Hello! This is my first attempt at a story :3 Hope you enjoy! Sorry if Alfred is a little OOC, this is my first time writing him and I think he would be a little more serious in this situation...
Alfred's fingers moved frantically over the keyboard, sweat dripping down his face as his blue eyes narrowed in concentration. A huge screen sat in front of him, red dots going berserk and flashing all over what looked like a giant world map. He took a quick sip of water, feeling his face burn and turn red with potential tears. Alfred slammed his fist down on the keyboard, making an enraged noise of frustration.
A robotic voice started up, the sound echoing around the small, dark room.
"Error. Error. Command "GHJYHMF" is not reconized." The computer read in a monotone.
"Do you think I fucking care?! I-" Alfred shouted at the computer, but then cut himself off as a few giant green dots appeared on the screen. Masses that covered entire countries.
"Warning." A siren started to sound, but not in the tiny room that Alfred was stuck in, although he heard it easily. As the giant green dots on the screen slowly turned yellow, then orange, Alfred's pupils shrunk in fear.
"O-Open the Address Book!" He mumbled quickly. The machine didn't catch his command and remained inactive. "I said, OPEN THE FUCKING ADDRESS BOOK!"
"Command registered." In a corner of the screen, a small window opened up. Alfred hurriedly clicked on the "Friends" tab, in which he clicked the first name and began to type frantically, his message devoid of any sort of grammar or punctuation.
Quickly, there's another one coming get as far underground as you can there's no time! -America
Immediately after sending it, a siren started to sound as the blobs on the screen turned a light orange-red but quickly got darker.
"Yes?" Alfred heard his line ring and he quickly tapped into the intercom. He needed to sound calm, even though he knew this might be his last minute. The people would panic if he panicked for real. He could only pray he was deep enough underground. As the line sputtered, he drafted another quick message to the next two people, but didn't get time to send the last one.
"Sir, sir, there's a-" A female officer started to speak, but the intercom cut off into static and a steady, endless hum as everything became eerily silent for a second.
"God-fucking-dammit-" Alfred almost dove under the table as the screen turned blood red and a huge rumble shook the earth. Suddenly the room got very, very hot, remarkably similar to an oven. "God, if this is it, I have to say, you did a right good job protecting me." He muttered sarcastically as he reflected over the last month or so.
-x-
It had all started with a minor heat wave. Nothing to worry about, but the thing that made it stand out was that it covered so much of the earth. Even if just for a few days, it seemed to catch everyone's attention. Soon The Heat would come in waves, vicious and unyielding, but small enough where to would only cover a town of two and last only an hour or so. It would sink deep into the soil, melting stone and roads and eventually buildings, killing off plants and crops. The earth was burning, completely aflame.
Then came the winds.
Crushing winds that grew increasingly worse as they continued. Winds that cut off signals for days and days until they stopped, only to bring The Heat again. What The Heat didn't ruin, the pure force of the wind ruined, crushing things completely into the ground. In every country, resources started to grow thin, and people were constantly dying or getting sick of heat stroke. Many relocated underground, but to no avail. Only official military bunkers could possibly be protected, and that was not an option for the billions of people all around the world.
Every single country was affected by it, but it wasn't seen as something to be bonding on- even the closest of countries were fighting and turning against each other in what had become a sick game of survival of the fittest. Raids, pillages and bombings were not uncommon, and you couldn't trust anyone. In fact, a lot of people Alfred cared about were missing or dead…
The Heat had gotten so bad that it lashed out for seconds at a time, similar to lightning, white and hot and blinding and furious, burning cities to the ground. The winds that came were no longer "winds," seeing as they crushed everything that wasn't burned flat, and the forces from the falling buildings caused earthquakes and avalanches that reverberated far into the ground.
In the winter, there was no relief. The Heat was gone, but in it's place was a crippling cold. Cold that you could only spend maybe a minute in if you were particularly resilient. The only sources of water, no matter how guarded, turned into solid ice, and there was no food to eat, seeing as what was left of plant life also died in the cold.
The only scientific guess on what The Heat might be was that it was a particularly vicious type of solar flare, but that was hardly believable. Not with the cold. Not with the death, the way it lashed out on the earth.
-x-
Alfred squeezed his eyes shut as the ground shook with rumble after rumble and that heat became nearly unbearable.
Think, he thought. Find something to distract yourself.
The first countries to go, nearly a month ago, were Sealand and Canada. England had made quick work of destroying Sealand entirely without mercy, and France had invaded Canada without warning. Canada was also suffering from a food shortage before the first heat came, and the country died out quickly. No one had heard from Matthew since, so he was as good as dead.
Shit.
Tears formed at the corners of his eyes. Matthew. He was gone, and his country completely taken over. When Alfred had found out, he swore three things to himself: One, that that would never happen to his country, two, that he would never forgive Francis, and two, that he would find Matthew if it killed him.
He's not dead, I know it...I can't die now! I have to find Matthew!
Sweat was pouring down Alfred's face now. It had been hot before, but nothing compared to this. The air was thick and sweltering, hardly breathable. He took deep gasps, drinking in as much oxygen as possible.
A rattle.
Plaster dust starts to float down from the ceiling.
The keyboard falls off the table, but the computer holds it suspended in mid-air off the side. It swings back and forth silently, the cord slowly wearing thin.
Another giant rumble.
The computer is thrown from the desk and hits the wall by the doorway with a cacophony of shatters.
More plaster dust.
There was a frantic pound on the door, and a loosely feminine voice that yelled something from the other side.
That caught Alfred's attention, and he drew his gun, but crawled over to the steel door anyways as curiosity got the better of him.
"Who is it?" He shouted above the shaking of the earth and the metal legs of the table starting to sag a little from the heat.
"General W-Winchester, sir? Is that you?"
Alfred's eyes narrowed, his breathing shallow as he brought up his shirt to try and filter the air.
"Prove your identity!"
"..." There was a pause, in which no one spoke and once again, the world became eerily quiet once again.
"...Sir, I have no way of proving my identity. What sort of test would you want?"
Alfred realized that he was beat. If it proved to be an attacker, he was a fast shooter, so he could probably kill them before they killed him, but attackers were rarely so honest. "Fine, come in." He said quietly, but his words were drowned out by another rumble. The broken computer screen lit up, all red. Alfred paid little attention as it started to repeat "Error. Error. Error." many times in a row.
He threw open the door. Standing outside was a ragged-looking girl in an camouflage American Military suit with shoulder-length brown hair tied into a ponytail and her grey eyes wide with fear as she almost sprinted inside and bolted it behind her. At her feet was a black and grey cat, looking under-nourished and skittish.
"You have a fucking cat." Alfred said in disbelief.
"Y-Yeah, what about him, sir?" General Winchester asked rather defensively.
"How do you manage to keep that thing alive?"
"Love. And going hungry."
"Alright, whatever." Alfred fanned himself with a hand, but it didn't make him any cooler. The table was slowly sinking. The computer was blaring with constant "Error!"'s, and the cat mewled rather loudly. "And you've never considered eating the cat?"
"Ew, I could never. Sir."
"It's the end of the world and you're calling me sir? Still?"
"Eh." General Winchester blew it off and shrugged.
It had been quiet for about a minute now, and other than them speaking and the computer, there was no earth-shattering rumbles, and the siren was gone. General Winchester turned towards the door, and in doing so, Alfred saw a few long gashes in her back.
"Hey," He said suddenly. "Where are those from?"
"What from?"
"The wounds. On your back."
"..." General Winchester stayed silent for a moment and then turned back around. "Attackers," She said softly. "I tried to talk to you about it, but it got cut off. They had a type of sword that reminded me of a katana, but they all died when this...wave started." She paused a little before continuing. "And then I rushed down here."
"How did you know about this place?" Alfred demanded, a slight edge to his voice. The entrance to the room was in an abandoned supply closet on the deepest floor of the Military Base, and the door opened to at least 20 flights of thin metal stairs going down until you got to the actual door. It was cramped and narrow, and nobody but Alfred knew about it.
"I found it a few months ago, during the first heat. I was looking for somewhere to hide, and I was hiding in the supply closet. When we were allowed to leave, I turned to go out the door, but it turned out to be the door to your bunker-thing, and not the door to the hallway." She admitted.
The temperature in the room started to cool a little, but it still remained overheated. Alfred burst into a coughing fit, having breathed in one too many deep breaths of the plaster-filled air.
"Sir, you okay?"
"D-Don't call- me sir-" Alfred coughed out. His lungs felt dry and he felt nauseous. "What's your name?"
"I'm Emma, and this is Wifi. Aw, Wifi, no need to- Here, come to mama." Emma picked up the cat and stroked it lovingly. Her eyes were a steely grey, full of determination and hope and something else he didn't recognize.
"You really like that cat, huh." Alfred sighed and twisted the handle to the bunker door. The hot metal dipped slightly at his firm grip, but it wasn't hot enough to burn him.
He held his gun at the ready again and swept the stairwell. "Alright, Gener-Emma, have your gun at the ready."
Emma put Wifi down and pulled her rifle out. "Sir? There may have been something I forgot to mention."
"Yes?"
"The attackers were Japanese Cannibals."