The half crumpled pack of American Pride cigarettes was picked up off the ground. Snake removed the tiny matchbox from his jacket pocket and stripped one of the matches against the side, sparking the darkness of the wooded area with the small flame. The cigarette was lit and he took a long drag. It felt good to finally relax.
The woods off the new coast of California were quiet. Quiet because the rest of the world was in disarray and confusion. Chaos plagued the planet as technology all over the globe suddenly ceased to exist. Lying on the ground beside his foot was a smashed remote control, moments before the victim of his heavy, steel toed combat boot. That control had been the world's demise. Now they had to start over.
'Bout fuckin' time.
When Snake Plissken walked into the dense curtain of trees, just a few miles from where the President had made a fool of himself on international television, it had been his intention never to cross paths with society ever again. He was a man hell bent on solitude and isolation. He was sick and tired of being a pawn in a pseudo-democracy's game of chess. Let people figure out their own damn problems.
But the trees cleared too quickly and Snake found himself on pavement. A road, to be exact. A road leading into a city. But not a familiar city. Definitely not one in California, where just moments before he'd had the unfortunate pleasure of being pedestrian to. No, this place was entirely different. Though, why Snake felt that there was something eerie about the place, he couldn't say. Just that it felt wrong in the same way that his country felt wrong when he came back from the war.
The Third World War.
He was reminded of his past. Was this another trick? Would the fake walls fall down? He felt that at any moment he might hear that mechanized recording he had become so accustomed to: Attention. You are now entering the Debarkation Area. No talking. No smoking. Follow the orange line to the Processing Area. The next scheduled departure to the prison is in two hours. You now have the option to terminate and be cremated on the premises. If you elect this option, notify the Duty Sergeant in your Processing Area. Snake curled up his lip at the thought. But the voice was not there. Instead there was silence. And that might have been worse. It meant that he wasn't in New York. Or L.A. Or even in Cleveland.
Hell, he barely escaped from Cleveland, but he would have taken anything he knew to the unknown.
Then came a wvorp! wvorp! sound from above and Snake looked across the street just in time to see a blue box appear from nothing. He bent down to the right, his hand grasping for the gun he had holstered to his calf. Couldn't be too careful. Especially not in the world he'd just come from.