Escalation

--ZERO

"Hey, Mr. President, are you alright?"

"Mr. President, please respond."

"Mr. President, plea--"

"OH SHIT! ALL SYSTEMS ARE FAILING! SHIT! NO! NO NO NO--

His surroundings appeared and faded around him. He was on the helicopter, mourning all the Americans.. no.. all the humans he could've avoided having dead. And now, he was here. He couldn't even move.

Half of his body was completely covered with rubble and debris from the chopper crash. He could feel the hot metal burn on his right thigh, but he didn't care, how could he hurt anymore than he is already? Why didn't he try to communicate? Why? Now Earth is dead. America is dead.

His eyes fluttered weakly. The world slowly began to form around him, and Reagan could.. no.. he couldn't even recognize D.C anymore. Everything... it was all gone. Everything was engulfed in flames.

His head was shaking, his eyes were spinning, he couldn't even prove that he was on Earth at all.

Everyone in that helicopter, he could've saved. Everything would have been back to normal, The Cold War would've ended, communism would collapse, maybe they'd work together with the Chinamen and the Ruskies in order to obtain long lasting global peace and technological harmony. The journey had already ended when it just started,

Reagan began to hold some thoughts no president would ever consider. Maybe he could just avoid it all. Run away from his mistakes by ending it. He had nothing left he could do. No. He thought. He began trying to move, but ended up hurting himself even more. He looked to his right and saw his reflection on the glass. He had forgotten what the war had done to him too.
Red lined his face, red puddled his nice suit, he looked like Satan. His right eye looked grey, but it was most likely just the glass stains.

He looked at the burning buildings surrounding him. This was it. He could do nothing, but look up. Look up at the stars. Make the last remaining moments of his life peaceful. That's when he saw it. The stars. Shimmering brightly up high. He could swear he could hear a voice singing. It was… very calming. Like a church carol. Though, there were more pressing matters at hand.

He needed to get out. He can still make it out of this hell hole. He could save his country still. Maybe, they can find a way to get back to Earth. Maybe we could fix the planet.

He still had a chance to do something to redeem himself for the people.

He crawled forward, disregarding the pain. He moved, and moved, and moved. He couldn't even feel his legs anymore, but he still moved, until finally, he got out. He stumbled to the floor, breathing heavily. Blood was being stained on the streets as he wheezed and barked out bits of steel shards from his throat. He took a breath, air not flowing in all the way as he gasped in the gallons he could before rapidly exhaling. He coughed out a bit more shrapnel before he wiped his face, and moved on. Shrapnel meant nothing right now. He could go to the hospital for all he cares later. If any doctors made it out alive, that is.

He limped towards the White House, the one that was now ruined, half of it collapsed, and was burning to splinters. He walked past a bunch of wrecked cars, trucks, and vans. Tanks were sprawled all around the street, while in the dead center was half of some kind of helicopter, most likely a Huey of some sort, impaled into the pipelines beneath the roads. Water puddles surrounded the area.

Once he had finally gotten to the building, he walked up to the doors, opened them, and stumbled in. The lights were flickering out. It must be the power supply. The corridors of the once bustling structure had now been engulfed with darkness as sirens blared an obnoxious nose while flashing and spinning red lights. He realized what this meant and began running. The portal only had so much power left before all backup power in the building shut off completely. His heart began pumping and his hands started sweating as he grunted while pushing himself to the limit.

“Hall 3F. Yes! Yes! Come on come on!” he shouted to himself, increasing the throttle of his legs.
The sirens’ blasting of noises amplified in volume as a VOX intercom buzzed in on the speakers,

”Warning. Warning. Please evacuate the building. Full scale lockdown eminent. Backup power depleting.”

He had never thought he could move as fast or even faster than he could in his 20s.

“No, no, no, there. There!” he clenched his teeth.

He jabbed the code into the input for the door’s lock.

Beep. The red light flashed on the pad.

“What?!” he shouted to himself.

”Warning. Backup supply has -THREE- minutes left before complete lockdown.”

“No no no no NO!” he boomed.

What was the god damn password?! Why hadn’t anybody told him that it changed?!
He repeated the code again and again.

1 minute lock. Try again it displayed on the screen.

“NO!” he clamored.

He sped through his head desperately searching for answers, until he found the possible solution. It occurred to him that every lock that didn’t have a specifically set passcode all had the same numbered entry code to get in. Understandably, it was the date the White House was finished. And was to his delight that he couldn’t exactly remember when that was. Was it 1792 or 1793? He compared the two dates, shifting between which he should go with. Problem was, if he got the code wrong, the passcode would be disabled for 5 minutes, and by then all power would be depleted. So what date was he supposed to choose? Could it be settled with the simple flip of a coin?
Wait he thought, that could actually work. he took out one of the many dimes conveniently stored in his coat pocket. He balanced it on his finger, setting 1792 as tales and 1793 as heads, and he flipped.

One minute and thirty seconds remaining. said the VOX.

The coin landed on tales. 1792.
“I swear to god, if this doesn’t work…” he input the code before saying, “fate doesn’t exist.” he jabbed the last button and confirmed it, then saw a green light. His heart instantly lowered in BPM as he rushed towards the emergency teleportation device that had already been set to simply be activated and then be used. He walked down the stairs carefully, and finally came across the teleportation tool. It was buzzing with life, but barely. He ran to the teleporter, pressing the 'activate' button. He scrambled in the pod before it closed automatically, when suddenly a bunch of neon bright lights flashed all around him. He closed his eyes as he braced for impact. Then, everything went quiet.