The nuclear warhead climbed to an altitude where it could no longer be caught by the blast wave. The silo beneath the ice closed instantly — the concrete petals came together as if nothing had happened; only a thin line of steam still betrayed the recent launch. Vulnos's missile had shot upward earlier — by a matter of seconds, but enough to escape the strike. Below, on the island, the snow first turned gray, then blindingly white, like a screen with the brightness cranked to the limit. In the next instant, the surface of the ice began to flow — not melt, but precisely *flow*, losing its shape, collapsing inward like wax under a flame. The stone beneath it blistered, the air above the ground trembled as if from an unseen pressure. The silence lasted for a fraction of a second — strange, alien, as if the world had forgotten how to make a sound.

Then came the light.

It didn't flash — it simply became everything. The shore, the water, the rocks — all vanished in a single layer of blinding glare, and only shadows imprinted on the ice for a split second before vanishing along with it. A wave of heat blanketed the island before the sound arrived, vaporizing the snow, the water, and the air itself at the surface. The ice boiled instantly, rupturing with bubbles of steam that immediately vanished in the expanding front. Right at the water's edge, a pod of seals, already breaking into a frantic scramble, didn't even have time to turn — their silhouettes darkened for an instant, as if seared onto a retina, and disappeared, dissolving into the light that left absolutely nothing behind.

[Original] There are no winners