“I am a monster for excusing myself at the deaths I should have saved.”
The lights flicker once, twice, and then die, plunging us back into darkness. I sit among the others, illuminated only by the failing glow of broken ceiling tubes—some hanging at odd angles, others completely dead. Dust drifts downward like motes in a stale shaft of light, settling on my skin, making my eyes itch. Time has passed. I have no idea whether it’s been over a day or merely the last dozen hours. My body is curled tight, knees to chest, armpit pressed against shin. I am too tired to uncoil.
Around me, murmurs ripple through shadows, distressing and unintelligible. I crouch, isolated by near deafness—an echoing hush as if I’m diving through murky water. My goggles gone, vision blurred; I can see the outlines of ten others who were too close to the blast, their faces gaunt in the half light.
Flicker...dark...flicker...dark.
Sometimes I drift across the wide corridor of the bunker like a ghost, but no one recognizes me as a doctor. Those I had helped before are gone—either carried away to other tunnels or already dead. Down here, at least a dozen meters below earth, none of us were severely wounded. I was caught just off the path—in a sub chamber between the tunnel and this bunker. If it weren’t for that sky plate falling, we never would’ve made it here in time. It shattered my hearing, but spared my life. Ears don’t matter much compared to survival.
Still, all the injured lie above now, beneath the stone, buried or lost. Some may have reached other bunkers near the lake, but most didn’t make it.
I stand—more a lift than a move—and remain rooted beside a silent stranger. My face drains of what relief I felt at surviving. Survival itself feels shallow now, insufficient.
I stare at the flickering lights—artificial, cruel, mimicking a world that once boasted an eternal yellow sun. They pulse weakly, mocking the sun that “existed for billions of years” before the Apocalypse. Reality distorts between light and void, and I have no clue what to feel. The plate saved me, yes—but it also collapsed the only exit.
We number at least one hundred souls. Maybe more. I can’t recall how much food is left, or water. Soon oxygen will dwindle. Soon we’ll suffocate. Soon we’ll rot in this earthen tomb. I place my hand over my wrist, feeling pulse thrum behind my ribs. Thoughts swim, but I push them away. I want to cherish this moment—surviving near death—but guilt claws at me.
I see...him. The old man from before. I killed his hope by not pulling him in time. I was the last through the door—I made it. One second more and my body would have been flattened with the others. He’s gone. But his pleading hand haunts me.
My gaze drifts from the dead strip of flickering light to the stone floor and back to the corpseless void. Should I sleep? Maybe it would be merciful to drift off unaware, to avoid the reality of being eaten limb by limb outside, as the military failed to save them. Or crushed by falling sky fragments.
But I can’t sleep. Not after what I did—and what I must still do.
I cannot let that be my undoing. The old man, wherever he is—maybe in some afterlife—whatever he’s waiting for, I still owe him something. I have to do more than waste my remaining time here.
My family flickers into my mind—my anchor in this ghostly underworld. My father, strong though twice my age: even he would die protecting my mother and Lena. I ache with longing—I ache with fear. Saliva drips from the corner of my mouth, and I suddenly see it: a bitter, angry smirk curling the edge of my lips. I miss them more than my own breath.
But worse than the distance is the vulnerability. I fear something will happen to them.
I couldn’t even protect a stranger in mud.
I swallow thickly, tasting grit and regret. I imagine my sister, bored and restless, kicking my leg during a family show. I think of my mother fussing over the dinner table, rearranging plates, reminding me to help. And my father—eyes glued to some fishing documentary I never understood, and frankly never cared about. I should’ve cared more.