The Bunker

It feels as though the air is aflame, fiery ash and burning rubble. Burning like all the towns before had, all the towns built tall of wood and stone, trapping the heat until it finally combusts and destroys all it can. The sun blazes cruelly overhead, and all he can think about is the towns he passed and left behind, many years ago.

There is this buzzing in his ears, an unending and crudely vibrating hum, an aching and dull roar of an engine trapped behind his eyes. He can no longer think, breathe, move. He lies in the dirt, arm thrown over his eyes, though it does nothing to block out the sun.

It’s always hot, these days. The unending heat, never stopping, never letting up. He is too young to remember anything before the towns, the stone walls and wood roofs that only served as an oven, heating up to incinerate their surroundings.

He has heard the stories of the past, of the days when the heat was bad yet not insufferable, when the water kept rising and threatened to drown the world. As the heat rose, the ice melted, flooding the coastlines and destroying so much.

Everyone prayed for the water to recede, hoped with all their hearts that the world would spare them.

And then the water went. Burned away by the atmosphere, leaving scorched earth in its wake. The people thanked their gods, claimed they were saved.

But the heat continued to rise. The water kept burning away, until there was nothing left. Metal buildings heated to the point they scalded people at the slightest touch, and cities were quickly abandoned, later destroyed.

He is from the Midlands, the region filled with empty dry fields, the place that once held the town he was born in. He is older now, seventeen. He has been an adult for four years by the standards of this new and cruelly hollow world.

He wanders -- all he is, now, a wanderer -- and searches for a home, for anything, anyone, that matters. He is nothing, a speck of dust in a world filled with ground dry as bone, and he does not mind.

He knows that one day, soon, for nobody lives many years, not anymore, he will be nothing but a cracked skeleton, dried flesh scoured away by the world itself, and he will not be remembered.

He is called Cory -- would be, at least, if there was anyone to speak to at all, but that is the name he was given -- and he is alone. He has found his way to the ruins of a city, a city that once had a real, proper name, before the heat and the fires and the dust. It was called Arolesck, after, when nobody could remember anything from before.

A shadow falls over him, and he barely notices. Even the cool reprieve feels like nothing, as everything feels like nothing. He gave up on feeling a long time before, but suddenly the sun is no longer blazing at the edges of his vision, and he removes his arm, slowly, carefully.

A girl stands over him, maybe a few years older than him, and watches him. She has cracked sharp teeth and a wicked grin that holds no menace. She offers him a hand.

“I’m Harper.”

The words barely make it into his addled mind, but he smiles faintly.

“Cory.”

His voice is hoarse and harsh and rough, and with good reason. He hasn’t spoken in so long -- no point, really, without other people -- and the world is filled with dust that forces its way down his throat and suffocates him. 

The air tastes bitter and ashen still permeating every step through the waste, all that remains of a once-lush world.

“Barely anything remains of Arolesck,” she tells him, and he can see that, but her voice is gentle and cool, and he doesn’t stop her. “This is the bunker.”

They stop in front of a heavy door that looks like metal, and he wants to warn her against touching it, but before he can, she pulls it open and leads him through. 

They are underground now, he knows that much. It is far cooler inside, underground, away from the sun, and much darker as well. There is another door, also metal, and it is cool to the touch, so strange.

He can barely see here, in the shadowed darkness that blocks out the harsh sunlight. Rusted metal hinges creak and scream out as the heavy door is opened, painstakingly slowly.

The dust-coated rubble under his feet turns to something very different. Smooth stone tiles feel strange under his bare feet, rougher than the soft dust and ash of the waste, but stable, cold and hard, and he is, for once, assured he isn’t going to sink through the ground beneath him.

“Seven of us live here,” Harper adds, in a voice that makes it seem like he is about to meet more strangers.

“How?” he asks, little more than a strangled whisper, but she seems to understand.

“We’ve been here for years. Many years. This is our home,” she says, with a slight smile, and his heart pangs at the faded memories of home.

He doesn’t say anything.

“You’re welcome to stay as long as you like, or leave immediately. We aren’t like the other collectives. We don’t make you do anything.”

It sounds so refreshing, so easy, so simple. Nothing is ever that simple, not for him, not for anyone in their horror of a world, not ever.

The bunker, despite what he had hoped, isn’t different than everywhere else, not really, the smell of ash and dust and death, overlaid with the musty, achingly stale air of underground.

He is led into a long room that seems rather more like a hallway, lined with neat rows of bunks, thin blankets folded and left on the narrow mattresses. It gets cold at night, so cold the blood in his veins feels like it turns into shards of ice that pierce his flesh, and while he is wary to stay here, they have blankets, and the temperature seems regulated.

He hates that he wants to stay.

There are a few other people gathered in a room, all teenagers, his age or younger, talking faster than he can process, but they all look up at him. Harper forgoes the introductions for a minute, turning to him.

“We’re just a group of kids,” she tells him, and he stifles a hollow laugh.

 Nobody is just a kid, not here, not anymore, he doesn't say. None of us were ever kids.