So this started out as one of those random imaginary senarios where I'm thrown into a "What if?" situation, this time a bit in the future, and another replacing-the-version-of-you-in-that-reality-for-a-bit situation. And then came the flashback on how it wound up like it was, and it got epic... yet to the point that I decided to write it down.

So, let's just say that something crazy is underway. Not really sure what, but there is something political/social/governmental/whatever that causes repercussions for certain groups of people. And considering the types of people in the areas around me, this results in a great deal of panic and chaos (and we still don't really know why...), and somewhere along the line there's a nuclear incident. So we are told that radiation levels and such are dangerous and that there are other reasons to be afraid of staying behind, so pretty much everyone that's left evacuates. As for the rest of the world, at this point I didn't really know what was going on.

But somehow, I wound up separated from the rest of my family at the time of departure, and I didn't immediately follow (though we had enough contact to discuss this matter, the situation wasn't quite friendly to them coming back to make sure of anything at this point).

After a day or two I convince myself that the radiation levels aren't as dangerous as claimed in the area where my house is, and since most other enforcement type events were passed, I could stay at home and still be pretty secure for a while. Granted most outside contact was becoming less possible at this point, but otherwise there was no immediate risk other than the eventual depletion of food.

But it couldn't stay like this. Clearly something would eventually force me to go elsewhere, or do something drastic, so instead I decided I should try to find someone else. Since the town wasn't completely empty at this point, I was able to get out to the highway in time to notice the remaining refugee-type people leaving. And a friend of mine from school coming back in, looking for his family--apparently he too was out at the time. Maybe we were at college or something at the time? Anyway, I manage to convince him to head for Westminster until we can find out where his family went. Since resources in our town aren't easy to access at this point, he agrees to go, and we start heading north.

Normally it would have been only a few hours of driving, but with the dramaticness of what's been going on in the world, it becomes more adventurous than that. But somehow we manage to get through martial checks and insane delay attempts in almost violent-but-not-quite-because-we're-more-focused-on-running manner, and finally reach the college where my anime-providing, samuraisword-having friend who likes discussing the various types of beer (o.o) is staying. Granted, there is a stronger military situation now that such chaotic events have gone on elsewhere, so accessing things becomes more difficult, but we manage to meet. At this time I managed a little bit of internet access; apparently the events that caused my hometown to shutdown also caused the proboards servers to go down, but most e-mail servers were still operational. In the time that I was there, I managed to contact Azuri and Gotenks and confirmed that they were ok, but Wolfstar seemed to be unaccounted for. Naturally I tried to contact relatives and other acquaintances, but anyone that could respond in that timeframe could only say the same: alive, things are a mess. Though I did get some information with this brief bout of internet access concerning missing reports of things around the Earth (Meteor showers, it seems).

It's clear that hanging around isn't going to work out for much longer, so we decide to keep pushing north.  Westminster friend has family (mainly a brother) in the Chicago area, and I am interested in finding out whether or not Wolfstar has made it through the cataclysms of the past several days. However, the friend that drove me to Westminster heads out with better leads on his family.

But wait! Using the internet and contacting so many people without registering with the authorities in these times isn't very safe. In fact, it seems that they wanted to keep us from heading out. So a crazy offroad chase ensues. This happens to be around the time the ambiguous space events begin though--and wouldn't you know, these events happen to come in the form of meteors that come very close to the ground. (Well, they'd be meteorites then wouldn't they? Other than the ones that explode in midair).

This shower is pretty big, so the fact that it interfered in the chase isn't as surprising as one would think. We managed to escape and kept to less conventional routes to keep a safer watch on the way the chaos was affecting law and society. Apparently the military was getting involved for control/safety reasons, but as evidenced by our escape, this had a limited degree of reasonable to it.

Somewhere along the trip (due to the dodginess, it took more than the expected few hours), we came acrossed an unguarded military vehicle, and since gas wasn't that easy to obtain (and there was the issue of tires after the escape. -.-), Westminster ally took advantage of the resources.

Somewhere in this timeframe the chaos mounted everywhere else in the country, and for whatever reasons nuclear incidents occurred in various places.

We finally got to the Chicago area and meet up with ally's brother. After an update on the status of everyone  <-- Continues in second document -->