(Prompt photo by Jean Wimmerlin on Unsplash.com)

Pausing to wipe his brow with the cleanest part of his arm, Nemmi continues his discussion. "Must go further to get enough to feed them, you know that."

"Too tired, too hot to care, it's useless trying to find anything out here in this..."

"No! We keep going, keep looking, they need us!" Nemmi interrupts himself. He has been arguing with himself for years, scavenging in The Forgotten does that to you.

He pauses from the top of a short, scruffy dune and surveys the area. Everything is mostly beige, the sky meets the earth in a dirty, oily heap. Not much survives out here. He kicks at an odd tenacious weed, clinging to life in a crag.

"See, useless, nothing here, we're all gonna STARVE!"

Nemmi takes a careful sip from his canteen as he squints to see through the haze.

"No, wait I see something, might be a Remains."

"Woop de do! A Remains, as if we haven't been through every blasted Remains out here by now. Waste. Of. Time!"

"Enough now, we are going in." Sometimes even Nemmi gets fed up with the tantrums of his other voice.

He treks over to the next dune and scrambles down to the Remains. It's low, filled with dirt and sand. The roof appears to be intact, some kind of curved concrete building.

"Weow! Must have been uncovered in that sandstorm last night."

"Huh! SO? Great! An unearthed concrete shed, can't sell that. What you gonna find?"

"Maybe a door or window. There must be some way in, Ahh, here." The glass is long gone, likely broken up, ground to dust like everything else in this place, but Nemmi spots the window.

He unclips the folding shovel, his most valued possession, from his belt. It makes light work of digging through the dirt. That's why he held on to it, opening up these remains would be near impossible without it. Even during the weeks when he found nothing, his family eating the bitter, scraggy weeds they could scavenge, he held on to it, hiding it from his wife's desperation. He shook his head, dislodging the dark memory. He just had to find something today, that was the only answer.

Sticking his head in through the window, the cool dark interior greets him, peaceful and surprisingly clear, only a foot or two of dirt. These places are usually filled near to the top. He smiles at the promise of quick, easy scavenging.

Nemmi sets to work. This is the part he enjoys the most, digging out the story of the remains, of the family who once lived here from a nearly forgotten world, where life was easy and water was on tap. He reaches for a picture on the wall, clearing the grime, two children look back at him, grinning, well fed and carefree. He sees them run off, hand in hand in their colourful clothes, shrieking with laughter.

"Enough with your silly daydreams, it gets you NOTHING! Get back to it, I wanna get out of here."

Sighing, Nemmi cuts the picture from its frame and stows it, someone might buy it for nostalgia.

Experience taught him to focus his efforts on the edges, walls are where pipes and wires live, the precious scrap he is searching for to feed his family this week. But today Nemmi starts to clear a path through the centre, maybe it's the picture of the kids, so close in age to his two, or maybe it's on a whim. Who knows.

The edge of a rug emerges, beige with dirt like everything else, but he can just make out a pattern.

"What you gonna do with that! Can't exactly carry it back with you!" His voice is right, useless. He digs on.

Thunk!

A sound, hollow, stops Nemmi in his tracks. Investigating, it sounds out to be about 3 foot by 4, a rectangle of hollow wood set in the floor beneath this large rug. He clears enough dirt to roll the rug up, exposing the floor beneath.

In the floor is a trap door, with a metal ring handle.

"Grab the metal handle! It's enough, we can make tracks!"

"Not before we see what's down there." Nemmi sets about freeing the door, eventually pulling it open on rusted hinges.

"Screaming, stinking zombies! No WAY we're going down there! It's Dark! Scary as ..."

"Well, I'm going down there."

"Well I'm staying put. MAD you are, going down there!"

Smirking at the absurdity of his other voice, Nemmi descends the metal ladder, "See, more scrap metal to pick up on the way back." But his observation goes unanswered. His other voice is keeping its word about staying behind.

The ladder keeps going down, beyond the normal depth of a cellar. How deep does this go? A small stone falls from the trapdoor, pinging on a few rungs, missing his head but then keeps falling. Nemmi stops to listen for it to land.

Silence.

He pauses, undecided, should he return? No, not now. He continues down into the dark as the rectangle of light above him gets smaller.

By the time he reaches the bottom, his legs are shaking with exhaustion. He collapses in a heap looking up at the tiny rectangle of light above him. "What is this place?"

As if in answer, there is a whirring noise, a clunk, then a series of dim wall mounted lights come on, revealing a long curved corridor, lined with corrugated iron. Who has power around here? And so much metal!

A sip from his canteen restores him enough to move.

"Wow, this place would feed us for years!"

"Now! You're back?"

"Not dark anymore," the voice shrugs, "This place is .... interesting!"

Agreeing, Nemmi sets off down the corridor.

Endless seems to be a reoccurring theme of this place, the corridor continues on and on. The monotony similar to trekking through the Forgotten, but without the heat.

"Bored now, this is boring, can we go home now?"

"No. Wait! I see something, a door!"

"Bet it's locked."

The door is oval, solid looking, and ...ajar? Light is streaming through the gap.

"Hello?" Nemmi steps through the opening into a short, clinical corridor with rooms leading off. He glimpses dusty, metal tables through a doorway.

"No one's going to answer you, they're either dead or ....undead..."

"Thanks for that, you really have been reading too many zombie magazines." He mumbles, then louder, "Hello?"

Shuffling forward, Nemmi's eyes bulge at a room full of stores.

"Hi there, we wondered when we'd be found again." A woman in an orange tunic stands in a doorway.

"Agh!"

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you. Adi by the way, you are?" The woman holds out her hand, smiling.

"Ugh!"

"Eloquent as ever!" His voice chides.

"Shut up!"

"Sorry?" Adi frowns.

"Not you, sorry, it's Nemmi." Reaching to shake her hand, Nemmi sees his deep filth against her pristine apron. He retracts his hand wiping it on his grimy smock.

Adi doesn't appear to notice. "I'll just shut this, then take you to the others. It's been so long since we've had a Newbie, they'll be so excited to meet you." She closes the oval door, it clicks in place with a deep finality.

Nemmi swallows as he watches his route back sealed.

Adi sets off at a brisk pace, "This one stores brushes. We don't get down here very often, mostly live near the Hub." She points out the endless storage rooms as she passes, chatting away, the corridor lights come on as they approach.

"Close your mouth!" Nemmi had been following automatically, bug-eyed, overwhelmed by everything. He jumps slightly and closes his mouth.

By the time they reach the Hub, Nemmi is used to the bright, his brain starting to process details again.

The Hub seems less clinical, more homely with rooms leading off from a large airy atrium full of plants and soft music. Gathered on soft seating is a crowd of clean smiling people, "Newbie! Welcome!" They all greet him in a cacophony of cheerful voices, careful not to touch him.

"Well, this is us, the Restored, let's get you all cleaned up and through medical shall we, then we should be in time for grub." Adi takes charge again.

"Grub?"

"Grub, you know, food, bet you're hungry." She points to a corridor with amazing smells wafting down it.

A growl responds from his stomach, Adi giggles.

"Lovely!"

"But I really should be getting back," Nemmi starts, but catches a whiff of something delicious, his voice falters to a whisper, "You know, to my family." But he's talking to himself, Adi is off again, leading him down more corridors, the smell of food beckons and Nemmi follows, resolve fading with every step.

***

Scrubbed raw, probed, prodded and generally mauled about, Nemmi emerges, dressed in a blue smock and flimsy shoes. The only thing keeping him from protesting at each stage has been the tantalizingly wafts of food, dulling his thinking. He is so hungry.

"Ahh, all clean Newbie? Come sit with us." A tall man beckons.

"It's Nemmi."

"What?"

"My name, it's Nemmi."

"Ah, whatever, sit down and eat some of this delicious food, get some meat on your bones."

Adi settles the other side, "Dill? You are being nice to our guest aren't you, we don't want a repeat of last time."

"Last time?" Nemmi asks.

"Don't you worry about him, just eat up, I know you're hungry." Adi smiles but flashes a warning glance at the other man, Dill.

Grub is delicious, and there is just so much of it.

"Watch it, you don't want to eat too much, not until you are used to proper food." Adi puts a hand out preventing Nemmi's plate from being filled with seconds. "It'll make you sick."

Nemmi watches the food move on. Dill smirks at him as he forks another mouthful in from his bowl full of seconds.

Tearing his eyes away from the excess of food, Nemmi clears his throat. "Well this was nice, thank you, but I really must be getting back. Where can I get my stuff back?"

"Oh! I'm afraid that's all been burnt by now, Newbie." Dill blurts out.

"Dill! Not helpful!" Adi scolds.

"Burnt! No! Why? What about my shovel, I need that."

"All. Gone." Dill speaks slowly with delight.

"What!" Nemmi rises from his seat in panic.

"Dill! Enough! Oh too late, shame I was enjoying getting to know this one." Adi nods to a person behind Nemmi. A sharp prick in his neck and his world goes black.

*****

"Fine mess you've got us into here!"

"Agh!" Nemmi's head is throbbing with pain.

"I SAID not to come down here didn't I! Warned you!"

"Ugh!" Nemmi peels his face off the floor, head swimming. A concrete wall meets the clean floor, as he turns he sees more walls, a small windowless room with a closed metal door. The door has some kind of grill in it and a hatch.

"Hello? Are you awake yet?" A muffled voice calls through the wall.

"Err, Hello, What's going on?"

"Finally, you're awake!" The voice through the wall sounds relieved. "Hi there, I'm Tom, they call me Newbie 214 here, you must be 215. It's been so lonely here since they took Bret, he was 213...." He sighs, "We are prisoners of the Restored. They've been hiding away in their high-tech bunker, sheltered from the Catastrophe all this time. They're 'saving the species' apparently. I think they use us to enrich their gene pool, or as test subjects or something."

"Test subjects! Happy now? Told you not to come down here but nooo?"

"It's Nemmi, how long have you been down here?"

"No idea. Lost track after the first 10 years..."

Nemmi collapses back against the cold, hard floor, struggling to breathe.

"Great, just great! 'Saving the species!' SO noble! All the mangy, pig-headed minds, I had to go and get stuck down here with you!"