Winter Wasteland, Part 1

A year before Fausk's arrest

The snow leopard was camped outside of a old Russian command post. Misery was completely uncertain what it was ever used for, but she was fairly certain that it hadn't been used since the 1940s. Her superiors had sent her out here on a stakeout, and she was in no position to argue after having screwed up several previous espionage missions.

Regardless, she found herself huddled up in the arctic regions of Russia, bundled up in thick winter, fur lined clothing. Sitting in a run down car, that barely had enough heat to take any chill from the winter weather. She sat, impatiently, sipping at the coffee she had brought along, listening to the constant static from the radio to her superiors.

Such a wasted use of her time, something about strange energy readings, up here, in the middle of no where. She knew, it was obviously just to get her away from them for a while. Misery took another sip from her cup of coffee and slumped down into her seat, folding her arms over her chest. Her eyes slowly started to close for a bit as she decided to try to catch some sleep while she could, not like anything else was going on.

She woke up, not knowing how much time had passed. She looked up at the command post before glancing over to the radio. The static had been replaced with a high pitched whining sound, probably what awoke her. She reached up and pounded on the radio a couple times, and the whine increased in volume. It wasn't long before Misery's eyes were clenched shut and her hands grasped over her ears to try to prevent the sound from continuing to hurt her.

Fumbling with the car door, she eventually pried it open and tumbled out into the snow, kicking and frantically attempting to drag herself away from the car. The sound just seemed to continue growing louder and louder, as if it was everywhere all at once, and not just from the radio speaker. Misery continued to try her best to escape from the sound before collapsing back onto her knees a good 10 feet from the car, clutching her ears as she let out a loud scream, as if trying to counter the sound with her own voice, desperately hoping it would stop.

Suddenly, all at once, it was silent. Misery lifted her head and glanced around warily, unsure of what had happened. Not forgetting her professional demeanor, she quickly extracted her Walther from her thigh holster, keeping it at the ready as she got onto her feet and looked in each direction. Slowly, the snow leopard's footfalls would be approaching the car, frowning a little as the radio had resumed playing the unsettling sound of static.

Right as she was about to reach the car, a bright light shone out from the windows of the command center, all different colors cascading along in dancing patterns, not unlike Aurora Borealis. Misery, staring at the lights, jaw agape, slowly shook her head and pointed the gun towards the building, carefully and slowly making her way toward it, to find out what was going on here.