(Havent thought of one :( sorry)

The Tunnels

Prologue

I continue to check how many bullets I am going to carry with me on the long travel for what seemed like the thousandth time. One of my other group members is taking a painfully long time to tell his family good bye. We were taking a trip to the overworld to scavenge for, well, anything we could find. Our little village, if you want to call it that, has been running low on supplies for quite some time.

The overworld has been corrupted with radiation and toxic gasses from the series of wars. Afterwards the remaining people mutated into these things! People that still believe in science say that it is an "evolution" and that they only mutated into these things to survive. Although they can breathe the toxic fumes that seem to lay a dense fog over the city now, they have become hungry ... for just about anything they can eat.

Although we are going in a group, most of us are still bound to die. Over time it went from being just a small infestation of the beasts, to an overpopulation. However, as they evolved, so did we. Not physically, but technologically. We have made new guns, even with the small amount of scrap metal we have had. We live underground in the old subway tunnels to prevent the radiation from getting to us. However, breaking into my thought, the last guy gets done. With tears running down the side of his face, he slowly walks over to us.

I stand, getting ready to face the outside world. My nerves jumping, although I have done this many times, my stomach starts to turn. As they open the gates to the cold outside world, I get a sharp chill down my spine. I brace myself for the trip and take my first step.

Chapter 1

"Home"

Underneath the large subway tunnels that run this way and that for miles on end, we have set up our small "town", if that is what you want to call it. We barricaded the entrances with large steel doors that protect us from all the outside terrors that await patiently for a group of us to go out and explore for supplies. It also protects us from getting high amounts of radiation through sewage and waste from the outside. I stay in a small room, not very well built, by me.

I didn't have many supplies to do so but I made do. It is just a few splintered wooden boards on three sides and a concrete back-wall. To cover up the gaps in the boards there is a ripped sheet or blanket thrown over the top. My bed is a singular stained box-spring laid across the floor, which is quite a luxury considering the few supplies we have. I only have about two and a half sets of clothes and the one I had gotten about a week ago was from my uncle who recently died in the trip to the Overworld. I throw on my overcoat and sling my backpack over my shoulder.

The people waiting outside my door gesture me to come outside. I nod and slowly start to walk away from the small sanctuary I call my room. We started to gather a couple more people until we were a small group walking through the town tunnels. Although, as we neared the room we were originally going to , the people start to break off into their own paths. As we walk I look around at whatever we do manage to build and the supplies that we barely are able to stay in stock of.

We have small rooms with quilts and drapes hanging over the sides and entrances. We passed a small garden and a slaughterhouse with a couple pigs and their young. It is quite odd how the pigs manage to continuously stay fatter than us. Although, I don't think much on it because of the fat pigs, we stay fed! We also pass by the medic tent. "It's not a good site, eh Arstrum?" says one of the people escorting me. I never bothered to learn his name. However, I still responded, "Yeah, watched my own uncle die in front of me." I said with a low tone. As I passed by the small, frail tent I could see the many patients paired with the many people, bowing over the beds, praying for the loved ones to be alright. Of course, some were worse off than others.

As we traveled past the medic tent, we descended into a small corridor. It was quite claustrophobic, for we only had about a shoulder width of room, along with the painful stench of burnt flesh filling the air. We came to the end of the hallways to a steel door. One of the guards opened the door with a creak. I walked inside along with my escorts and the door shut behind us with a slam. There were two men sitting by a pot with a fire underneath it. The rest of the room was empty, so I just assumed that the smell was coming from there.

They call me over and I pull up a small stool to sit on. The stool was made of metal, however it had been used somewhat already because it had a small dent toward the center where someone had already sat in it once before. The two men started rambling on about their time in the Overworld. While they were talking they took the lid off the small pot, releasing the steam from underneath. The smell was not as bad as I thought it had been.

They took a small, slightly rusty ladle and poured out some soup that was a red-brown color. They passed me a bowl and continued on talking to one another. I ate the soup not really noticing the taste because I was deep in thought. There was a pistol laying on the small wooden table next to me. It looked old and fragile with a thin coat of rust on the barrel. It was a revolver with a wooden grip and a hair trigger, with the hammer already pulled back for use. Although, as old as it might seem, the gun was most likely used not even a few days ago.

Besides the gun, there laid a knife next to it. The blade was approximately six to seven and a half inches in length, with a rubber grip and copper knuckles over the top where your hand is suppose to fit. It looked like a pretty knife, if not had been for the layer of dirt and dried blood. There was no telling who's blood, so it bothered me slightly.

However, a loud bang coming from above me, broke into my thinking, as well as abruptly stopping the men's conversation. "What was tha-", one of the men cut into my question with a quick "Shush!" Afterwards there were a couple more bangs and then - silence.

"Quick, grab the pistol and the knife off the table!", one of the men yelled at me. I ran over to the table, put the knife on the side of my pants, and strapped the holster of the gun to my waist. "Cover the air vents!" one of the guards said in a low raspy voice while staring at me. I pointed my gun to one of the un-covered air vents and waited.

With deep, heavy breaths and increasing heart rate I still manage to keep my calm. There was quiet for an exceptionally long time, so I let my guard down for a second. I took a sigh of relief and looked over to one of the guards, whose eyes are continuously fixed on the vent. Then, without any warning, one of the monsters jumps out at me with teeth bearing! My nerves make my body tense up and I just pull the trigger hoping it hit it. After a second, I open my eyes to see. I notice I'm not dead, so that was a relief.

I look down to see what I had done, although, the monster's body was still twitching in a sort of oddly grotesque fashion. It made me sick just to look at it. It had very dark, almost charred looking skin. It was as if it had been burned before. It had no visible eyes, unless they were somewhere hidden under the two or three inches of rough hide that protected the beast from danger. It had huge teeth made for ripping and tearing, along with 4 inch claws to aid them.

In the Overworld, this was considered a rat compared to some of the big things out there, so I'm told. However as i was staring at it, seemingly amazed, more were coming through the other vents. I had only a few bullets so i replaced the one i used on the other monster and helped the guards. One of them jumped on top of the guards and nearly bit his head clean off, but a quick shot from one of the other older men across the room saved him.

I felt near useless. I was just standing there, panicked, not knowing exactly what i should do. Then suddenly as i was aiming at another creature, one of them crashed through the ceiling, smashing its four hundred pound body on top of me.