Weaponry. Control panels. Floodlights. Masks. Suits. Why on earth was all of this here? My heart continued to race and my head throbbed from the painful light. Maybe even more than that. Fear, confusion.

The room wasn't very large. Or maybe it was, but it was packed tight with so many supplies that just the nine of us seemed like a crowd.

On one side of the wall was a large array of different weaponry. After sifting through it, I was disappointed that none of the guns came with ammo, or were smashed to bits. On the other side of the room were a bunch of screens and panels. One of them showed a display of a digital square box. It read, Generator: On. 21% power. Approximately 446.4 hours of power time left.

Another that really caught my eye read in flashing red, Aboveground microSievert level (PH): 12, then, Critically high. Unchanged for 37,239 days. My heart sped up, faster and faster until I could barely breathe.

"What's it mean?" I yelled. "What? Are we going to die?"

"I don't think so," Zenon said. "I think it's old technology." He walked over to the flashing screen and tapped it. Nothing happened, and he looked below the screen, where there was an empty outlet. Beside it was an unplugged keyboard and a small, yellow box with its own screen. A 'Geiger', as it was printed on the yellow. I picked the Geiger up and flipped it over, finding a tiny switch. After flicking it on, the screen read the same thing as the larger one did. 12 µSv. Critically high.

"What's a microSievert?" I thought aloud.

"Sounds dangerous," Zenon replied.

I nodded and moved on to the next item I found. A strange-looking mask, dark greenish in colour with tinted lenses and a long tube connected to the mouthpiece. It looked like something that would be used to protect the user from something in the air. Maybe the 'microSieverts', whatever those were.

"Hey, take a look at this." Zenon handed me a shiny wad of paper. The ink on the front was smeared, but even the font the words were written in made my blood run cold.

Use of Bomb Shelter

and What to Do During Emergencies

Bomb shelter! I did a quick sweep of the room, and realized that this was what it was. This room was a bomb shelter. But why would there be bomb shelters if there were no bombs?

Or maybe there were bombs.

Perhaps that was why the Earth was so... ruined. It made so much more sense, anyhow, because I doubted that just the sun could do so much damage. It explained the nuclear poisoning I'd seen written down on paper, and probably also microSieverts if I knew what that meant. Maybe it's say it in the booklet. Flipping through, I scanned the pages for anything about the topic. Sure enough, there was a whole chapter labelled 'Radiation and Nuclear Poisoning.'

After skimming through, I found out that microSieverts, or µSv, was the measurement of radiation. And that 4 µSv PH was as high as it should go. I looked down at the Geiger, which told me it was currently 12 µSv PH. Three times as much as it should've been. I started to panic, but forced myself not to. It hadn't changed for over thirty-thousand days. Almost forty-thousand. Then why weren't we dying?

I read on, learning that 5 µSv was known as critically high. I still couldn't understand. We should be dead, then.

Forty-thousand days. After some quick math, I figured that would be about a hundred years. Enough time to adapt... and for animals to mutate.

It almost made too much sense.

"That's it," I said. "That's why we're alive. We've adapted over the years."

"Adapted to what?" I didn't even have to answer Zenon. He looked at the title of the page I was reading and he murmured, "Radiation. Humans adapted, and animals..."

"Mutated," I finished. "Their own way of adaption, I guess."

"Here's the ladder!" I heard Orion shout. He hit a heel against the metal side, then shook it a bit to test its stability. Just beyond that hatch was my old home, the place I grew up in. The place I was almost killed in.

"You're probably the strongest one here," Zenon told Orion. "You go up first." I couldn't tell whether he was telling the truth, or saying it just because Zenon didn't want to go first. Either way, Orion started up the ladder. With the now present light, we could see where the hatch was. He pushed up on the door repeatedly until it creaked open. He nearly slipped right off when a pile of black ash came raining down on top of him.

"Careful!" Skai said.

"Come on, sis. I'm fine." Orion laughed it off and crawled up, disappearing into the door.

"Want me to carry Adelyn up?" Zenon asked Terri.

"Not sure," Terri replied. He looked down at Adelyn, who nodded her head. "Yes please," she said.

"Alright," Zenon said, then lifted her off her feet. She clung onto his shoulders like a wolf attacking its prey and waited as he climbed the ladder. I was right behind him.

When I reached the top, my heart skipped a beat and my stomach clenched. I felt as if a fist had pummelled me.

We were standing right outside of the Forest. Or at least what remained of it. Ash settled around my feet, making my brown boots turn black. I looked around at all the buildings. Somewhere in the back of my mind, everything seemed familiar, but now there was just something about the city that caused me unease. Maybe the desolation of it, or just the fact that so many terrible things had happened here.

But desolation was probably a very good description of what I was seeing before me. No human in sight. Except... except...

A huddle of people. Probably ten or so. Really far away, however, almost directly at the base of the Empire.

"You see that too?" Zenon said to me. I hadn't noticed how close he was to me. When his hand grazed mine, on purpose or by accident, it raised goosebumps on my skin. I wasn't frightened, though. A strange chill that was foreign to me.

"Yeah," I said. "You think they're dangerous?"

"We'd better not find-"

I dropped to my knees, instinctively bringing Zenon with me just as a loud sound rang out, and something buried itself into the ground. The group of people. Someone was firing at us. A couple shrieks came from the prisoners, and mostly everyone had their bodies crushed up against the ground. I looked around to make sure no one was injured.

"April," Zenon said. "How much ammo do you have left?"

"Not sure. There's one bullet gone from the real gun and probably not that many left in the tranquilizer." I pushed the tranquilizer in front of me and popped the cartridge open. I counted how many darts lay in there. Three. And how many enemies were out there? Probably more than ten.

"Get behind a building or something," I said, clicking the cartridge back into place. "I only have three darts. Should we run?"

Another bang.

"Definitely," Zenon said. He sprang to his feet and darted over to the nearest building, leaning against it. In a few seconds, we were all there, and I stared around the corner with the tranquilizer trained on the man with the gun. Even from the great distance between us, I could tell he was pointing it at us. The man knew where we were, without a doubt.

"You gonna shoot?" Zenon whispered beside me.

"Don't know." I continued to follow the guy around, and he started to advance on us. "He's coming closer."

"Shoot!"

And so I did. I pulled the trigger, and the dart came flying from the muzzle of the tranquilizer. I relaxed my grip on it when I watched the man crumple to the ground. "Hit him!" I said.

"Hey!" The others raced over to him, dragging him back to their original spot. To my surprise, a few of them pulled out their own guns. And they started running.

I cursed under my breath and grabbed Zenon's shoulder. "We'd better run," I said. "They're coming."

"Agh!" I looked behind me, where a boy was clutching his side. He was lying on the ground now.

"Finn!" Skai dropped to her knees beside him, then repeated his name. The boy, I recognized, was the one who was with Skai and Orion in their cell. He had lighter skin than them, and golden-brown eyes that flickered under glistening tears.

"Finn, no. Finn... You're going to be okay. Okay. Okay..." I knew now that she was had been close to this boy. He was younger, probably Terri's age. They weren't siblings. I knew that much. And on top of that, Orion was watching, just like me, so they couldn't of had that much friendship going on. Or maybe he was just being obscure.

I approached Skai silently, still watching for the people that were advancing on us. I fixed my eyes on Finn. He was surprisingly calm-looking, even though tears streaked freely from his eyes and down his cheek. He looked at me, but said nothing. His expression said, "I'm accepting the fact that I'm going to die." It hit something inside me. For a moment, I saw Jay instead of Finn. His ruffled blond hair, slate-coloured eyes. The scenery around us changed too. We were in the Forest now. Darkness. Len bent over Jay and shook his shoulders instead of Skai. Len. Len. Len was gone... in the city...

We had to save her.

I snapped back to reality. "Skai," I said softly, trying to make sure the fear in my voice was concealed as best as possible.

She did as little as make eye contact with me, then said, "He's going to be okay."

No. No, you have to listen to me. If we spend any more time, we're going to die. "We need to go," I said.

"But... Finn..." His eyes were closed now. His rapid breathing slowed and stopped. Then there were more gunshots, narrowly missing my head. The enemies rounded the corner of the building.

"We should go," I said. I tugged on the sweater Skai was wearing, but felt bad for doing so. She stared in sorrow at Finn's body, then snapped out of her haze just as quickly as the bullet left the gun.

"Zenon! Keep going!" I shouted, chasing after everyone else. Without turning around, I told Skai, "I'm sorry."

"Everyone has a fate..." she started to say, but choked up. "But why must people die so young?"

"It's a cruel world." I didn't know what to say, and searched for something to cheer her up. But given the situation (ten armed people chasing us, Skai's friend just been killed) it was hard to do so. "I think the best of people have the worst of fates." And I wasn't just talking about Finn. I was speaking for Jay, for all the helpless people that were executed.

For my parents.

"I think so too," Skai sobbed. "He was only twelve."

"You know, I knew someone named Jay-" Three gunshots went off at once. I swung my gun around and fired blindly, hitting one of the people. He fell, sending the gun flying. More gunshots. Nobody was hit.

Then I was swept to the ground, a sharp pain entering my back. At first I panicked I was shot, that I was done for, but soon realized there was no boot. I heard Skai call my name loudly, then someone grabbed my hands and pressed them behind me. I didn't dare to scream for help. The only view I had was of pavement, so I tipped my head upward. Zenon was sprinting toward me.

Someone kicked me in the head so hard that I could see stars. This time I did scream.

"Zenon!"

"Hold on." A whacking sound, followed by a grunt.

"Get off me!" someone called out. Another whack. Another grunt. Soon enough, I was pulled up by my arms so that I was sitting upright.

And Zenon was beside me, also tied up. No, not tied up. Just being held hostage.

The others had stopped by now. Orion was leading a few people toward us, holding a knife out. Where he'd gotten it from, I didn't know.

"Back off," one of our captors spat.

"You!" Orion snapped back.

"We're the ones with the guns, brother. You'll end up like that kid back there if you decide to come at us. And so will these two dimwits."

"Don't touch him!" Skai yelled. She pushed herself in front of Orion. "Please!"

Our captor laughed a deadly laugh.

"Sis, stop it-" I felt the gun being lifted from my back by the captors. I squirmed in fear, but was given a knee to the back of my head.

"Screw off," Zenon hissed.

"Hey, buddy. Guess what?"

"What the heck do you want?"

"Shut up!" The man burst out into laughter, and Zenon pursed his lips and rolled his eyes. "Hey, buddy," he mocked in his best maniacal tone, "Guess what?" He drove an elbow into the guy's leg, and he howled in pain.

"You'd better not do that again, if you know what's good for you," the man said.

"Hands off 'em," Orion said again. He held his knife tighter.

"Want us to shoot you?" the man asked.

Orion whipped the knife toward the man, with accuracy so great it was surprising. It buried itself in his chest so deep the blade disappeared. The blood came quickly after.

The man swore repeatedly as the blood came flowing out. He grabbed at the knife with his knobbly fingers, but failed each time, then collapsed with convulsions and bloody coughs that spattered on the pavement.

I worried that one of our captors would harm Orion, but they did nothing. Didn't even say anything, either.

"Leave, or we open fire."

Orion didn't move a muscle. A faint smirk twitched on his mouth.

"We'll be okay," I tried to mouth, but Orion shook his head in confusion. I tried something else. "Go." Still silently. This time he did understand. He may not have said so plainly, but the way he clenched his jaw and flicked his eyes to his left notified me.

"Let's go, guys," Orion said, keeping his expression blank.

"Orion, what're you doing-" Skai grabbed her brother's arm.

"Stop it, sis. I know what I'm doing." There was something about his tone that told me there was a hidden message underlying his sentence. Skai got it too, I knew.

"Okay, I trust you," she said.

Then someone stepped out beside Skai. Lissandra. "Don't kill them," she said.

"No promises," said one of our captors.

"Let's go," said Orion.