Work Text:
Five minutes left...
"Move, move, move!"
Soldiers barked at the flood of people from their watchtower, screaming down their megaphone and into loudspeakers like frenzied sheepdogs, ordering herds of frightened and frantic people on the motorway through broken toll gates.
Frantic, blue eyes were scanning over the crowd of manic citizens, the young soldier shook like a leaf as he clutched onto the guard rail for dear life, trying to steady himself and his uneven breathing. He inhaled through clenched teeth as he saw people pushing and shoving and hollering and stepping on corpses and mothers holding children and-
"Go, go! Get yourself in motion!"
Another one of his comrades yelled at him, bumping hard into his shoulder and almost knocking him over. Being pulled back to reality, he jogged down a short flight of spiral stairs and into a vacant speaker tower. Under him, people practically clambered over each other in a bid to escape the city.
Pulling his military assault rifle off his back with unsteady hands, he sucked in a deep breath and started to yell into a microphone as clearly as he could:
"Don't push! Everyone will get through, don't panic!"
He didn't believe that. Not for a second, but it comforted him a little to say it. America's nuclear bombs had a radius of 90km, and they weren't even half that distance away.
4 minutes left...
A thick fog was swirling around everyone's forms in these early hours of the morning, so it was made a little more bearable to look at the corpses scattered around and trampled on with little care. Dark, almost shapeless lumps which were not dead children and families. Not anymore anyway...
The whooping of sirens made everyone's ears pound as the soldiers were almost drowned out by the sound of them. It was difficult to concentrate on standing upright as he continued to yell, ordering the many citizens to remain calm and to not push. Nobody was listening to him.
"Open fire!"
A lieutenant was leaning over the safety rail and looking down to him through glasses window of the announcement booth, gesturing his arms wildly to try get the young soldiers attention over the endless commotion.
"What?!"
"Open fire! We're running out of space on the jeeps!"
Shaking, the soldier looked down to his black, rusty gun. When he joined he never thought he'd have to kill his own.
"I..."
His voice was just nearly a whisper.
"Can you hear me, Private?! I said open fire!"
Squeezing his eyes shut, he removed his finger from the red button which turned on the speaker and took a step back. Everything was starting to go hazy around him. He felt as if he was watching from outside his own body as he loaded the magazine into his rifle and leaned out of the doorway and off the balcony, ready to fire indiscriminately into the crowd.
The sounds made his ears ring as people screamed, scattering in different directions. Some continued the way they had planned from the start and pushed on to the gates just a few feet away while others leapt over side rails and made a mad dash into the haunting forest, desperate to avoid the gunfire and get around.
Others fell. Like a bag of rocks, they'd fly backwards and collapse onto unsuspecting and mortified people. They joined the mass of shapeless lumps in the thick fog, being trampled and tripped over. All the poor soldier could do was watch as he held his finger to the trigger, clutching the weapon as if he dropped it he would die.
3 minutes left...
When his magazine ran dry and many innocent civilian souls had taken rest upon his chest, making him feel heavy with the guilt, he dropped his gun and backed into a wall. Shaking his pale head and grabbing at his blonde hair he murmured to himself and sunk to his knees; thoughts of his home running through his mind.
His mother, his brothers, his sister. He had been pulled away from them suddenly when the announcement came. America had sent their entire arsenal of atomic warheads on a direct path to Russia.
The news came so suddenly he bearly had a few seconds to gather his few belonging and kiss his mother goodbye. She promised that she and the family would get out of Moscow safe and meet him at Novgorod, but if his elderly mother was going through what these people were going through- what they had just gone through- he wasn't sure he'd be meeting them there...
The thought of soldiers firing into a misty crowd and hitting his sister or clipping his eldest brother in the leg and incapacitating him, leaving him to be trampled on-
The thought practically made him sick.
2 minutes left...
His ears were still ringing when he heard the muffled sound of his friend. He had thumped his way down into the young soldier's speaker booth.
"What are you doin'!? Get up!"
He yelled, grabbing the pale soldier by his arm and yanking him up.
"We're goin', you wanna stay here and get melted or are you comin'?"
Still shaken up by his mass killing, all he could do was stutter and stare at his elderly friend. The clear definition of stress and panic on his face, making his already aged face seem like he was in his forties rather than his thirties.
Rolling his eyes and taking one last look at the distressed crowd, the old man began to pull the young soldier back up the staircase and down a railing. It was blisteringly cold outside and people were still hollering and screaming.
A large, mesh fence with barbed wire speckled with fresh blood was set up as soon as word came out the bombs had been detonated. It blocked people from crowding further down the road and having too many people pack into the dozens of vehicles waiting to be filled to their capacity and race off.
Guards stood around the fence, shoving back frantic women, men and children trying to get closer to the two sets of single doors. They screamed and spat in peoples faces, whacking some with the butts of their guns and shoving them to the ground.
The older soldier dragged him through the crowd, pushing hard and waving his gun in the air, trying to get the other soldiers attention, still holding on tight to the young soldier's arm.
"Let us through! We're S.C.R.R!"
The guards at the gates pushed others out of the way as they made a path for both soldiers. People grabbed and scrambled desperately at them, begging and pleading to be taken with them. The duo passed through the narrow doors and moved onto the other portion of the motorway.
It was less chaotic, but looking back to as he ran, he saw the mass of people squeezed up against the fence, bloodied hands clawing desperately to get through to safety. He felt he couldn't breathe as he froze to look at the scene.
1 minute left...
After making his way to the many cars down the motorway, he and his friend jumped into the back of a shiny, black pick-up truck. It was full of soldiers and other important people. Some had business suits which were scuffed up from the fight to get here.
The civilians were loaded into massive lorries, vans and jeeps which were carted away as quickly as possible down the road. Three more people leapt into the pick-up before it revved up its engine and sped off in a free-for-all.
It was faster than any of the other vehicles, and the wind, which had stung his face and roared in his ears was lashing at him without mercy now.
Sitting down and curling into a pathetic ball on the dirty floor of the pick-up, he put his head between his knees and crossing his hands over his head, desperate to block out the constant assault on his senses
His felt a gentle hand on his back as people bustled around him, trying to protect their faces from the speeding winds.
30 seconds left...
Looking up, he saw it. The bombs. Two, maybe a third one off in the distance, but there they were. Heading towards Russias capital with a bitter vengeance. All anyone could do was stare.
20 second left...
Some soldiers prayed. Others held onto each other and cried. Some just stared, letting their hair move uncontrollably into their faces as the watched, stunned by the image.
10 seconds left...
Some jeeps and vans had stopped, their drivers getting out and just staring at their impending doom. None of them were nearly far enough away.
5...
Holding onto his old friend tight, he prayed silently.
4...
He prayed for his mother to be okay,
3...
He prayed for his sister to make it out to Novgorod in time and have many beautiful children,
2...
He prayed that his mother would be okay without him to help cook supper
1...
and he prayed that he would die painlessly.
0...