The Lost Archives

The End (and then, the beginning)

"Do you ever think about how we came from destruction?" Kai announced as he carried his daily 3 pm PB n' J sandwich to the common room.

"Better yet," Xavier said, his head perking from his cards"Do you ever think?"

"What do you mean destruction," Ivy said, ignoring Xavier.

"Well, you know how Mara and Ben made us so we can 'save humanity' and all of that, but our only purpose was a solution to mass destruction," Kai said, his voice getting smaller and smaller.

Wherever they started to talk about their origin—Xavier was adamant about calling their existence that—, they always used formal names. Mara. Ben. Purpose. If they didn't associate feelings towards the people that they learned they should be calling Mom and Dad, then their death wouldn't hurt. But despite these efforts, they all knew that they mourned the loss of their parents, they didn't need to know them to love them.

"I mean not really, I think you're overthinking it again. We weren't here, and now we are, that's all that matters" Ivy pointed out. She too was just like the others. She could handle emotions. She could handle the notebook. But with her life, she couldn't handle any of that.

"But I'm trying to reprogram this old game and they keep talking about a 'villain origin story' and like our villain origin is the comet," Kai said.

"What did I tell you about the old games" Ivy responded.

"I know, but I still need to look through it," Kai said.

"You don't"

"But I do"

"Said who"

"Said your mom," Xavier thought this was a perfect place to chime in.

"We have the same mom idiot," Ruby said, walking in with her newest painting

"Hey rubs, what's this painting called?" Ivy asked, desperately trying to change this conversation. Plus, she knew her sister could always ramble about art.

Truthfully, even after 16 years of living in the bunker, sifting through archives of just about anything to pierce humanity, Ivy hated talking about it. All she knew was that Mara Wocikivik and Ben Kaston existed, they made all 5 of them and then left the job to recreate humanity up to them. Honestly, Ivy still held a grudge about that.

As if on cue—although Zeke never was following orders—the 5th sibling walked in. Drenched in sweat, his white wife beater was see-through and his once fluffy brown hair was greasy and flat. Xavier knew this combination of Zeke was after he explored the tunnels, so abandoning his deck of 24, he brought up a map.

Even after 16 years of living in the bunker, they still hadn't explored every nook and cranny that existed. After Xavier had found Kai on the ground at night, shivering with a fever and no recollection of how he escaped his locked room, he put Zeke to work. All Zeke had to do was calmly go full through one tunnel, race back and then document it on the map. But as eager as Zeke was, the map was relatively unfinished.

"Did you find anything useful this time?" Ruby chides in, taking a spot on her favourite red pillow. On it a bloody knife stabs through a heart. Ivy says it's bordering psychotic. Ruby says it's symbolic and Xavier then jokes "Yeah symbolic for your serial killer era"

"I always find something useful" Zeke defends but even he knows it falls flat. Truthfully, they still don't know what happened to Kai but with the 5 of them, it was less about finding out and more about knowing. The archives were their home, when did you not know everything about your home?

"It's fine, this is just so we have the ultimate archives of everything," Xavier said.

Each of them had its special archive to locate properly. Kai was computer-related software, Zeke was photography, Ruby was artistic components, Ivy was novels and Xavier was absurd (anything that didn't fit within those categories) After being surrounded by documentation your entire life, the 5 or as Xavier called them "the Them", loved to categorise their life contents into these categories.

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The next morning, in her Elvis PJ's, Ivy did her rounds. The archives were best described as a maze you knew in your sleep but could never articulate consciously. Every bedroom was united by the common room that held everything. Ranging from old 1970s computers for Kai, dumbbells for Zeke, paintings for Ruby, a card tower for Xavier and a typewriter for Ivy, the common room was their home within their home. Between Xavier and Kai's room was the door for the kitchen which was a small black and white tiled stove, kitchen and counter combo. Unless you wanted to mention the Great Baking Fiasco but as a second thought, you should never mention the Great Baking Fiasco. Walking through the kitchen there were the tunnels that split into 5, each representing their respective section of archives. The real tunnels—the one Zeke was running through—were past those. The archives stretch forever, but the tunnels never ended and each month Zeke focused on one section to dominate.

Waking all of them up and *force* feeding them their vitamins, they spent the morning bickering about their dreams.

"No. I am telling you I would never say that classical music was better than Rock N' Roll" Ruby declared, rather upset about Kai's dream.

"You can't shoot the messenger Rubs, it doesn't work like that," Kai said, spreading honey on his extra burnt toast.

"Who said that?"

Kai shrugged. "The Universe, bring it up with them"

"Well, if the universe does exist then why was Zeke wearing jeans in my dreams," Ivy said

Zeke fake gasped "I would not."

"Oh, but you so did"

As their morning progressed, the 5 continued with their archives. Getting a task, locating it and tagging it might be tedious work but for them, it was all they knew. Growing up by themselves, they taught each other everything they knew—that and the videos Mara and Ben left back. Each week they would watch one like clockwork, it would be them explaining teenager emotions, logistics or even experiences of themselves. But, even with these videos, all that was left of their world was each other.

Xavier, Kai, Ivy, Zeke and Ruby were more than family. They were blood. 

Author's note: 

Hi guys! It's Mel, a little about me: I'm 17, I'm Canadian and I love cats! Let me know what you think of The Lost Archives :)