BXBX NOVEL Chapter 335: Burning Earth! The Dance of Ice and Fire (2)
"It\'s a precautionary measure right. We have to move quickly but safely," the soldier replied, not having all the answers but providing comfort where he could.
"Why are there bombers? What\'s going on?" one man demanded, his voice laced with suspicion as he cornered a soldier trying to direct the crowd toward the evacuation ships.
"Is this because of a threat? Are we under attack?" a woman queried, her voice trembling, hands clenched tightly around the straps of her backpack as another jet roared overhead, its sonic boom rattling the windows of nearby buildings.
Whooooosh!
Soldiers, strained under the weight of urgency and confusion, repeated their instructions with increasing desperation.
"Please, move quickly to the ships! We\'re here to ensure your safety, but we must act fast!" one soldier shouted, his voice nearly drowned out by the clatter of footsteps on the cobblestone.
As skepticism and fear grew, a group boldly refused to budge. "We\'re not moving until you tell us what\'s happening!" a burly man yelled, his voice sparking others to echo his sentiment, halting the evacuation flow.
Inside his command tent, the general watched the growing unrest with a furrowed brow.
His thoughts raced, \'If we don\'t get these people out soon, we\'re going to have a bigger crisis on our hands. They need to understand the urgency...\'
Stepping out with determined strides, he grabbed a megaphone and fired his pistol into the air.
BANG!
"!!!"
The voice of the bullet ripping apart the air silenced the crowd instantly, freezing them in their tracks
"People of Frostholm, your lives are in imminent danger. This is your only warning!" His voice thundered over the megaphone, commanding and clear. "The jets overhead are not a threat to you but a shield against what\'s coming. Cooperation is your only path to safety."
Startled by the gunshot and galvanized by the seriousness in the general\'s tone, the crowd\'s resistance began to crumble.
Whispers of "We should go..." and "He\'s right..." rippled through the mass as soldiers moved in, their presence reassuring, guiding hesitant steps towards the ships.
"Move it, let\'s not waste more time!" a soldier urged, waving a group forward, the urgency palpable in his voice as another jet screamed across the sky.
The general watched as the last of the evacuees boarded, his relief tempered by the weight of responsibility. \'Will we be safe\' As the ships pulled away from the dock, he allowed himself a moment to hope, his gaze lingering on the horizon where the jets continued their patrol, guardians against an unseen threat.
As the ships pulled away from the harbor, a sudden, ear-splitting—
Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom!
Blasted through the air, shaking the foundation of Greenland.
"Wh—"
"Huh—"
"What\'s happening—"
"OMG! I am blind!"
Whoooooooooooooooooosh!
A massive shockwave erupted from the north, its mysterious brilliance overwhelming, forcing everyone\'s vision into a complete, blank whiteness.
The intense light caused instant chaos, not just among the people on the ground but also in the skies above.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
In the cockpits of the F-35s, alarms blared continuously.
The pilots grappled with their controls as their systems flickered and glitched under the unexpected assault of the shockwave.
"Systems failing—can\'t maintain—!" a pilot\'s voice crackled over the radio, edged with panic.
"I\'ve lost control! All systems are down!" another shouted, as their jet began to spiral uncontrollably.
The situation was even more dire for the two bombers in the formation.
As the pilots struggled with their own blinded vision and malfunctioning controls, their aircraft veered off course, heading dangerously towards the northeastern region.
Crash!
Booooooooooooooom!
The sound of the bombers impacting the ground was thunderous, followed by an even more devastating explosion.
Booooooooooooooomooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom!
The nuclear payloads they carried detonated upon impact, sending a monstrous mushroom cloud into the sky and blanketing the area in radioactive fallout.
"Mayday, Mayday, we\'ve got nukes down!" came a desperate transmission from one of the surviving pilots, barely audible over the static and chaos of the moment.
The fallout spread quickly, carried by the winds, as the nation burned under the double catastrophe of the initial shockwave and the subsequent nuclear explosions.
The landscape was irrevocably altered, a once-thriving region now a radioactive wasteland.
On the ground, the survivors of the initial blinding light now faced a new horror, their fears compounded by the rising mushroom clouds and the realization of the nuclear disaster.
In the aftermath of the catastrophic explosions, the landscape of Frostholm began to transform under the merciless onslaught of radiation and the mysterious blinding light.
Near the origin of the mysterious white light in the Northern region, the scant vegetation that dotted the rugged terrain started to wither and decay at an alarming rate.
Trees, once sturdy and resilient, now stood brittle and gray, their leaves curling and blackening as if scorched by an invisible fire.
As the eye moved toward the northeastern region, the effects became even more pronounced.
The nuclear fallout had settled over the area like a deadly shroud.
The ground was littered with the charred remnants of flora that had been lush and vibrant only hours before.
Small rare animals, unable to escape the swift spread of radioactive material, lay lifeless.
The air was filled with a metallic tang, and the sky had taken on a sickly yellow hue.
In the command centers, military and government officials coordinated a response, their faces grim as they faced the reality of a disaster that had reshaped their nation overnight.
_____
As the evacuees aboard the ships witnessed the horrific scenes on their homeland, the atmosphere was filled with disbelief and fear.
Gasp!
People crowded along the railings, staring in stunned silence at the once-familiar coastline now enveloped in a mushroom cloud.
The reality of their plight settled in, and a mix of reactions began to ripple through the crowd.
"What have we done to deserve this?" one elderly woman cried out, her voice breaking as she clutched a handkerchief to her mouth.
"Is everyone from our neighborhood okay? My brother, he didn\'t make it to the ship!" a young man frantically called into his phone, trying to reach any remaining family members.
"This can\'t be happening... This isn\'t real," murmured a mother, holding her children close, her eyes wide with shock as she gazed at the smoldering remains of her homeland.