I looked again at my watch which showed the time 08:04 pm as I headed back towards my barracks. The strange thing was, the hologram clock did not show the same time – in fact, it only showed up some fuzzy, pixelated-dot like figures. I immediately thought that the malfunction was due to some kind of maintenance going on, and it came across my mind to check if the arrow glasses also underwent the same issue.
I decided to try to set the destination of my arrow glasses towards the officials' barracks, and it turned out that the glasses did not function as it was supposed to. I rushed back to my barracks to switch the glasses with my standard one, and switched it back to the arrow glasses to see if it could work but to my surprise, not even the acknowledgement word 'ENS Burners confirmed' showed up.
'Could it be that all sophisticated equipment underwent maintenance at the same time?' I thought while I wore my standard glasses again 'So much for the high technology applied in this building...'
If there was any other thing concerning me, was my thought of having enough rest to start at 7 am tomorrow morning since I was completely wiped out. I decided to sleep earlier since I was really worn out the whole day, and just hope that by the next day, all high technology equipment in the building had already stopped malfunctioning.
Just when I was about to turn out the lights, a sudden blackout happened. I rushed into the nearest window to see if this barrack was the only building experiencing blackout, but all I saw was a total darkness with only a bit of moonlight which could only mean that the whole facility was experiencing blackout. Therefore, I decided to open the window to let some moonlight enter the barracks. Right after I opened the window, an alert was sounded from every speaker outside the building with the voice of a man saying something.
"Attention! This is not a drill! Our facility has been breached by an unknown aircraft! All personnel are to head for the armory and ready for combat immediately! I repeat! Our facility..."
Right before the man was about to say the warning again, a very loud and high-pitched screeching noise was heard from the speakers, breaking them all at once. Shocked, I intended to rush towards the armory as a very large object was flying low passing the barracks. I could not see it clearly as there was no light besides the moonlight, but there was definitely something very large passing through right above me.
The strange thing was that I cannot recognize the sound of the object's engine – if it was a flying machinery object at all. The large object went further away from the barracks and then not long after that, I could hear a huge splash sound from the direction of the great lakes.
A total silence then enveloped the whole facility, and a very bright purple light emerged from the east – the direction of the great lakes. There was a moment of silence for about a couple of minutes, before then suddenly a large beam was shot from the purple light, exploding and destroying one of the eastern ports. Shocked, I rushed towards the armory as fast as I can without wearing my camouflage uniform first.
I ran through the central wing while hearing a second shot and explosion, and I hurried to the armory at the eastern wing which was already crowded by cadets grabbing flashlights to get their hands on any equipment they can. Some even fight to get several equipment, so I grabbed the ones nearest to me and the armory exit – a Heckler & Koch UMP45 submachine gun with 2 full magazines, and a Beretta M92F handgun with 3 full magazines, as well as their holsters, and a couple of bandage pockets.
When I finished, suddenly two of the cadets threw themselves right beside me, seemed to be fighting about the weapons that they should take for themselves before escaping out of the armory. I quickly noticed that the both of them belonged to the marines based on their camouflage pants.
"Why the hell are you picking that up?! You told me that the both of us will get one spare magazine each!" yelled one of them frantically as he shoved the other that he was talking to.
"Do not you trust me?! Why are you arguing with me instead of getting us the weapons before they are all taken by the others?!" responded the other with a higher tone and impatiently as he kicked away the former's body.
Those two marine cadets were perhaps merely the ones who got into a considerably small fight compared to the rest of the others. I could even barely describe how chaotic it was inside, seeing that there were some who pointed their firearms - loaded, on that matter, towards each other, some others were fighting for ammunition boxes, while the rest were just taking advantage of the situation and picked up whatever things that might be useful for them.
I wanted to calm the crowd down, but just when I was about to enter the armory deeper, the third shot hit the armory, destroying it. I was lucky enough to be blown back by the explosion, but all of the cadets inside the armory were no more. I got up, and I ran as fast as I could towards the central wing while I was sure that the next explosion I heard from behind me was the sound of the eastern wing destroyed.
I heard the same explosion when I entered the cafeteria towards the emergency exit leading to the western side of the facility which was according to the transport vehicle driver that drove me to this facility, was just an empty land with a river connected to the town canal. I first had my doubts if I did have to go there or to search for any survivors, but as I realized my time was running out as well, I decided to just continue rushing towards the exit door.
I exited the cafeteria through the emergency exit, and I ran towards the west direction for about 10 seconds before I heard another explosion behind me. Dusts covered my eyes and nose, as the ground around me quaked for a brief moment, yet I still told myself to run for a little further more before my instinct told me it was already to stop for a while. I turned only to see that the whole building had been completely destroyed. The whole Chicago Military Academy Base was then nothing but ruins...