The Other Side

Chapter 3: Cold Night

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November 14, Wednesday, 2040

USA-"Good morning Canada"

Canada-"Oh, good morning America. How'd you sleep?"

USA-"Pretty good, and you?"

Canada-"Pretty good as well. Oh hey, here comes Britain"

USA-"Good morning Britain, how'd you sleep?"

Britain-"Terrible, Russia's been giving me a headache recently"

...

-Episode 1 script sample from the American cartoon "Nations of The World."
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"Sasha, want an air cig?" Alexi asked as Sasha, him, and the rest of the armored convoy marched. They were about halfway to Kharkiv and the sun was starting to go down. "I never really smoked, even air cigarettes" Sasha responded, "at least with air cigarettes it's just oxygen and nicotine." "Yeah. Even then, nicotine is a bad habit, but in times like this it helps with the stress" Alexi said, holding out an air cigarette to Sasha. A part of her didn't want to take it, but her temptation and stress were begging her to grab it. So she did. Sasha put the air cigarette in her mouth and inhaled, causing the air cigarette to "smoke." The science behind the air cigarette didn't make much sense to Sasha, she wondered if it even made sense to the company who created them.

After an hour longer of marching the sun was down, the Overheads gave order to halt the convoy for the night and resume in the morning. Chieftains began ordering soldiers in their squads to set up their squad tents for the night

Sasha and her squad of ten set up their squad tent and sleeping bags, some were now sitting by the fire outside of their tent while others slept. Sasha looked around the fire at her four comrades, they were silently looking at the fire. She didn't even know any of their names, so she asked. "So, names?" She asked, all of her squad mates looking to her. None of them said anything at first, they just looked around the circle at each other, waiting for someone to respond. Until finally; "I'm Boris McKinnon. I'm twenty three years old, and was a farmer in Balakovo before the war" Boris explained with a smile. Sasha smiled too, "nice to meet you Boris, I'm Sasha Tarakov, nineteen, from Moscow" she responded. "I-I'm Gloria Golubev. I'm twenty, and I came from Siberia" a rather timid recruit woman named Gloria explained. "I'm Dimitri...my last name isn't important, I'm twenty eight, and I come from the streets of Moscow" a larger recruit man said as he pulled out an air cigarette. "I'm Voleriy Putin, nineteen, and I've had a lot of controversy connected to my last name" the final recruit explained. "It's good to meet you all" Sasha said, trying to form some comradery.

Right as the soldiers were getting to know each other a voice behind them said, "put that fire out, it'll give away our position." It was Chieftain Garcia, poking his head out from the squad tent. The five apologized as they stood up and started kicking snow onto the fire to extinguish it, once it was out the five headed inside the squad tent.

The time was 10:30PM, or 22:30 in military time, when Sasha laid down in her sleeping bag. She could hear the distant sounds of gunshots and mortar fire, most likely other groups outside of the main invading force. She sighed, rolled over, tried to drown out the sound and dozed off to sleep.