Heart of the Core

[North Dniester]

“What do you mean, reactor № 2 isn't responding?” The tired husk of a man speaking was the local director of the Chashniki nuclear plant, one of Dniester's twenty-seven operational nuclear plants. The man's name tag read “Yakiv Kopysski”. Today, in the middle of the night, a scheduled safety test of the new RBMK-1000 reactor was occurring. More than a few safety procedures were overlooked in favour of doing it quicker, as a faster test would please the political strong-men aiming to get this new reactor rolled out ASAP.

“Comrade, the reactor is not responding to anyth—”

And then, a large explosion shook the building. The consoles in the control room started to lose electricity and alarms began to blare. 

“What the fuck is happening?! Why?! Goddammit, not now!” Yakiv started to panic. Something was wrong, and he would be the one to blame. 

The safety director of the building rushed into the room to inform Yakiv of the core. Something was very, very wrong. 

36 hours later, Yakiv Kopysski would die of radiation poisoning.