On a cold winter morning in 1992, a young expectant father sits in the waiting room of a Russian hospital while his newborn son is placed in an ICU for some tests. Nothing particularly important was happening in the world, no grand schemes exposed.
           No new wars had been declared.
               No major historical events took place that day.

For once, the world wasn't on fire. Everyone was content. The world was fine.
Except, mother nature doesn't let us off that easily. The truth is two U.S. Military C-141B Starlifters collided over a small town in Montana and 13 people died. Several days later, the UN Security Council voted unanimously allowing US led forces to enter Somalia to start a war, and a Greek oil tanker named the "Aegean Sea" ran aground during a violent storm and poisoned much of the surrounding waters with around 80,000 tonnes of crude oil.

So the world wasn't fine. It was still a violent, uncertain landscape of rising capitalist markets and falling old world empires. The only difference? A small Russian boy was born into a poor immigrant household; he wasn't the first and wouldn't be the last. People make the mistake of thinking the story of life is all about them... that they're somehow the center of a grand production of beauty and existence, when in reality the universe couldn't be any more indifferent to the protozoa that is the human race.


That Russian baby? His parents called him Roman. He, unlike his parents, was able to attend primary school. Now, he didn't particularly excel in school, but then again his parents were poor farmers, who were raised by poor farmers. Being average was in his genes, and we as human beings can overcome great challenges and disadvantages. Unfortunately for Roman, he would not overcome his genetic disposition to being average. He lived a quiet, normal life in rural Russia until he eventually enlisted with the CDF around mid 2006. He had a sense of purpose, a paycheck, and a real life. He was happy. . .

Until the world ended.