April 26. 1986 - Chernobyl, USSR
Just a few minutes before disaster —
"Professor comrade, we found it!" shouted a short muscular man, as he was opening the curtain of the main tent at the site. They have been there for at least a month at that point, although to no avail, until now.
"For the love of our Great Leader, I finally have it," said the old man at the end of the table. His face and neck covered in a thick white beard, heavily drenched in mud and dirt, "Quickly, take me there!"
It was the middle of the night. Dark, only the stars and the Moon would give off any sort of natural light. The plains around the city were silent, and calm, if not for the shouting of this old archeologist and his team. As the Professor got up from his chair, he grabbed a few of his belongings - a brush, a spatula akin to the ones builders use, a ragged old notebook, and a pen. He rushed outside, following the man who called him. The mist Was already setting, covering the entire horizon. You could make out a few spots in it that had a faint light to them. The biggest of them was a nearby power plant, truly a wonder of modern technology. It was said to be able to power entire regions, without any shortage.
They were closing in on a relatively big hole in the ground. Some of the workers were already surrounding it, and a few of them even descended into it, to help out the ones who dug it. With sweaty hands, the old man tossed his workers out of his way, and slowly started to make his way to the bottom of this pit. He finally found it. His life's work. The one thing he ever wanted, was finally in his grasp. According to sources, it was an amphora, hidden away by a powerful god of the ancients. He was said to have moved it to the land of the hyperboreoi, a people of the far north, where men would rarely venture. This relic was said to house an untapped power that could alter the future. As a dedicated socialist, the Professor figured he would give this power to the Greatest Man of all time, their Beloved Leader. With this power, it wasn't going to be a problem to finally defeat the Capitalists.
He finally held it in his hands. There were no doubts, this is the Urn. The Urn he was looking for.
Suddenly it turned to day, and with a flash, the Professor lost everything.
At least that's what my mom told me. The story of my great great grandfather.
The one thing that always put me off, was how a little bit after this, people started to change. We got news of certain people having real unbelievable powers. Breathing fire, laser-eyes, super-strength. All those sort of Powers would start showing up, and some chosen folks got them. And thus, super heroes were born.
The year is 2043. My name is William Dubinsky. I'm a 24 year old archeology dropout, hailing from the United Kingdom, land of the Queen (yeah, she didn't die yet). Apparently my mom's side of the family is russian, but they fled from the Motherland to Kent. For some reason, it's our family's tradition to pass down our mother's family name, although I don't have a single clue why. It's sorta scuffed, but that's how we are.
As for what I'm doing with my life, I just landed at NIX airport in Naniwa, Japan. The reason I'm here, is that I'm trying to figure out what my great great gramps was so obsessed with, and whether it actually had anything to do with our modern society.
"Yeah mom, you don't need to be worried, I'm fine on my own. I just have to find this Nakamura person. I mean, how many of them could there be, right? Yeah, yeah, me too. Talk to you later,"I hang up my phone, as I was putting in some coins to this weirdly green and blue vending machine. I was parched. Barely got any drinks on the plane, and it took quite a bit of time to get here. From here I'd have to find my way to the last person, who knows about what my great great grandfather was probably up to.