The Ballad of PFC Pavel

Day 4

The snow is really nice, it's cold, pristine, white, clean, everything about snow is good. Watching it fall is a good feeling especially after a long day of working on base. It is calming, better than most parts of my day. What is that noise?

I am awoken by the sound of a distant explosion. I get up off the concrete ground and get myself reoriented. I'm stranded in a collapsing universe, I am heading to the Quad Towers Evacuation Site today, I need to get contact with command. I grab my equipment and exit the building I was sleeping in. Outside I can see the source of the noise, a factory on the edge of the city just detonated and the mushroom cloud from it is rising over the horizon. I start to jog in the direction of the evac site while avoiding the debris that litter the ground.

I turn on my radio and I update command on my situation, "Private First Class Alexander Pavel broadcasting on all channels. It is day 4 of the incident. I require CASEVAC immediately. I am heading to the Quad Towers Evac Site, my ETA is 10 minutes." I doubt they will respond but they might have heard me, hope is all I have right now. The ground around me is rapidly crumbling away, those orbs have destroyed most parts of the city and I can assume the rest of the world with it. If I had to guess by the end of the week the world will be a wasteland at best.

At worst... 

It's best not to dwell on that, I just need to get to the evac site. I turn a corner and see a bunch of NO military vehicles buried in the sand, all are the trucks used for evacuations. They look abandoned, that is good for them, for me that is really bad. It means this evacuation site is probably abandoned. I keep going towards the evac site when I see piles of rubble and a foot of ash covering the ground. Bent metal pokes out of the rubble in multiple places and wrecked evacuation vehicles line the roads. The Quad Towers don't exist anymore, entirely destroyed. Two towers still stand, one leaning onto the other, neither stable. They are filled with collapsed sections and fires are raging through the towers.

I pick up the radio and decided to call off the evacuation. This place isn't safe to land a helicopter and ground vehicles aren't an option anymore. "PFC Pavel to dispatch, cancel the transport to the Quad Towers site. It is not safe for anyone to go here. Can I have a revised pickup spot?" "Hey Pavel, it's your friend Mur Mur, remember me?" Oh, it's that girl again, glad she isn't dead yet. "Pavel to Mur Mur, I hear you, can you give me any intel on a transport out of here?" I ask. "No can do Pavel, I have no idea where the transports you are talking about are, nor can I have Deus find out." Well that is great, the only person to respond can't help me. I ask another question, "How are you answering me actually? I assumed comms were down long distance." She quickly answered, "Simple, I am using magic to make it work. Things got boring when nobody won the game."

This game keeps being mentioned, the RCM put that on the MDTs, I heard it over the radio, it was in a briefing, everything ties back to this game. "What game?" I ask, hoping that I get some information. "The survival game, Deus used some of his power to grant 12 people the ability to foresee the future and change it how they want. They were then told the last of them alive gets to be the new god of space and time." Am I on something or did I hear that right? I key the mic again, "You didn't lie to them right? And does that have to do with the universe collapsing?" Mur Mur answered again immediately, "Nope! Whoever wins gets to be god. Also nobody won so there is no new god, so nobody is holding the universe together anymore." 

New questions are made whenever one gets answered. "Can he slow the collapsing by any chance? I personally enjoy the thought of surviving to twenty." I say, Mur Mur doesn't instantly respond for once. A minute passes and I get an answer, "So I talked to the big man and he figured something out, he could sacrifice the rest of the universe and focus all his power into preserving earth for at least twenty years. Not the buildings or people, just the space around it, get rid of those distortions if you will." Distortions? "You mean get rid of those black orbs filled with gears right?" "Yes, what else fits the bill of distortions of space and time?" Fair enough.

"Sounds good to me, I prefer to not die today." Pretty obvious or I would have offed myself. "Pleasure doing business with you Pavel." Wait a minute, "What business did I just agree to?" "Entertaining us for now buddy, don't die anytime soon." She responded. "Not planning on it", I notice the black orbs slowly phase out of existence while the moon seems to be torn in half. Brilliant.

I think now is the perfect time to update command on the situation, "PFC Alexander Pavel to dispatch, all distortions have ended, it is safe for the time being. Please send me a meeting place for a transport." Nothing, so that isn't good, maybe their comms are down and I just need to let them fix it. That has to be it. I find a place to sleep in the back of a destroyed JSDF(A/N: Japanese Self Defense Force, Japan's military) humvee and drift off into unconsciousness.