened the thick wooden door and stepped out on the porpoise slate floor of the stairs leading out of the home. Sighing, he shut the door to the apartment he wouldn't come back to in a long time.

Taking quiet steps down the stairs, he was consumed in his own thoughts. The Russo-American crisis put him in a trance, and that wasn't the crisis itself, but rather the events that followed. Alfred F. Jones, the personification of the United States of America, had no significant grudge against Ivan, but even saying that is going a long way. They're nations, they've fought with each other and against each other. It made the male sick to the bone that things had turned out like this. He could've gotten along with Alfred, and everyone else, too, quite well, if it wasn't the corrupt, selfish ways of his rulers.

Ivan opened the building's door to find a black Audi S6 parked right across from the entrance. He knew that whoever was in the car at the moment was waiting for him. The male reluctantly walked up to the car and knocked on the window. All motion that there was in the car seemed to stop and almost unwillingly unlocked the car doors. Ivan opened the door and cautiously got in.

Two men dressed in black were seated in the driver and passenger seat, and gave him a questioning look. Then, one of the men looked at the other and nodded, allowing him to start the car.

Ivan looked out the window at the desolate streets of Moscow as they drove, only a few passerby gloomily walking down the watery concrete, their umbrellas towering over their heads like the melancholic angst dominating the nation. He felt as the sight was mocking him and the situation he was in, so the male turned away from the window. Ivan took out his phone, a brand new Yota 2, one that he bought in one of the biggest malls of the city with his family, nearly three months ago right before the crisis skyrocketed. He remembered how Natalia convinced them to go shopping as a whole family, so the eight of them went on a trip to Metropolis. He remembered his sisters trying on beautiful dresses. He remembered getting Gilbert and Lena getting along as they pulled innocent pranks on some of the visitors. He remembered the Baltics smiling and laughing alongside him, a sight that he hasn't seen in a long time. After all, how could Ivan forget the best thing that happened to him in many, many years?