Hospital staff shuffled around quietly. The ugly fluorescent lights kept the dark night at bay, but the shadows cast in the corners were undeniable proof of the night outside. There were sounds but it was as if someone turned off their hearing aid, all you could hear was a sharp buzzing.

A doctor approached, a morose expression on his face. His mouth moved like he was speaking but we couldn't hear, that sharp buzzing filled our ears. The doctor walked down the hallway and we follow. We turn down a corridor and walk to a room. The doctor opens the door, he's saying something else...but what is he saying?

Inside the room is a table with a small bundle on it. It's a pink blanket covered in tubes and wires, surrounded by machines. The doctor left the room and closed the door behind him.

We approach the bundle. It's a baby girl, freshly born but obviously premature. Her soft face had not yet adjusted to the harsh light of this new world.

Hands cradled her, they were the hands of a young man. They jittered and shook as he got close to her. Finally he rested his hand on her miniature head.

Through the buzzing we hear a sound. It's the sound of a man crying.

We finally see who it is we've been looking through this whole time. He's much younger, not grey, and less sullen, but it's undeniable. It was a young Joseph Seed.

Tears streamed down his face as he knelt next to the table with the baby, his hand still holding the baby's head.

     Joseph woke up in a cold sweat.

He jolted awake, nearly throwing the blanket he had fallen asleep under off of him. He brushed his hands through his hair, quickly gathering himself before someone noticed him. He could hear nothing but the sound of silence, and it was deafening.

     Joseph slowly left his cot, neatly folded his blanket, and placed it on his bed. He left the room and looked down the hallway. The room at the very end, Eden's room, was open.

     Curious, Joseph walked down the hallway quietly. When he made it to Eden's room he looked inside. Eden was sitting up against the wall, her arms folded over her chest and her head was leaning down against her chest. She must be asleep, how curious she fell asleep with her door open. It wasn't like her.

     Joseph turned to leave. "Don't close the door." Eden's voice surprised him.

     He looked back into her room and saw her lift her head and look at him. So she wasn't asleep, just faking it.

     "How strange, you never leave it open. Waiting for someone to walk through?" Joseph asked and took a step through the doorway.

     "Honestly?" Eden chuckled, but there was no humour behind it. "I just wanted to hear something. It's so goddamn quiet here, it drives me crazy."

     Joseph looked down at the floor and took another couple of steps into her room. The shadows seemed to grow larger the further he stepped into her room.

     "I understand, it's hard sitting with your own silence." Joseph lamented. "A lot of...things from the past can emerge from it."

     Eden didn't respond to him, no sarcastic comments. It had been a long time since Joseph had seen that side of the Deputy.

     "Do you...ever think about what if's?" Joseph asked and sat down on the floor across from Eden. She eyed him suspiciously.

     "What if's?" She asked, not necessarily curious but more so like she was humouring him.

     "I do, sometimes. I've decided that those what if's are God's way of trying to make us stray from our path. He taints our thoughts with questions of the past." Joseph paused for Eden to say something, but he was met with silence. "What if, I hadn't let my wife leave the house that night. What if, God hadn't taken her."

"What if you didn't kill your daughter?" Eden spoke finally. She didn't have cruelty in her voice like Joseph would've expected out of her, she was asking earnestly.

"Yes, I wonder that sometimes." Joseph admitted. "I wonder what kind of a person she would have grown up to be. What choices she would have made, what mistakes." Another silence fell between Joseph and Eden.

     "I know that you look down upon me and my family, I know that you judge us for our ways. But one day, you too will see that we have done what we had to to survive." Joseph said quietly.

     Eden pondered his words for a moment. She wasn't a better person than Joseph. She had many skeletons in her closet, just like he did. Maybe that was why she had empathized with Jacob before, she knew they were one in the same.

"I don't look down on you, but I don't want to be you." Eden admitted. "No matter what happens to me, I always want to try and be better. I want people to rely on me, I want to be someone that my friends can lean on and trust. Your family...you hurt a lot of people that I care about, you hurt me." The sting of Eden's ugly carvings on her body rang fresh through her head.

Joseph seemed to take in what she was saying."It's hard to know what's right and what's wrong. It's even harder to guide people down the path to righteousness. But there are many worth saving despite the hardship-"

     "You didn't listen." Eden cut Joseph off, her calm demeanour suddenly shifting. She wasn't hostile, she was upset. "I gave you an opportunity to save people in a kinder way. I let you have your flock, I let you continue to prepare I just didn't let you steal and murder to get it. If you had just..." Eden pinched the bridge of her nose and rubbed her eyes.

     Joseph stayed quiet while Eden paused. He watched her process through her anger. He may have even seen a tear collect in the corner of her eye.

     Eden let out a long sigh and wiped her face with her hands. "Maybe it was my fault for believing I could be diplomatic." She admitted honestly. "I truly thought that if I made a solid agreement and got everyone to respect it I could've stopped everything."

     She didn't exactly like how vulnerable she was being with Joseph, but fuck it. What else was she going to do? She needed to get some of this off her chest.

     "You cannot tame mankind." Joseph stated quietly. "You had good intentions, but you stood in the way of everything my family has been working towards for years. We knew the day would come when the world would flip on its axis and take its people for a ride. I knew I had to prepare for that. And here we are. I'm just glad that my family is here, with me. So I can keep them safe."

     Eden looked over at Joseph, an expression somewhere between anger and heartbreak on her face. "I knew so many people that were worth saving. I just wanted to save them. But instead, I doomed them and led them straight to their deaths." Eden told Joseph, her eye contact unwavering as she spoke.

     "You tried to be a leader when you're barely more than a child yourself. It never would have worked." Joseph said quietly. A pause settled between them.

Deep down she knew he was right. Even though she was in her 20s she still felt like that scared little kid she wanted to leave behind.

"But your efforts were valiant." Joseph stated, breaking the silence.

"Maybe...but it was all for nothing." Eden replied.

Joseph studied her. Her head was leaned against the wall, her eyes staring up at nothing. Her facial expression wasn't blank, it was filled with a deep level of pain that Joseph only knew when he mourned his wife and daughter.

"It led you here. You're meant to feel the embrace of my family's love. You may not see it now, but this is where you're meant to be." Joseph couldn't tell if his message fell on deaf ears or not.

     The only thing he knew for sure was this: she was starting to open up to him.

     Eden didn't know how long it had been since she felt the sun on her skin.

     The minutes lumped into hours, the hours lumped into days, which in turn lumped into weeks, then months. Unmeasured time smothered her. The memories of what she left behind drifted further and further away.

     It had been ages since Grace shook Eden's hand, but every time she looked at her jittery palms they tingled from the touch of the short lived embrace. Her voice was getting muffled now, slowly swept away deeper into Eden's memory.

     She felt that way about all of her friends. Her family. Nick, Kim, Sharky, Hurk, Jess, hell even Adelaide. They were all getting murky in the thick mess of Eden's mind.

     She remembered the times they had together like it was yesterday, but their voices starting getting quieter and quieter. The jokes and laughs were beginning to fade away.

     To keep herself busy, Eden tried to press herself for details about their times together. She would remember certain times with certain people and try to recreate those moments in her mind as close to real life as she could remember it.

     Before long, those memories began to creep into her dreams. She would dream up days spent in the Wolfs Den studying maps with Eli and listening to Wheaty's new music or her hunting trips with Grace and Jess. Every time she woke up with wet cheeks, still trapped in the same cold, unforgiving cage.

     Joseph spent more of his time confiding in Eden. She didn't want him to, but he would just start talking and Eden hadn't found a way to shut him up, other than talking about herself. Jacob came around less and less. She didn't know why, it wasn't like she was upset or anything, but sometimes she wished she had another face to look at.

     Oddly enough, there was another person that also came around her more often. John. Eden didn't want to open up to him, so she usually stayed quiet. Whether it was out of courtesy to her or for his own enjoyment, John would inform her often that he didn't think she should be alive. He told her that he didn't believe she was worthy of being saved, but Joseph said so.

     Eden never got upset with John. She didn't have the will to cuss him out, give him a snide remark, or even shoot him a dirty look anymore. She barely listened when he spoke. She went somewhere else entirely. Until he finally said something worth listening too.

     "Why do you think Jacob chose you?"

     This unfortunately got Eden's attention and she looked over at John. He stared intently at her, his eyes hungry for something.

     "What?"

     "Why do you think Jacob chooses to protect you?" He barely allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch into a grin before trying to settle on a neutral face.

     Eden rolled her eyes and tried to go back to ignoring John and his stupid question. He was just trying to get a rise out of her.

     "It's a very simple question, Deputy." John continued and Eden looked back at John again.

     "Stupid question." She stated and tried to go back to ignoring him once again.

     John huffed indignantly and stood up. Eden hoped he might leave, but he walked towards her. He stopped when his feet were barely an inch away from hers, his form towering over her as she stayed seated. She tried to fight the urge to look up but decided to do it anyway.

     Eden looked up and saw John staring down at her. He knelt down in front of her as to be more level with her, but of course he still stayed a little taller than her so she had to look up at him.

     John studied her face, which Eden tried to keep neutral as best she could but she really didn't like him being this close to her. She must've showed her uncomfortableness on her face because John seemed pleased. He didn't smile more than his usual half grin, but his eyes seemed satisfied.

     He raised his hand and brought it up to Eden's face, brushing his finger against her cheek. Eden moved her face away from his hand and a voice broke the uncomfortable silence.

     "Joseph wants you." The familiar gravelly voice made John retract his hand. Eden looked over at the doorway where the voice was coming from.

     Jacob was standing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. John looked at his brother and then back at Eden, a slight grin on his face. "Right on time." He whispered and stood up.

     "Well then let's see what he wants, hm?" John mused and walked to the doorway, he paused to wait for Jacob to move out of the way. Jacob didn't move so John shook his head and crept past his brother.

     John glanced back at Eden and walked out of sight. Eden looked back at the wall across from her, ignoring Jacob. Despite her lack of interaction, Jacob walked into her room.

"I'm thinking of putting a lock on my door." Eden mumbled, it was half a joke, half exasperation at the amount of people waltzing into the only place she could be alone.

Jacob sighed and leaned on the back of the chair across from Eden. "Mind if I lock myself in here too? John is getting on my last nerve." Jacob grumbled and sat down.

Silence filled the room as neither one of them spoke. What John just asked Eden rang in her head. But she didn't know if she wanted to bring it up.

"Do you think there's anything left up there?" Jacob asked Eden, effectively breaking the silence of the room.

Eden shrugged, she wasn't nonchalant, she just didn't know what she thought. "I hope so...but I doubt it." Her mind trailed off to thoughts about the world outside the bunker. Was there anything waiting for them up there? If they opened that door right now, what would they see?

"How long have we been down here?" Eden asked Jacob. He let out a quick sigh and did some calculations in his head.

"I don't know... three or four months?" He replied, he didn't seem very sure though.

Eden nodded, drifting off into thought again. Months. Not weeks, months. She had been stuck in this hell hole for months at a time. "How long are we supposed to be here?" She asked and looked Jacob in the eye, he wasn't looking at her.

     Jacob brushed his hair back over his head and looked at Eden, they locked eyes. "Until Joseph says we can come out, I guess." He answered her honestly. "Or we die."

     The last statement hung in the air. It was a heavy truth, but a truth nonetheless.

     "Is this how you thought you'd go?" Eden asked him and Jacob let out a brief chuckle.

     "Hell no. You?" Eden shook her head. She had thought she was going to die a lot, but she never imagined a situation like this. She didn't know what would be better, dying in this bunker, or waiting to see what kind of awful condition the world was surely in.