By: Youheng Zhong

8/17/2037 — I had always been the quiet one—the observer. While others in our underground society moped about their lives, I listened. It seemed too egocentric to me to shout “Oh woe is me,” when everyone else was in the same situation. The world above was a distant memory, a place that had become more legend than reality over the long years we had spent underground. We were the forgotten ones: the survivors who had become shadows in the depths of the subway system we called home.

Our days were marked by the rhythmic hum of generators and the soft murmur of voices echoing off tiled walls. Every so often, stragglers who got kicked out of other communities would find our haven and join us. Every seven days or so the council would gather us to lecture about what was in store for the future. The council, the self-appointed “guardians” of our group, talked about the surface as a world engulfed in flames; where cities had been reduced to rubble and craters from the nuclear war.

I didn’t believe them though. I never remembered any wars, or black skies or flames surrounding me, I remembered living in a perfectly normal city. Until, one day, some men dressed in all black came and knocked me out. A hospital bed. Dimly lit. The stab of a needle.

Then, I woke up in here, told that I had been saved from an incoming missile. My developing theory was that they forgot to brainwash me or that needle that they stabbed me with was dosed with the wrong medication. I had tried to pry out information from people, but they didn’t seem to remember anything from before the fallout like I did. They seemed to think they were here their whole lives—that couldn’t be true though, we had only been here a month and some had been here even less.

This day though, we had run out of supplies. The council had gathered us, panicking, probably since their idiotic brains couldn’t handle figuring out how to hide their scheme. Since I was one of the first ones around, I was among those more respected, and I used it to get everyone on board that we should go out to the wasteland to salvage what we could. The council members eyed each other, saying that there was nothing left up there, but I argued that a nuke’s radiation range could only cover ten to 20 miles. Whispers of doubt traveled through the crowd, and the council quickly agreed that someone must venture out for the sake of the community.

Elara was chosen to go up to the surface. It was a good choice; she was intelligent and didn’t panic easily. During her preparation, there was a light in her eyes that I had not seen in anyone’s for years. It was the spark of hope, the possibility of a life free from the confines of our underground world.
The day she left, we gathered at the base of the staircase that led upwards to the unknown. The heavy hatch that separated us from the surface opened, and she stepped through. We waited, counting each breath, each heartbeat, wondering if we would ever see her again.

Just three hours later, Elara returned—without the radiation suit the council had given her. The suit that was meant to protect her from the toxic air hung loosely from her frame, and her eyes… her glittering eyes held a story that none of us were prepared for.

She spoke of green fields and clear skies, a world untouched by the war that had driven us underground. The surface was not a wasteland but a living, breathing world that had moved on without us. The war, the destruction, the endless fight for survival—it was all a lie.