Reese stared at the last can of food, the label long since fallen off. It could have been anything from baked beans to fruit cocktail. He hoped for the latter, something sweet as a last meal.

He swallowed hard at the thought, the muscles of his chest tight. So many sacrifices, some many lines crossed he never thought he would have to contemplate as a good man. He had done everything and anything to survive, until he was the last man of the bunker, staring down a mystery can, the last scrap of food in this mausoleum.

Five years of bloody, brutal survival brought down by a single can of food.

Reese snagged it, forcing down the lump in his throat as he hacked into the lid with his knife. The metal was dull from long overuse, but it was good

enough to pry a hole for him to eat from. He paused a long moment as the smell hit him. Just his luck, beans.

He hated beans.

He choked them down, trying not to dwell on how long he had left before the slow death of starvation finally brought down the last survivor of Bunker 8. Reese threw the empty can against the wall, listening to the echoing clatter of metal on linoleum. There were so few disruptive sounds now, not like in the first days, where they all huddled together, listening to the end of the world above them.

The end was a chorus of noise, the crescendo of explosions, the deafening boom of structures crashing and buckling, the roaring rush of unleashed water from the dam, and the screams. One would think with all the other noise, human screams would be lost in the mix. It was a lie, as if they were tuned to hear the sounds of their dying brethren in the chaos, a reminder of the cost of their survival.

Reese squatted in the flickering lights of the bunker with the others, listening to the sounds of destruction and thanked his lucky stars he'd been one of the chosen few. Now he wondered if it would have been better than the slow crawl to death he'd performed these past years.

Bunker 8, the self sustaining unit, built with all the amenities in mind to last its inhabitants for three years through an extinction level event. The numbered slots were selected at random, drawn through a nation wide lottery. He'd entered as a joke, never expecting his number to be called.

Tell no one. Bring one suitcase to this address, with your key.

Those were the instructions, because you could bring no family, no wife, or child, or lover. Reese spent three nights wondering if he could do something so cold to Hannah, his girlfriend of ten years. He'd left the last night before she woke without saying a word. The first line he'd crossed.

The others shared similar stories. Rodriguez left three kids and a wife, his youngest barely a year old. June left her bed ridden grandmother to fend for herself. Meggy walked right out of a family dinner, the youngest of them at fifteen. Carl had the decency to put his parents down before he left, one shot to the back of the head apiece. No one judged him. He had the most compassion out of them all.

He'd also been the first to die.

Reese walked through the empty halls of the bunker, passing the Red Room. He paused outside it, pressing his hand against he painted metal. They waited for him inside, Carl, Meggy, Rodriguez, even little pistol whip June. All of them lay in the quiet cold of the Red Room. He'd join them soon enough. Would have to be careful, though, there was no one left to carry his body to rest. He remembered placing the others inside with reverent care. It was a chilled storage room before they made it their morgue.

Stop thinking of death. It shall happen when it happens. Reese paced the empty halls of the bunker, trailing his fingers through the dust. Maybe he wouldn't spend his last hours among the dead in the Red Room. He stopped at the narrow metal stairs leading to the outside door.

There was a small window there, next to the plaque for bunker 8. The number had come loose a couple years back, slumping onto its side into a infinity sign. Reese thought it was a bit of a cosmic joke, a reminder of the infinite loop of his days.

His finger traced the sideways 8 as he peered out the window into the eternal storm. Nothing to stop him from flinging the door wide, a final cry to the blackened heavens. Funny, he'd stopped June from doing the same thing only a few months back, when it was just the two of them left. She told him she wanted to answer the fury of god. He begged her not to, and when she hadn't listened, he'd slammed her face into the metal door.

Until she stopped moving.

He'd carried her battered body to the Red Room and carefully laid her on the floor beside the others. Of all the lines he'd crossed, that had been the last.

Bunker 8, it had been designed to sustain them for three years. The food lasted longer as their number dwindled but it was still a crap shoot. They were never meant to leave.

Reese pressed his face to the thick glass, feeling the cool wetness of tears track down his face. His fingers curled along the edges of the fallen 8, trying to rip it from the wall. What was the point of survival when he was alone in an empty hell. His hand relaxed. June was right. Why not greet the fury of god? He'd run from it long enough.

He opened the door and walked into the storm.

Bzzzzzzzzzz.

'Interesting choice at the end. I really thought he would hold on till the last second,' said the first voice to the tap of a pen on a clipboard.

'I wouldn't have pegged him as the last one, but Carl's early checkout skewed the numbers." said the second voice over the pour of coffee into a stained porcelain mug. 'Shall we run it again?'

'Yes. We haven't located the variant yet. All the tools are there, but it's like they can't see the answers yet.'

The second voice paused, tapping the console. 'They will find the answer eventually, a way to survive, to continue. Okay, wipe it and start it again.'

Bzzzzzzzzzzz.

Reese entered the lottery as a joke. The key arrived with a set of instructions. Tell no one. Bring one suitcase to this address, with your key.

He gripped the scrap of metal so tight it burned against his palm. He could hear Hannah in the other room. They'd been together for ten years. Ten years of laughs and fights, sex and cuddles, so many moments. Could he really walk away from her without saying a word? They said the end was coming. Only a few days to decide before the unavoidable war was unleashed. He had a way to survive in his hand, but here was a line to cross. Once he did there was no going back.

Hannah was digging through old photos, recapturing memories of friends and family, trying to find a sense of solace before their world came crashing down. She was muttering to herself. He could picture her nibbling on her lip, her hair falling across her eyes. He uncurled his fingers, staring at the key.

Did he really want to face the end alone?

"Hannah, I have something to tell you."