Chapter 2: The First General Assembly

Once everyone sat down, they started chatting. after a long time of being alone in isolation, people naturally wanted to share their experiences. The room was filled with the chaotic sounds of conversations taking place, until a certain person stood up. He asked everyone to silently listen.

"Good morning everyone. I am person number 165. I just wanted to say that this place is new for everyone; so I'd like everyone to discuss what we should do now. Since there's a lot of people here, if anyone would like to speak I'll ask you to raise your hand. Then, the person who will speak will stand up." said the first person to talk.

Someone else raised their hand and stood up after he sat down. "Everyone has probably seen their maps on their watches, but this place is truly big; apparently it's everything humanity entrusted to us. We should first explore the areas in order to figure out how we should live from now on." Said a long-haired girl.

The girl I had just met, who was my neighbor, was the next to speak. "Also, I think it's kinda odd everyone has a number. If we want to make it easier to talk to each other, we should create names. Would everyone agree? Uh... Oh, if you disagree with that, please raise your hand."

(...)

There was an overwhelming silence in the room; nobody raised their hand.

"Okay, I'll start then. I'm Kendra. It'll probably be hard for everyone to memorize each other's names, but eventually, we should all know each other's names!" She said, with a smile on her face.

A name huh? I've never thought of having a name. Well, characters in stories I had back at the room had names, and there was also a book which had a large list of names we could use.

Nobody spoke for a while after that, so naturally, everyone started leaving the room. I opened the map on my watch and started looking at the different areas closely.

There were libraries, storage rooms and greenhouses. Did we have to make our own food from now on?

Well, for now we had two tasks to complete: To decide on a name and to explore the bunker.

I decided to head to my room first, since I wasn't sure what kind of names existed. I opened a random page and looked at it to see if I liked the sound of any.

"Marshall, Martin, Mason, Matthew... Oh, that sounds nice. Hmm, but it may be a bit long. How about Matt? Yeah, that sounds like a great name!" I told myself.

Okay, so I'll introduce myself as Matt from now on.

The first task turned out to be easier than I expected. Now, it was time for me to explore the different rooms.

I left my room and started heading to the stairs. I figured most people would be on the upper floors, so I decided to explore somewhere nobody went to. That way, it'd be much more efficient.

Walking towards the stairs, I saw many people chatting and exploring the different rooms. Then, while going to the 5th floor, I decided to check on my watch's map what kind of rooms there were in the area.

Boiler room... Electrical systems room... Looks like there's nothing much interesting going on in the 5th floor. Oh, maybe I'll just take a look at the greenhouses on this floor.

It looked like a quarter of the whole bunker area was dedicated to growing food, so there were areas dedicated to farming on every floor.

The path leading to the farming area was essentially the same as the aisle back where our rooms were; everything covered in stainless steel. It looked in really good condition; which was surprising because we didn't know how long we were down here for.

The area next to the greenhouse had a green-coloured line painted on the wall. There were also large windows which showed the overgrown area.

More than a farm, it resembled a jungle; I could see tomatoes growing out of large plants. Were the different farming areas divided in different species? Well, I could tell for sure a few veggies were growing here.

I decided to enter the greenhouse. It was much more humid there; almost as if you could feel the sweat building up on your skin. But you could also feel that the air carried more oxygen; so it was much easier to breathe there.

Still, even though it was overgrown, you could tell it was planted in a planned way; there were steel floors you could walk on.

Back then, I caught a glimpse of there being a cooking area in the second floor, which probably meant we'd have to cook our own meals from now on.

I exited the room being prepared to report everyone else on what I found there and headed to another room, which was close by. There wasn't any special label on the map, so I was curious to see what purpose it meant. Upon entering, I caught glimpse of different lab-looking equipment and a bookshelf.

Huh, there seems to be a lot of books about agriculture... That's interesting, since there I did see there was a large area on the main floor dedicated to a library. One of the books caught my eye; it wasn't on the bookshelf but on a desk.

It was a big, leather book with a decorated cover made from thorn shaped pieces of copper. Taking a look at the contents, it seemed to be a detailed guide on operating the farming areas and the equipment there.

I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost 12pm, the time at which we decided to gather at the parliament-looking area to explain our findings, so I decided to close the book and head there, since I didn't want to be late.

I found an empty seat and decided to sit down to wait for everyone else to arrive. The room started filling up little by little, at the same rate as which chatter increased.