"Uhm, Madam President?"

Anxiously, an elderly military General knocked on the main doors that led to the New Oval Office, stepping inside once given permission in the form of a motion of the President's hand. He approached the desk, struggling to compose himself. It didn't help that he looked incredibly scruffy, wearing a tardy but traditional American military uniform befit for a four-star general. He was adorned with a multitude of medals, many of which originated from the Western Secession and the first resource wars that ended fifty three years prior. If it wasn't for the stink of alcohol, bags under the eyes, and a look of tired worry on his face, one could believe he just just forgot to iron his outfit today.

"General, I assume you have information for me?" The President asked sternly, dressed much more appropriately than the general. She looked up from her portable monitor to address the man in front of her, and gestured for him to sit at the other side of the desk. He took off his hat once he sat, and fiddled with it as he brought it down to his lap.

"I… I do, yes." He replied vaguely, clearing his throat afterwards.

"Mhm?"

"Well, I… I don't quite know how to explain it really. Not in a way that's, um, palatable."

"Then give it to me in a way that isn't palatable, General. I can take it."

Though the General's mouth faintly opened, he still seemed hesitant to speak on the matter. Just as the first syllables were about to fall from his mouth, he stopped, as from the open doorway into the oval office a series of professional looking businessmen ran hastily from one side of the hallway to the next. They looked as though they were pushing past each other in an attempt to reach the exit out of the White House, close to trampling each other. Once they passed, the General turned his head to look at the President and let the words fall from his mouth.

"Madam, you need to come with me immediately. We have reason to believe that Old America is… over. We need to escort you to the bunker immediately."

"What-??" The President said in angered shock, raising from her chair fast enough to nudge it backwards and have it topple onto the unkempt carpeted floor. "How?? What's happened?? I thought we had a stranglehold on the East-"

"We thought so too," Interrupted the General, getting up in a much more slow and methodical manner. "Uyghuristan… Uyghuristan has breached the Revised Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It's launched multiple ICBM's at us, New America, and Turtle's Head."

"Uyghuristan has nuclear weapons-?"

"We believe the Chinese were keeping harbouring them in remote bases. Madam, please, we have to go."

The President put on as brave a face as she could, although her eyes were flamed with distraught and understandable terror at what the General had eventually told her. She grabbed a photo off of the office desk and put into a bag she slung under her shoulder, skirting the perimeter of the desk to join up with the General. Once they were united, they walked into the hall, quickly followed by a group of human and drone guards.

"Is the bunker just a precaution? Surely we have countermeasures." The President asked urgently as she followed the general and her entourage of personal guards. Despite her vision being blinded by the big bodies and hovering metal masses of her guards, she could see gradually ensuing panic across the rooms of the White House. The realisation of potential nuclear annihilation, seemingly, had not yet driven the staff to mass hysteria, but whether that was because of denial, a lack of information, or professionalism was hard to tell.

"I'm sorry, Madam President, but no." The General told her in a flat tone, still holding his hat to his hips.

"But we have countermeasures, don't we?"

"Of course we do, we all know Uyghuristan wasn't the first country to break treaty. Our defusal countermeasures won't reach it in time, only the premature detonators. When they do, the ICBM's will still cause untold damage to their many targets."

"I assume Washington was one of those targets."

"We've tracked the trajectories, and yes, two are headed directly for us. It's why we don't have time to unload you into a ship, we're having to rely on secondary safety procedures. When things settle we'll radio in a craft from further West to take us to New Kennedy." The General explained. By now, the President and her group of military guards were close to the White House's bunker. They had reached the bottom floor of the complex, and were now descending deep underground, past the depth where the original two bunkers had been constructed.

"Okay… Assuming we can rely on OAASA, sure."

"We can. It's not like we're using public transport to go to the moon."

"Oh. Oh Shit. What the hell are we telling the public?" The President asked urgently, somehow only realising the duty to her people minutes after being warned of annihilation. The General bit his lip to stay silent, and waited until they reached the hydraulic door of the basement bunker. "Answer me!"

With a look of sadness clear in his elderly eyes, the General continued to remain silent. He took as stiff of a formal posture as he could muster, and waited for the door to twist and slide open with a heavy series of clicks, thuds, and scrapes. He began to guide the President, who was increasingly growing reluctant to move, into the well furnished and modern main room of the nuclear bunker.

"You're letting them die, aren't you?" The President hissed, scowling at the General. He wiped an eye, using it as an excuse to turn his head and not meet the President herself.

"My entire family lives here, Madam President, as do a lot of our families. It's not an easy choice for us to make. There's no point making the masses panic over something they can't control. We declared partial Martial Law when the second Resource War started, and after consultation with AI-"

"Oh, bullshit!" The President shouted angrily, shoving her way past her guards to push the General over with the fullest might she could. The human guards watched on, and the drones automatically angled their weaponry on the altercation, but neither group acted as the General collapsed pitifully onto his back. "They have a right to know they're going to die!"

The General groaned in pain, making surprisingly little noise from hitting such a hard floor. He turned to his side weakly, and got up onto his feet over a period of about 30 seconds. "I… I really don't think it would matter either way, Madam President. Nukes are slated to actually make impact for the first time since the war started. No doubt the entire world is seeing it as justification to kill each other."

"No… Oh come on, I may've been young when the last resource war took place, but I can damn well remember the nuclear scare! No one would send the world into hell from this!" She shouted, her words once again causing the General to fall silent. The President's face began to fall, realising once again why he'd chosen silence. "…No, I can't believe you idiots would authorise such a thing."

"The military jurisdiction we were granted allows the deployment of nuclear warheads in all worst case scenarios. We're about to have a majority of D.C. removed from the map, that's about as worst case as it gets. We have sent requests for our entire nuclear arsenal to fire at all major civilian and military targets."

After his explanation, the President found no words to rebuttal with. Not because she had none, but because the words she wanted wouldn't come. She stepped towards the still open door of the bunker, and cleared her throat. "I want you to leave."

"Wh-What-?" The General stammered, the features of his face falling as the President uttered her demand.

"You heard me, General. I want you to leave the bunker."

"But the ICBM's will hit in minutes-"

"Exactly. You wanted to cause some form of Armageddon, and you have cemented the rest of the world following suit. You can enjoy it for the brief moments you'll survive it for."

"No, you can't d-"

"Guards, escort the General out of the bunker." The President ordered, growing sick of the General's complaining. None of the human guards moved, but obeying the command indiscriminately, the drone guards moved forwards and surrounded the general. Their weapons pointed to their chest, and clear plastic shields deployed from within them to begin guiding him. The shields gave light taps and hits at the man until he began to move, shuffling his feet through the doorframe and out onto the other side. One of the drones gave a series of coded chirps, and the door began to slowly slide back to close.

"Madam President, please!" The General called, the realisation of imminent death suddenly hitting him as the lavish bunker became less and less visible. He pushed by the drones, and began to bang on the bunker door mid closing when he realised he wouldn't fit through it in time to make it back to safety. "You only have yourself to blame for this! You had the chance when you were inaugurated to dissolve our entire nuclear arsenal, and you didn't do it! Let me back in!"

The desperate cries of the General continued, and while the President felt a pang of guilt for willingly committing a man to a violent death, she felt less guilt the more steps she took away from the door. She sat down at one of the couches that surrounded a coffee table and large wall mounted television, and let the sound of music drown out the General's pleads. The pleads only lasted a minute longer, and ceased when the rumbling started.

The day thus far had been quiet, especially without electricity. It was the sixth day that the Capital was without power, but by now Jacob had climatised to living without it. Sure, the myriad of offshore wind turbines that had laid inactive since the start of the 'war' had been an insult at first, but by the sixth day of eighth blackout of that year alone Jacob had gotten used to living life without technology. He sat by the sea, looking out towards the south coast and the serene sight. With the 'fighting' going off elsewhere in the world, and with no one daring to cross from one country to the next, it had left the ocean and the airways as quiet as a rural night. Jacob certainly appreciated that.

He finished his meal and drink alone once the sun had finally touched the horizon, having been hovering over the top of it for the past hour or so, and left down some paper currency at the table he got up from. Under most circumstances, his own phone and the cameras positioned around the coastal balcony for the café would pay automatically when he left, but wartime conditions (and a lack of power) meant the residents of Truro had to resort to basics. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he began to make his way back home.

Although there was not much of the day left, Jacob still had the plans for the rest of his day mapped out, and he recited them in his head to make sure he would remember them, as he often had a tendency to forget. Once through the modern complex of skyscrapers and compact public transportation that made up the Capital of Cornwall's coastline, he began to walk the streets of the preserved historical buildings, some over one hundred years old.

Five blocks away from his home, and only five minutes since leaving the café, a sudden rush passed overhead. It was high up, and only visible for a few seconds, but the shockwave of its speed was enough to cause everybody around Jacob (including Jacob himself) to stagger and almost fall. A few seconds after the UFO passed, the sound of it swiped across the street and flew into the ears of the public.

The high pitched shriek of pierced wind made his ears ring, and he immediately shut his eyes tight and clasped his palms over his ears. The sound would have made anyone wince in pain, but Jacob had always been especially sensitive to it. It took him a little longer than most to regain posture, and when he did his eyes were immediately glued to the sight in the distance. The air was both still and tense, people were murmuring, some were terrified. Jacob fit into the second group, trapped in stunned silence as he felt his heart sink into his stomach.

Although it was hard to tell from the awkward angle, the odd contraption—which Jacob, worrying, recognised to be a missile—was descending beyond the curve of the horizon and towards the Midlands of England. Only a second after it fully dipped below the horizon did the sky suddenly burst into white, followed by Jacob's vision. He was confused at first, it was as though someone had thrown a sheet over his face as a prank, but after taking a step back and bumping into the wall he realised that this white was visible no matter where his eyes or head turned. He closed his eyes in a confused panic, but a faint white was still burned into his retinas even when no light was let in.

Jacob began to scream in terror when others did, clawing at his eyes in a vague attempt to remove the white from his eyes, all while the collective hum of quiet engine motors began to fill the streets alongside skidding wheels. He was knocked to the floor in a shout during the mass panic, and without good vision Jacob had no idea how to process what was happening to him. It took a full minute for the white etched into his eyes to subside even slightly, at least just enough for him to see the wall he'd bumped into and wearily lift himself upright.

Just as more vision returned, however, another white flash stole it away. The white flash came with an odd feeling of heat across his body, but before his brain could process it much further, all sensations stopped.