They took bicycles first. One boy, who everyone called Crazy because of his tousled hair, big glasses and twitching eyelids, cried that he didn't have a bike, and that he had qualms about stealing one.
"Steal it," Madeleine said, with indifferent eyes, while she opened the lock of hers, "or stay behind and die." She kicked back the kickstand and hopped on her bike. "Your choice."
He hesitated. They rode away without him.
Thirteen, Madeleine thought. Still too many.
The bunker only had supplies for twelve.
We'll probably lose two more on the road, she hoped.
Then she heard the squeaking, rattling sounds. Turning around, she saw Crazy, panting. He had taken what was probably the oldest bike on the whole school campus, as if that made the stealing less immoral.
Madeleine sighed. Back to fourteen again.
They rode the bikes until the road became a dirt road, and then, an almost indiscernible path overgrown with high stalks of grass. Walking made more sense at this point, and they got rid of the bikes. One girl hesitated to leave hers behind, crying that she had just gotten it for her birthday.
"Fine, carry it on your back then."
The girl hesitated, then left the bike, joining them as they ran up a hill. When they were high enough to overlook the treetops, some dared to turn and risk a look.
Until now, they had only heard the sounds. Sirens. Explosions. They didn't even know what they were.
"My God," whispered someone.
Below them, plumes of black smoke rose, darkening the sky, punctuated by flashes of light so bright they cut through the afternoon sun. The devastation stretched to the horizon.
Madeleine knew that it hadn't even started yet. This wasn't caused by what was coming. This was caused by the sirens. By the panic alone.
The irony of the apocalypse is that the announcement of it will kill just as many as the apocalypse itself—that was what her mother, an expert in all things apocalypse, had told her once.
"I said no one takes pictures!" Madeleine yelled, when Scott took out his phone.
"I'm not taking pictures. I wanna call my mom!"
"Call her. The rest, let's go. We have to be there before them."
Nobody knew who she meant by them.
Scott didn't care; staying behind, on the top of the hill, he fumbled around with his phone as the rest started descending into the forest to the other side.
Madeleine didn't care who the eleven were that would survive the first stage with her, but if she'd had to choose one not to survive it, it would've been Scott.
He was now throwing his phone in the air, as if that's how you'd catch reception, while yelling at the sky, cursing it for not giving him what he wanted.
Almost out of sight, Madeleine thought. Good. Down to thirteen again. She turned forward again and scanned the forest for markers.
There was the dead birch, split down the middle like a cracked bone, probably from a lightning strike. Ten steps past it, the three ash trees leaning east. Then the cluster of chokecherry bushes, too early for the berries, but Madeleine could identify them even without any berries.
She checked the angle of the light through the trees. The sun was where it should be, just above the ridge. That meant the moss-covered boulder would be up ahead. Her mother's book said to start counting there.
A scream, coming from the hill, interrupted her. It was Scott. And this time, it wasn't angry yelling—it was joyful shouting, followed by a yodeling performance.
"I got reception! Two bars!" He was waving his phone up and down, a little shiny thing glistening in the sun.
Four, or five of the others, down the hill with Madeleine, pulled out their phones, looking at it with curiosity, and mostly, disappointment.
"Come up here! It works up here!"
A few glanced up at Scott, then over to Madeleine, then back again—thinking what they should do. Four of them started up the hill, slow and uncertain, shrugging like they couldn't help it.
No, goddammit! Fourteen was too many. But nine wouldn't be nearly enough. Everyone less meant more work for the others. They had to be twelve in total. They could do with eleven.
"Whoever you're trying to call—" She left her sentence unfinished, shook her head, and turned around, towards the path only she could see. Enough time wasted with this idiot. There wouldn’t be reception anyway.
Just then she heard Scott again, back to cursing his phone.
The four hesitated.
"Let's go." Madeleine said.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
Better one too many than not enough. You could get rid of someone later on. Finding new people would be the challenge, especially in the beginning.
They sprinted down the rest of the hill, until the terrain was flat. The forest got much denser now, with leaves as sharp as knives and shrubs with angry thorns—it didn't even have to be thorns; the ends of ordinary twigs would do to slash wounds. But nobody complained about cuts or ripped clothes.
No more reception. Something must've broken back in town.
Funny. That's when it hit them. Not the sirens. Not the smoke. The bars disappearing from their screens, that was the indicator that shit had truly hit the fan.
After twenty minutes of walking and crawling through the forest, Madeleine stopped.
"This is it. Good."
She rested her weight on her knees, arms locked, voice steady. "This is actually really good."
She turned, looking at the pale, sweaty faces. A quick count. Fourteen.
So Scott had made it after all.
She blew a strand of hair out of her face. Cool. In control.
Then she cracked—just broke—and started sobbing.
But just a minute later, she was back in control. The tears had been tears of relief. The worst-case scenario—the family who owned the bunker getting there first—hadn't happened.
A perfect run. That's what the first bunker had to be. There was no other option.
"I need to see where we go from here."
She stepped into the puddle of light ahead. This was the glade she was looking for—wide enough for a helicopter to land, hidden away far enough in the forest for no one to know it existed.
From there on, she had to use the book. She had memorized everything, down to almost the most minute details. But now, standing in the middle of the glade, surrounded by hundreds of trees that all looked the same, she was lost. Better not waste time. She didn't need to prove anything to anyone.
She turned her back to the rest, shielding the book from their view as she knelt down and pulled it from her backpack—that thick, heavy book—and opened it to the first page.
It was quiet. The explosions sounded like distant fireworks now.
Madeleine cocked her ears, then sinking her face back in the book. After a minute, she got up and turned to face her classmates, holding the book behind her back.
"Sit down. Rest. You have a few minutes while I open the blast door."
They exchanged confused looks, but at first, nobody dared to even asked what that meant. Blast door. What was she talking about?
Madeleine started walking around, from tree to tree, looking at trees, knocking on trees, her face strained like someone trying to do calculations in their head. Then she lunged towards one tree, a huge pine tree, an old one, with several knotholes in it.
"What the hell are you doing?" Scott finally said, scoffing, one brow raised. Then he turned around. "What the hell are we doing here?"
Back to Madeleine.
"I think you owe us some explanations."
An explosion shattered the otherwise tranquil forest scene. This time, it was closer. Scott flinched and turned to guess where it came from. In the nearer distance, a plume of black smoke billowed into the air.
"I owe you nothing," Madeleine said, not stopping what she was doing, feeling the grooves and cracks in the tree bark. This wasn't it either. No, it must've been another one.
What she was looking for was the emergency panel—a way to enter the bunker, for latecomers.
Everyone who commissioned a doomsday bunker with Apex Lux, the company her mother worked for, knew the rules. If you didn't show up at the secret pickup spots—selected parking lots at malls, rooftops of hotels, inconspicuous parks—and missed your autonomous helicopter, then you had to find your own way to get to your bunker.
You'd not only have to remember how to find it, but also how to get into the bunker.
Without a phone, because it won't have internet, and might be out of battery. Without a map, because you didn't usually carry those around with you all the time. That's what the panel was for—an emergency entry point for those who missed their ride.
Another rule for those who didn't make it on the helicopter: don't rely on those already inside the bunker, if there are any. They might be too upset to help you. Maybe they don't recognize you. You might by the time you'd arrive at the bunker, look very different from how you used to look.
You could be easily mistaken for a looter. Or a zombie.
Would there be zombies in this apocalypse? Madeleine wondered while she was searching for the panel.
While not entirely implausible—an unknown pathogen making people behave in unpredictable, hostile, or cannibalistic ways was plausible—the timeline didn't match.
With zombie apocalypses, you didn't have twenty minutes. You had hours, even days.
Madeleine, stay focused. This is not important now. The cause doesn't matter right now. Remember: the cause doesn't matter. What mattered was survival.
She found the tree. This time, she was sure that the knotholes were arranged in the right way.
She got it right the first time, and a square section of bark sprang open, revealing the panel inside.
The panel lit up with a prompt: "Place finger on scanner."
She pressed skip.
"Other method of verification," the screen displayed.
"Look directly into camera for iris scan."
Again, skip
"Other method of verification.
Speak your name clearly for voice verification."
One more time, skip
"Other method of verification."
Fires could have burned your fingers, acids cauterized your fingertips. Your eyes could've been filled with soot and tears. Maybe inhaling toxic or hot air had singed your vocal cords.
That was why there was a last option:
“Enter Passcode.”
Nobody at Apex Lux thought people capable of typing a sixteen-digit number into a panel under the kind of stress that came with the end of the world. Typing was one thing. Remembering was a whole different challenge. That's why the passcode was the last method of verification.
2893461093617212
Enter
A hiss. A click. Then silence.
Up ahead, a hill, barely more than a raised mound, shifted. Only now did it become clear that its shape had always looked slightly too clean, too symmetrical. Slowly, the faint rectangular outline at its base came into focus. A seam at first, then the outline deepened, splitting open in the center
Then the blast door began to slide back, slow, heavy, mechanically dragging a layer of moss and soil with it as it opened.
The entrance to the bunker was real. And now, open.
Madeleine held herself together this time, though tears of joy threatened to spill over.
After the door fully opened, they filed in one by one.
The moment the system registered full capacity, the bunker sealed itself with a low mechanical thud. Outside, the automated defenses kicked in—cannons and turrets, rising from hidden ports like mushrooms after rain. They rotated, scanning, armed and ready to fire at anything that moved.
Inside this bunker—the lightest-class, as her mother used to joke, "for the poorest among the rich"—there were no traps. No fire chambers, poison tunnels, or drone swarms programmed to hunt intruders on sight. That would come later, more terrifying and sadistic with every bunker they infiltrated.
After a few meters through the narrow tunnel, they reached the decontamination chamber.
The air was still and cold, recycled a thousand times already. Fluorescent strips buzzed to live overhead, the moment they entered, casting a sterile white light on the naked concrete. Everything smelled faintly of metal, and plastic, like new car smell sealed-in time.
They stepped inside. Another door behind them slammed shut with a pneumatic hiss and a dull, locking thud that echoed through the chamber.
No turning back now.
They all turned to Madeleine.
"Clothes off," she said.
No one moved.
Then Madeleine pulled her shirt over her head.
There would be no luxuries like privacy. Not anymore. She dropped her clothes into the biohazard bin that unfolded from the wall with a mechanical snap.
Mate, the girl who never shut up from the last row, followed next. One by one, the others began to strip down their clothes, as silently as possible, even though there was no need for silence.
"I'm not taking my clothes off," Scott said. He stood with his arms folded. Carmen, the quiet girl from the front row, didn't move either. Her eyes were glassy. She hugged herself like a child.
"Good," Madeleine said. Perfect, she thought, the number 12 flashing in front of her inner eye. "The rest—with me."
They passed into the next chamber. Jets lined the ceiling and walls.
"This is the antimicrobial fog," Madeleine said. "Antibacterial. Antiviral. Antifungal. And the UV burn finishes the rest. The bunker systems are merciless—have to be. Anyone left behind is not coming in."
Madeleine stood in the doorway, her finger on the button, ready to seal them off. With no air. No water. Just the stink of your own breath that slowly suffocates you.
She looked one last time at Scott and Carmen, still standing in the previous chamber. She wrestled with herself. Just push the button. Push the damn button!
But instead, she gave them another chance, and immediately regretted saying it: "This door won't open for weeks from now on."
"Wait—wait a second!" Scott panicked, yanking off his clothes like they were on fire and dove through the door.
Madeleine didn't look at him.
She looked at Carmen.
The girl stood there, shaking, arms over her chest, small and afraid, her breath coming in shallow hitches. She stared at Madeleine, begging for… help?
I can't help you.
Madeleine exhaled.
This new world was only for those who could fend for themselves. You won’t last a week. You’ll be dead weight. You’ll slow the rest of us down.
Now Madeleine started to feel shaky too, her resolve waning. No, that must not happen.
Weakness is deadly.
She took a deep breath.
This bunker was for twelve people only. It's easier now—no, it isn't easy, screamed a part of her. Easier than later, another part of her reasoned.
She exhaled again.
Then she pressed the button.
The door slammed shut with a mechanical clank.
Cutting off Carmen's scream.
