School (2)

Arthur stepped into the cramped elevator. He was located somewhere near the middle of the lift and was squeezed from all sides, making him feel very uncomfortable. Although he was used to doing this everyday, he still could not get used to this. He was very envious of the Level 7 citizens who get to ride on their private elevators whenever they wanted.

Although Arthur did not know at the time, this elevator was actually quite old-fashioned compared to the ones that were built right before the apocalypse. Instead of having steel doors, the elevator door needed to be manually closed as it was actually not a door but a Vintage Otis scissor gate. The gate was enclosed on all sides of the elevator, so people at the sides of the elevator can poke their fingers out if they wanted to. Of course, people would never do that unless they want their fingers to be chopped off.

After around a minute, the elevator filled with young students finally arrived on Level 1. At that time, they were greeted by a whole bunch of security guards. One of the security guard opened the gate and gestured for us to come out with his rather large submachine gun. The security guards surrounded the children on all sides to prevent them from running away and hiding within Level 1. If anyone decided to run out of the invisible perimeter created by the guards, they would immediately gun the child down.

As most of the adults were already working, there wasn't that many people on the main street. Therefore, the children and the guards were able to walke quickly towards the public school. When they finally arrived at the school gates, the security guards closed the gates behind them and left. The school gate was a few meters high, which completely prevents a child from climbing over.

Arthur headed to his classroom which was on the third floor. He was now a Grade 8 student, meaning by the end of the school year, he would graduate from middle school. Afterwards, he would head across from the middle school building to the high school building which had much less people there.

The first class that was being taught today was History. Although this was not one of the more important subject, it was still mandatory for the curriculum as the school needed to instill in the children a sense of belonging. However, all of the people who made the curriculum lived in the subterranean levels. Therefore, they could not contemplate the fact that these kids were struggling to live day by day and did not really care about anything except for the food that may or may not get the next day.

The teacher, who was less than enthusiastic when facing the children, stared at them disdainfully as she started the roll call. After marking everyone as present even though some children were missing, she started speaking from the front of the room.

As there were no blackboard or textbooks, the only thing that the children could do was to try and memorize the things that was said from the teacher's mouth as she started teaching. The children obviously did not have money to buy paper, which was so scarce that only people from the 49 Families and 7 Clans would be able to use them, and even then they had to use them sparingly.

The teacher started where she left off last time and began speaking in a loud voice.

"The Apocalypse Age Calendar officially started from the event only known nowadays as The Cataclysm, which was the inciting event that plunged the world into chaos." The teacher sounded quite indifferent even when speaking of such horrifying things.

"On the first day of the Apocalypse Age Calendar, or the date 20XX, XX, XX on the old Greogrian Calendar, a coronal mass ejection from the Sun hit the earth, causing a geomagnetic storm. This caused the electricity grid around the world to fail. This caused many incidents from minor to major, such as car, train and plane crashes to a nuclear containment failure in multiple nuclear plants around the world. However, these incidents were still manageable by the many different governments around the world at the time."

"However, it was then that another disaster arrived. Within 24 hours, billions of people around the world was infected with what was later known as the dark virus. It completely swept the world like an unknown force and infected everyone around the world. At the time, 99% of the world's population began showing symptoms of mania. Within a few days, their brain will stop functioning normally. However, their bodies continued to operate. These bodies became what we call zombies today. All animals on earth also started to be infected as well. Within a week, civilization, as people knew it back then, were gone."

*

As Arthur continued to listen to the teacher, Arnold headed back towards the underground market. When he arrived, he directly went to a shop that specializes in traditional medicine. The place was renovated like a traditional Chinese medicine shop. There were three Chinese characters written on the sign hanging at the top of the shop. The words were completely unrecognizable by Arnold, but the owner of the place told him that its name meant "The Place of Perpetual Peace", which was quite ironic since one would not associate peace with the black market.

Arthur walked into the shop and shouted, "Mr. Lao! I'm back!"

A rather old man walked out from behind the counter at the back. His upper back was lowered, and he was leaning against a cane. He stared at Arnold for awhile before saying, "Kid. What the heck happened to you? Your entire body changed! Did you take some experimental drugs or something?" He looked at Arnold up and down, analyzing every inch of his body.

Arnold replied, "It's a long story, but let's just say my body have improved by leaps and bounds."

Mr. Lao gave out a cold laugh and said, "Well look at you, acting all smug! All this time, I thought you died like a dog out there, eaten by those disgusting zombie monsters or betrayed by those shameless mercenaries."

"Well, I made it back." Arnold rolled his eyes. Then, he stopped the endless banter and turned serious. "Mr. Lao, I'm going to join the army."

Mr. Lao widened his eyes, "Do you know what you're saying?! Do you want to die, kid!"

"I need to find some way to make money for my family. Both of us know the salary from you isn't even remotely enough." Arnold explained. "Besides, I had a falling out with my employer. If they came back to the base, the news should have spread to all the other mercenary groups by now. None of them would be willing to hire me again. Therefore, the only way for me to get employed now is to join the army."

Mr. Luo rubbed his white beard with his hand and said, "That's good and all, but how are you even going to get recruited? From what I know, your Foundation Establishment is so weak that you could barely even cultivate an inkling of spiritual energy after a month. Additionally, you need to head to Level 1 in order to enlist, how can a surface dweller like you get down there?"

"I have my ways. Okay, stop arguing with me, or this might go on forever." Arnold said in a monotone voice. "Thank you for taking care of me all this time, Mr. Lao. If the whole plan of joining the army doesn't work, I assume I can come back here to work again?"

Mr. Lao scoffed. "Who do you think I am? Do you think I would let you back in? You already headed off most of the time outside the base with the mercenary, and when you came back, I still gave you your share of the salary! Now you're heading off to the military, and you want to come back again to leech off of me?"

Arnold waved his hand and ignored him, he turned around and left the shop.

"Don't let me see your face again, you stinky brat! Or else I will shoot you in the face!" The old man yelled towards Arnold's back as he walked away.

Arnold went back up to the surface level. He did not want to go directly through towards Level 1 from the underground market as all the entrances from the subterranean levels were monitored. Arnold took a detour and headed towards an elevator farthest away from the slums of the city. The elevator was located right next to the power generating station of the base. Many workers from the subterranean level would come up to work from morning till night here, making it necessary to build an elevator right next to them so they could get back down right away after work.

Since it was almost midday, there were almost nobody at the entrance of the elevator right now. Arnold walked towards the security guard that was guarding the elevator and said, "Transport to Level 1, please."