Chapter 3: A Smaller Group

At 12pm, almost everyone arrived to the room, the last people rushed to sit somewhere that wasn't occupied. There were many more seats than people, so naturally we would never fill up the room.

I sat down in a random place, so I didn't know anyone around me. However, that didn't seem like the case with others. People were chatting in small groups, so I thought to myself: "When did they have time to make these groups of friends?"

Anyway, the chatter suddenly stopped when someone started talking in a loud, clear voice.

"Ahem, excuse me. I'm person number 157, please call me Hannah. I'd like to say something before we start talking about what everyone found."

These were the first moments of the new history; we had learned about the old human's history and how humans had first been born into the world. You could say this was the new way of the whole tribe meeting around the fireplace; sharing stories and findings.

Hannah was a short girl with small, serious eyes and a slight smile. Her face and nose were flat, and her hair was black and straight. She spoke in a serious tone, indicating maturity.

She continued talking. "I believe each of us should be assigned a job; something that one can do for the group; something to specialize in. That way, we specialize in jobs our whole life and can develop the community."

That was a good idea, the crowd seemed to be in favor, since slight, positive comments could be heard. What would become my job? My whole life, I had been learning about different topics, and in the short time I had been out of my room, all I've seen is the large tomato farm.

Then, a boy nearby seemed to be hesitant on the idea. "I'm not so sure about that. Well, it's not a bad idea, but I'd like to discuss it. I'm not sure we can decide right now what job we'd like to take on for our whole life; and I'd like to do various things."

Those two were really good points. In a community life, multiple people would be good at different things. You could also learn from people that were good at certain things, such as farming.

I looked back to all those years learning in front of a computer. There weren't any instructions on how to do different things for survival, it was more like a core summary of what we needed to know as humans; knowledge that had been passed on to us.

If we would like to specialize in different jobs, we would have to learn a lot more in those fields. If I wanted to become a farmer and secure food for everyone; I'd have to learn more things about that if I wanted to do my job correctly.

I remembered seeing a library on the map on my watch. It looked like a really big room compared to the other rooms, meaning it was important.

I also thought about the large book I saw at the room next to the farm. Why wasn't such an important book in the library?

That was something I could only figure out by going back there and looking more into it.

I realized I had spaced out in my thoughts when I suddenly heard a girl calling out to me. "Hey, I'm talking to you!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, what did you want?" I asked, smiling to hide the fact that I wasn't listening to the discussions.

"We saw you rather alone, and wanted to ask if you wanted to join our group." She said, stretching out her hand. "Oh, I forgot to introduce myself, I'm Charlotte." She said, stretching her hand towards me.

That was interesting. It was the first person who I had heard not give out their assigned number, and rather introduced themselves with a name.

"Nice to meet you." I said as I shook her hand, which seemed cold. "I'm Matt. It's nice to meet someone!"

Charlotte was a tall blonde girl, she had serious but kind eyes and seemed to be in good shape. Had she done more exercise than what we were instructed in our rooms?

"These are Jack, Lily, Robert and Andrea. We all met in different situations, but we decided to stick together as a group."

That was pretty lucky. I had felt more isolated than other people. Not lonely; it was something I was used to, probably from all those years I spent alone in my room, but I felt like other people were much more outgoing than I was.

We chatted about our life here at the bunker and commented on what people were saying in the discussions. I slowly learnt about everyone in the group.

Jack was an outgoing, tanned boy who liked to read and tell others stories. He would talk about what he had seen around the bunker when he explored like an elder telling his grandchildren about his adventures. He and Charlotte met just after they left their rooms, both wanting to talk to another human.

Lily was more of a shy person. She had curly, ginger hair and was shorter than the other two. She was really curious despite being a shy person. She and Charlotte met in one of the stairs at the bunker; apparently Lily was pretty lost and she didn't know which way she needed to go to get to the room she wanted to.

Robert and Andrea had already met before they met the others; they decided to go explore the same rooms and found Charlotte, Jack and Lily on the same floor they were in.

Robert was also a curious boy. He said he loved to learn new things and how things worked. He seemed really interested in the bunker and other technological gadgets, such as the watches we had. He had short, black hair and was about the same height I was.

Andrea seemed pretty interested in the place we were as well. She had short, dark brown hair and she was eager to talk to other people and find out more about them, reflecting that everyone was different and that she was excited to meet others.

Therefore, our little group had been created. Charlotte suggested we should keep exploring the facility we were in individually, and then gather as a group to share whatever cool things we found there. 

Before we left, Robert was really excited to share something with us. "I found an exciting feature in these watches!" he said.

Apparently, he had been examining the watch since it was in his possession. He had a great understanding of how electronics worked; and had noticed there speakers and a microphone on the watch, so he investigated further and found out you could call other people.

The only thing you had to do was to dial the number of the person. There, I learned the others' numbers, since we had exchanged them just in case we had to call each other.

Charlotte: 077, Jack: 171, Lily: 082, Robert: 165, Andrea: 036.

Likewise, my code was "047", but you could probably already assume that. In fact, by knowing what room someone was in, you could know what code to use if you wanted to call them.