• 6:00 P.M. on a muggy Saturday afternoon, midsummer in Shibuya, Japan, and it was rime to practice with the band, as usual. Yuichi, Ichirou, and Daisuke were all anxious about the upcoming gig, and they all hoped it would go well. But that was next week, and little did the 3 of them know, the whole of Shibuya, Tokyo, and other large cities would be drastically changed by then, transformed into a barren wasteland, struggling to survive, for the politician Ichitaro Matsuda, along with a small group of politicians in the U.N. had taken enough of the countries of the world, and decided to try and conquer them all “for justice” to create a one-world order. Warships were coming by sky to the largest cities of the world, and as Yuichi and Ichirou grudgingly loaded up the band stuff in Daisuke’s van, not a one of them had a clue.
    “Heh, now I’m glad I made that bet, now I ain’t gotta do any work” Daisuke said, having recently won a little gamble the three of them made.
    “Yeah, yeah, at least we didn’t pool in more” Yuichi said, lightheartedly. He continued loading band equipment into the back of the old Volkswagen type 2.
    “So, ya think you guys’re gonna be ready for the gig? It’s only a couple weeks away,” Daisuke asked.
    “Well, I’m ready as I’ll ever be, I guess, but I don’t know if Ichirou can take the pressure,” Yuichi pointed to Ichirou. Daisuke looked and saw him talking to himself, seemingly trying to practice beats in his head.
    “Yo, Ichirou, you overdose on yer meds again? Cuz, I don’t want ya fallin’ over on the drums again. I paid for ‘em, remember?”
    “Eh, wha-? Oh, sorry, I was distracted, what’d ya say?” Ichirou’s eyes were slightly glazed over.
    “Never mind, Ichirou, in yer current state ya wouldn’t get what I was sayin’ anyways,” Daisuke looked extremely annoyed. “Anyways, let’s get this stuff finished so we can go to Yuichi’s fer practice” And with that they finished loading it and headed out.
    Daisuke, the only one at the legal age, was driving them towards Yuichi’s house. When they got to a bridge, Yuichi noticed something strange in the sky.
    “Hey, guys, am I the only one seeing this?” he pointed out the window to a large airship heading towards downtown. They all looked, and Daisuke was the first to say anything.
    “That ain’t good, guys…Might mean a war.”
    “A war? Now?”
    they continued driving, making their way to Yuichi’s, and little happened till they were about 2 blocks away. Suddenly, the warships all released hundreds of one-man fighter planes. They flew off, all in different directions, all with a single purpose. Destruction. Planes overhead started flying lower, and then increasingly faster. As if for intimidation, they all created simultaneous sonic booms, and then went into attack formations.
    One plane was flying dangerously close to the van, and in an instant, it fired off a cruise missile, exploding on the asphalt in front of them. Daisuke swerved, but lost control, and the old VW flipped over.
    They all got out as quick as they can and ran for cover. Instantly, they all thought the same thing, luckily for them, because words wouldn’t come out in a time like this. There was a field with a lot of tall plants nearby, and they dove into it. However, Ichirou wasn’t fast enough. Despite running as quickly as he could, he didn’t make it to the cover. The huge caliper bullets whizzed past him. One finally hit its mark, tearing off Ichirou’s left shoulder. He screamed in agony and kept begging Yuichi and Daisuke not to leave him, but they knew that would mean certain death. They crashed through the foliage and soon found themselves near a cave. They went inside and without warning, Yuichi collapsed, overwhelmed with fear, exhaustion, and remorse for leaving Ichirou.
    When he awoke, he half expected to be in his own bed, waiting for the obnoxious ring of his alarm clock, telling him it was time to get up, but he turned and saw Daisuke in a corner of the cave, making a fire. He looked around the cave, taking in everything with his senses. The cave wasn’t much larger than they needed for bare survival, but he hoped that it wouldn’t come to that. He smelled the fire and realized Daisuke must have some food with him, and as soon as he realized it, his stomach complained.
    “Hey, Daisuke….what happened? Got any food?”
    “Second question’s more important…yeah, I got food,” he handed yuichi a chicken leg
    “Where’d ya get this?” Yuichi asked
    “I’m about to explain that…anyways…when we got here, you just keeled over. I thought ya had a heart attack, but ya were still breathin’. Once all the ships were gone, I decided to go n’ salvage some supplies from the city…when I got there it was in ruin, man, everything was destroyed. There were looters, riots, the whole shebang. Downtown, when I was getting’ some food, I heard a lotta rumors. They say some politician got too big fer his own shoes and ordered an attack on all the major cities ‘round the whole world…some people even say there’s a huge organization funding it to create some super-weapon….a lotta people have taken a liking to an idea for an underground rebellion. Guys’re salvaging planes and weapons n’ stuff and attacking…they even got some sorta variation of paratrooping. They’re calling people who join it FreeFallers…”