Location Unknown
Time Unknown
Day before first contact

His head hurt.

That was the first thing Volkov consciously thought. His head felt as though he had slammed it into a bulkhead, and a second later he noticed someone laying on his shoulder.

It took several seconds for his groggy mind to realize that the 'person sitting on his shoulder' was actually one of the bridge crew, and that the crewmember was shaking his shoulder, not sitting on it.

"Kapitan! Please get up!" Volkov faintly heard the crewmember say. "I need a physician over here! Captain Volkov appears to be unconscious."

Conjuring up as much strength as he could at that moment, Volkov opened his eyes and found himself staring at the ceiling of his ship. Groaning, Volkov reached out with his right hand and tapped the crewmember kneeling next to him on the shoulder, startling the ensign.

"I am alive, Ensign Avilov." Volkov said as his eyes quickly snapped to the crewmember's name on their chest. "I do, however, require some help to stand up."

"Of course, sir." The ensign said, calling over another one of the bridge crew. Together, they managed to carefully pick him up, until Volkov was able to stand on his own. As a group, they helped the Captain hobble to the command chair, a mere eight feet away.

Volkov carefully sat down in the chair and looked around the bridge. A few of the crew seemed to be a bit dazed, but otherwise they were fine. There was one problem, however... How had they survived the evident death of their ship?

"Status. Where are we?" Volkov asked.

"Unknown, sir." One of the crew working on a console nearby said. "We just began waking up a couple minutes ago. We're still running data, but for now, we don't know."

"Is there any sign of the fleet? Or of the American warplanes?" Volkov asked.

"None."

Volkov put his face into his hands, frustrated with the lack of information.

"In any case," The ensign continued, "We are not getting any signal from out satellites. Our radar antenna checks out fine, but we are unable to connect to anybody."

'Strange.' Volkov thought, 'There should be at least something in the area... What happened while we slept? And, more importantly, just where are we now?'

The clearing descended into silence as the six men warily scanned the surrounding woods, waiting for any more surprises it might hold.

Getting attacked by strange wooden creatures would put almost anyone on edge. Or, at least, that was Vasilyev's line of thought as the group waited anxiously for more of them to appear. When no sudden threats made themselves visible, the grouped relaxed somewhat, still on edge.

"Damn it all, do any of you see anything?" Petrov asked as he scanned the tress with his SVU-A.

"Nothing, Sergeant." Novikov responded. "Any idea what those things were?"

"I don't fucking know." Kozlov responded as he gave a small kick to the pile of wooden sticks that had formerly been... Something.

"Let's keep moving." Vasilyev said. Suddenly, leaving this forest seemed like a very, very good idea.

Author's Note

Sorry that this chapter - as part of the revision - came out so late. I have been quite busy lately.