Results tagged “explosion” from City Eternal

I kept fussing with the sword as much as I could, trying to break the window.

Then unexpectedly there was a massive explosion above me. I looked up and saw a fireball rising into the air off of the roof I had just jumped from. As I watched the explosion, I saw what looked like rotor blades falling from the sky. I realized then that the helicopter those soldiers arrived in had just exploded.

I didn't need much time to figure out why it exploded, as I was greeted second later to the call of my name from the other helicopter that had been bearing down toward me. I turned my head around to look at the helicopter, and saw something I never expected: Sienna waving her hands at me.

Afraid to really let a hand off the sword to wave back, I just nodded vigorously and smiled back at her. It was then I saw what looked to be Tobias and Michael in the pilot and co-pilot's chair, respectively. They lowered the helicopter below me a few feet, and moved as close to the building as they could manage.

I then turned my body around to face the helicopter, placed my legs on the building behind me, and kicked off, leaving the wakizashi behind. I hit the deck of the helicopter with my legs dangling off the edge. Sienna and Jon grabbed my arms and pulled me inside, and we shut the door. The helicopter then tilted dramatically forward and we took off down the street and slowly moved above the buildings.

"I'm so glad you're safe!" Anna cried, hugging me tightly at the waist.

I winced, as my back had seen better days, but smiled and ran my hand through her hair. I looked over at Jon, who smiled back at me.

"Are you okay? Did you get hurt anywhere?" Sienna asked.

I showed her my left hand which was still bleeding, and told her about my backside.

She carefully pulled the glove off my left hand, and placed her hand over the wound. Already the pain was subsiding, but then she stopped.

"There's glass inside. I can't close the wound like that, it'll get infected. It's going to hurt for a while until we get back to the camp and get that shard removed. I did stop the bleeding, however." she informed me.

She handed my bloodied glove to Jonathan who proceeded to fix the tear and remove the blood. She then had me spin around so she could look at my back. She lifted up the back of my shirt and began to feel around it.

I spied Jonathan taking particular interest in this, which immediately pissed me off.

"Keep staring Jon and the next thing you'll see is the pavement below, pervert!"

"What! All I can see is your back, I'm not looking!"

"If you aren't looking then how do you know that?"

He shut right up and continued to work on my glove. Sienna finally placed her hands on my lower back, where most of the pain was situated.

"It's just a few bruises near your spine. I can take care of that."

Once again the pain was alleviated. I could feel the warmth emanating from her hands, slowly dissipating the bruises. It was a wonderful feeling, comparable to having an incredible massage. I wanted that feeling to last, but only a few short seconds later she was done and pulling my shirt back down.

"Well, your back should be fine, but try to avoid using that left hand as much as possible," Sienna told me.

Jonathan tapped me on the shoulder, and I spun around to face him and Sienna. He returned my glove, all clean and repaired.

"I added some padding to the palm to lessen the impact on the wound."

I quickly got over his actions before and thanked him. I pulled the glove back on, wincing as it slid over the palm area, but once it was on it felt fine.

Now that my immediate health issues were taken care of, I turned my attention to where we were and what we were doing.

"So how the hell did you guys make it out, much less steal a helicopter?" I asked.

"It's a long story, I'll fill you in when we get back to the camp," Michael replied.

Without warning Michael yanked the joystick and the helicopter rolled drastically to the left. I fell over, Sienna and Anna shrieked, and Jonathan had to grab the wall to stabilize himself. Before I could ask what the hell he was doing, I saw a rocket zip past our right side.

"Hold on!" Tobias yelled, pressing a couple buttons on the dash. The helicopter rapidly lost altitude, dropping back down among the buildings.

"Are you crazy? We're going to crash flying like this!" Jonathan yelled back.

"They can't fire rockets at us when we're near the buildings, they wouldn't risk the casualties," Tobias explained.

Even so, I felt we were in even more danger now. Tobias navigated the helicopter through the city streets, while Michael kept tabs on our pursuers. I had no idea where we were going, or what the plan was once we reached our destination, all I could think about was my stomach as we were tossed and turned to dodge gunfire.

"We've got to do something about that damn helicopter, we're not going to get away at this rate," Tobias said to Michael anxiously.

"There is one rocket left. If we're quick, and lucky, we can ambush them around a corner and get a shot off." Michael suggested.

"Okay everybody, strap yourselves in tight, this is going to get ugly!" Tobias called back to us.

Of course Tobias failed to notice the fact that the seats in the back did not have straps, but I held on tight regardless. Anna sat in-between Sienna and I, and we did our best to hold her in her seat. Jonathan seemed preoccupied with making something, although I couldn't tell what.

Once we went around the bend, Michael and Tobias slammed hard on the rudder pedal, and the helicopter did an abrupt about-face. They pushed forward on the stick, cancelling out on the backward momentum and Tobias held us in place. Michael flicked a couple switches on the dash and rested his finger over another button.

Finally our pursuers came barreling around the corner, and Michael pressed the button. I heard a loud wooshing sound, and then saw a rocket from our left side fly out straight for the other helicopter. The rocket impacted the side of the helicopter, and the entire thing exploded in front of our eyes. Our helicopter rocked from the shockwave, and then there was the sound of something colliding with something behind us.

Suddenly alarms were blaring within the cockpit of the helicopter, and it began to shudder violently.

"Shit! A piece of debris pierced our fuel tank!" Tobias cried.

"Jonathan, parachutes! We need parachutes!" Michael yelled.

Jonathan frantically pulled out the emergency parachutes. However, there were only two! Jon tossed one to me and one to Sienna. Tobias unstrapped himself from the pilot's seat, and helped us get them on.

"Sienna, you and Anna go first," Jonathan ordered. He opened the door and Sienna reluctantly jumped out, with Anna attached in her arms.

I walked up to the door next, while Jonathan quickly went to work on the seats, apparently forming them into new parachutes for the rest of them.

"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" I asked worried.

"Don't have time to worry about that. Go!" he demanded.

The helicopter shuddered again, and began to lose altitude.

"You better hurry up! It's running on fumes now, I can't hold her steady much longer!" Michael yelled from the cockpit.

"You need to get your ass back here too!" Jonathan said.

"Not until everyone else is off, I can't let the helicopter lose control!"

I finally worked up the nerve, and jumped. As soon as I was clear of the helicopter, I pulled the cord, and the parachute thankfully opened. While I floated, I looked down and spotted Sienna and Anna safely touching down on the sidewalk below.

I continued to float, only a couple hundred feet above the ground now. I then noticed that I was rapidly approaching a building. I didn't realize until that moment that I had no idea how to control my descent. I grabbed the cords for the parachute, tugging left and right, panicking. Finally I yanked hard on the left cord, and I veered to the left, but it was not in time. I braced for impact, and my right shoulder slammed into the building, cracking the glass.

Pain rushed down my arm. My shoulder was on fire, and I clenched my teeth tightly. I couldn't move my right arm; it felt almost completely dead, except for the searing pain. After a few more dreadful seconds of hell, I finally landed, tumbling to the concrete. I yelled out to Sienna for help, who came rushing over to me.

"Your shoulder, it's dislocated," she informed me, able to see what had happened before she even began to examine me.

She then grabbed my shoulder, and with one swift movement, popped it back into place, without so much as a warning. I screamed aloud as the pain grew even more intense, before subsiding somewhat. She then rolled up my sleeve, and placed her hands on my arm, moving them up and down.

"Mmm, you've got a couple torn ligaments in the elbow also, and a fractured bone. I should be able to take care of this."

She went to work, and my arm immediately felt better. As she worked her magic, I looked up, expecting to see Michael and Jonathan coming down. At this point Tobias landed about a half block down the road from us. He disconnected his crudely fashioned parachute courtesy of Jon, and came over towards us. Jonathan was about halfway down himself, and Michael had just jumped. The helicopter was spinning out of control now, and swung wildly towards a building across the street.

It then impacted the building, and unexpectedly exploded. The explosion caught Michael, trashing his parachute. He began to plummet. At the same time, a portion of a rotor blade flew out past the explosion, catching part of Jonathan's parachute.

I screamed again, the second time that day. Sienna had felt the explosion, and upon hearing me scream, looked up.

"Oh God!" she cried.

Jonathan's parachute held together, but with a part of it flapping in the wind. He began to descend much more rapidly. Michael was not so lucky. He fell right past Michael, and only seconds later hit the sidewalk across the street, with a thunderous boom. I sat there for a moment, holding onto Sienna. I waited, stared intently at Michael, where he had landed. But he wasn't moving.

"That didn't sound good…" Tobias said. I certainly didn't need to have him tell me to know that, though.

Horrible thoughts began to run through my mind. Even a machine couldn't survive a fall like that, could it? As I got up to run over to Michael, I remembered Jonathan, and looked back up. The helicopter's shell had lodged itself inside the building, so there was no threat of it crashing on us. Jonathan himself was doing his best to try and slow his descent, but he was still falling dangerously fast. He was near the ground now.

"He's coming down too fast!" I yelled at Sienna.

"There's nothing we can do, just hope for the best," she said nervously. Tobias put his hand on my left shoulder, and looked up with us.

At that moment, he collided with the ground.

The world is facing an economic crisis. The final drops of the planet's oil reserves are fiercely fought over, with prices skyrocketing. Up to this point the world's scientists had been unable to come up with a true alternative power source. Nuclear reactors were far too unreliable and dangerous. Solar power was much too weak. Alternative oil sources such as biofuel required more energy to produce than they provided. Even hydrogen fuel was a dead end.

There was only one remaining source of power that could provide the energy the world needed. Sometime in 2197, the world's scientists finally cracked the code to nuclear fission. The fission reactors were so powerful, that one reactor was enough to power an entire continent. It was seen as the saving grace for humanity. The world's countries joined together and worked to rebuild the power infrastructure to make use of this new discovery.

Everything was wonderful for a number of years. The reactors ran clean, the fuel was plentiful, and the system continued to meet the growing needs of the world. But then the reactors' output reached a ceiling. Scientists immediately went back to work to discover why no matter how much fuel was added to the reaction, it would not output any further power. Work continued, while the governments considered the possibility of needing to build more reactors, at a prohibitively high cost.

It didn't take long until one brilliant scientist devised a method of creating multiple fusion reactions at the same time inside the reactor. It was retrofitted to the reactor, and everything seemed to be fine. After a short while, the retrofit was added to all the other reactors of the world as well.

Long story short, that retrofit lead to the catastrophe. We're not quite sure exactly what happened from this point on, but apparently it caused an uncontrollable fusion reaction to occur. It began to devour everything around it, like something out of a sci-fi movie. One by one the reactors failed. The world was in panic, as everything was swallowed up by these out-of-control fusion reactions.

The governments and scientists worked together and came up with one last idea to stop the reactions. Using the few remaining nuclear weapons, they were fired at the fusion reactions. Everyone knew it would result in devastation, but it was deemed necessary in order to save the Earth from being removed from existence, devoured by these man-made suns. It seemed fate had played a cruel joke on us; we were about to bring ourselves into a nuclear winter, not because of war, but for survival.

The nuclear weapons worked as planned. They counteracted the fusion reaction, puffing it out similar to how a flame dies without oxygen. Hot mass and radiation exploded for over a thousand miles in every direction, on every continent. In a matter of days, the world's population dropped from 9 billion to 150 million.

The world leaders (those that survived) met together, joining together and appointing a new world government. Everything that survived the explosion was gathered together in the one place that seemed to have survived the most, New York. The high-rise buildings protected the city in a way the rest of the world could not have been. Over the next few years, an immense dome was built over the city, and it was revitalized. The entire world's population was moved inside the dome. Inside, a new fusion reactor (without the retrofit) was created, the last remaining power source of humanity.

Still reading? Good!

Skip forward a few hundred years. The dome city, dubbed City Eternal, was thriving. Humanity had survived the worst disaster they'd ever seen. As our technology progressed, scientists discovered ways to revitalize the planet, to make it inhabitable again. Many reports about new "Geo Reformation" projects were made. However, nothing was ever seen of these projects. It was as if it was all a lie, but no one would dare question it. After all, what reason would the city have for lying, a city that up to this point had been peaceful and prosperous?

Of course, this is where my story begins.