*Rule Number One is that you gotta have fun. But when you’re done, you gotta be the first to
run.”
“Rule Number two, just don’t get attached to somebody you could lose.”
“Two to a bunker each, and don’t forget your registered wristband!”
Emerald could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she followed her mother into Bunker
number twenty six. It was standard procedure for her neighborhood, each time the sun, growing
ever close to Earth, knocked another wave of water over the city of Arcadia, each full moon.
That was how frequent this disaster was now, whereas at the beginning of her life, Emerald
could remember it was only a few months, at most, that she could hear the familiar drone of the
siren over her city telling everyone to evacuate into the bunker that the old ones had built for
themselves, but still worked in the future. And Emerald couldn’t help but feel like it was intended
to be that way.
Her fiancé was just gathering essentials from the house as the sirens continued to blare, he was
a bit of a slow one, James. Still, nice enough to ask for her hand, even at world’s end. As if there
was any hope left for the future. Their future, that Emerald couldn’t think about right now, not
while she shoved herself inside the bunker for the sixth time that year, and once again, the
guard scanned it with a device that chirped with a blue light.
“You can go through. Next!”
James was taking longer than usual. It wasn’t that he was slow mentally (though that would
have been fine by her, long as a lad stuck around as soon as the wee one was out in the
disastrous world they lived in), but bloody hell, did he have to make sure every *ounce* of their
home was nailed to the floor and wouldn’t get washed away by the oncoming wave of pollution
and destruction?
To be entirely fair to James, this was the fifth lad that Emerald had gone through in six years. It
was the world’s end, at least have a bit of fun, eh? But soon it grew tiring, the proposals, the
dates, the ‘I love yous.’ When she didn’t feel anything back. Her ‘iPod Nano’ from the very
early days was stuffed in her jeans, with her mind chip playing the old Earth music back to her
from days long past.
*Saying I la-la-la-love you. *At least I think I do!*
Music had a habit of echoing real life’s situations as soon as one didn’t need the lyrics, didn’t it?
The sound waves in her neural outlet blocked out the scanner’s annoying ‘bleep’ every few
seconds as more people shoved in next to her. But where was James?“ Ya gonna shove this one out too, what, Number 5, innit?”
“Shut up, Banes,” Emerald shoved him further into the bunker. “Don’t be so crude.”
“Well, what’s wrong with him this time? Or are you just doing it for fun now, like they say?”
“Who says?”
“Mrs. McNary at Number Three, Couple in Kendra’s house, more like who doesn’t say? Them
all sayin’ Emerald Sinclair rids all her boyfriends in the tsunami at world’s end for a bit of fun.”
“Oh come on, that’s absurd.”
“It’s what they say.”
Her heart continued to overwhelm her neurological outlet, changing the song to another, which
didn’t fit the situation at all. Or perhaps it did, perhaps the old people were right about music. It
was her singular comfort down here in the dark.
“Emerald!”
“‘Ere’s the test.”
“Shut up.”
“Wristband or no entry.”
Emerald closed her eyes, resting on the metal walls.
“Oh, I don’t believe it- I left it on the kitchen table. I’ll go get it- I’ve still got time.”
“James, don’t!”
At that moment, the moment he stepped out, the doors slammed shut with a thousand locks
shutting them apart from the outside world, and from one another.
”Those rumors, then?” Emerald raised an eyebrow.
“Fuck the rumors.”
The wave washed overhead. The ‘electric’ lights overhead flickered.
And it went dark.…..
*You bought a star in the night, because your life was dark and you needed light. It’s just who
you are.*
“One day, maybe I’ll be sorry,” Emerald could hear her thoughts at a million miles an hour as
she scrunched up against neighbour number five, his wristband shifting against her elbow. “For
now…I need to survive.”
