As they passed by some fields, he watched as a space exploration vessel took flight and failed to finish takeoff. The wind had picked up and flung it east of his bus, which was heading north. The result was a white flash and an explosion that rocked the bus. Everyone Screamed and yelled, by the time it was over, the bus was full of crying and a faint light filled the bus from a distant inferno.
The Rocket had killed many most likely and the city was ablaze in a flame many times stronger than normal or necessary to finish its duties of burning the city. Odds were, it would burn up until the nuclear disaster wiped his temporary home off the face of the earth. He hadn’t really lived there very long, really only a couple years, he still felt remorse for leaving all those other people.
He was only eighteen though so he figured, a healthy young man might be better use than an elderly person in a bunker for work. He flat refused to admit the robots would do almost everything though and that there were countless infants left to die. The thoughts struck home and he bust out crying with the rest of the others. The only ones who held strong were the driver and the military people onboard. He figured they must have seen much death at war, and were now trying to stay strong for the others onboard. The exception of the driver. If Derrek had paid enough attention during the rest of the drive he’d have realized the bumps in the road were gun shots and people running in front of the bus, not just cars. The driver had tears streaming down his face past his riot mask and helmet.
After a short thirty minute drive they pulled out front of a large hill with many fences and razor wires spread about out front. The military base was bustling with activity, but what drew his attention the most was the gaping hole in the ground in the middle of the hill. The bus literally drove up to the entrance and stopped at a line surrounding the hole.
He looked back to find the bus missing the rubber from one wheel he could see and the other was flat and punctured in multiple places. Thankfully he didn’t notice the front painted a second shade of red in a layer of drying blood and oil. They all departed and made their way around to the line. While waiting, he took the time to look into the chasm. To his relief, it stopped a mere hundred feet down at a series of gigantic elevators stationed around the center numbered one through twelve.
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He figured he would be entering one, generally indicated by the massive amounts of random looking people being shoved in then lowered down. He thought they must be bunkers so he was elated at the thought of surviving. Then another wave of grief and guilt over-road him and he moped his way to the front of the line after a couple hours waiting on some concrete paths.
He finally stepped forward and found himself at the front of the line confronted by a military looking official. The man didn’t even ask him anything, he just grasped Derrek’s hand and pressed his thumb to a scanner. Not even a moment passed and a green light showed on its top. His one wise word before departing was “Go!” He was then roughly shoved forward and handed off to the line for elevator eleven without a word. He was wondering what the difference between the bunkers was when he realized that while some had strictly infants and parents, others had single looking people. One had poor men and woman and the rest were all wealthy looking people coming down from a different lift. Realization came over him and he looked at his group. They were all teens wearing the same style rough clothing, they were all orphans. His line was considerably longer too. He was shoved forward once again from the line behind him and he made his way into the elevator with another large batch of kids.
They started the decent, passing other elevators on their way up, stopping every now and then for others to load above them. It was almost like riding a Ferris wheel, except more rough and they were in a box covered in rebar. As he made the descent the visibility dropped to near nothing for over a ten minutes. Then a faint blue light made its way out of the darkness below, and grew with intensity until they reached the bottom another ten minutes later.