Three months earlier, there had been another riot. This time, she had found herself on the other side of it.

For the past year, after she had resigned from duty with Security, Alyssa had worked odd jobs on the lower levels of the bunker city. Anything to keep her tiny apartment, and keep herself fed.

She considered herself lucky for not having to care for anybody else. She sought solace in her loneliness, and figured that after everyone she had ever cherished had died in the war, at least she knew that she had nothing left to lose. The only thought that kept her alive was the hope of returning to the surface one day. Even if there were no more forests and grasslands, even if there were no animals or plants. The sky, at least, should be the same, and she held on to her hope of one day seeing it again.

But three months ago, that hope had been crushed.

"Have you heard? There's news from the surface."

The words were muttered in the canteen one day, and immediately piqued her interest. She looked up from the thin gruel in the bowl before her, and scanned the crowd for the speaker.

She spotted the scrawny young man, barely older than a teenager, dressed in rags like most of the people on this level of the bunker city. She had seen him before on occasion. Some sort of computer genius. Poor guy didn't have much to do these days, the only remaining computer systems were in the hands of the authorities. He sometimes worked for them, doing data analysis and whatnot.

That was why Alyssa knew that whatever news he had, it was likely to be the truth.

"There have been more bombs..."

The man had leaned closer to whisper to the people at his table, but to her trained ears, the words sounded as if he had uttered them right next to her. Each syllable seemed sharp like a dagger, tearing through her mind.

"No way," somebody said. "They said there were peace talks. They said-"

"Well guess what, they've been lying," the young man snapped.

"That's not true."

The other man rose to his feet. He was a hulking giant with broad shoulders that concealed the fact that he was just as malnourished as the rest of them. The way he towered over the younger man would have been intimidating if his voice didn't crack so pathetically as he spoke.

"It can't be true. You are the liar!"

His desperation was understandable. Most people thrived on the hope of leaving behind this wretched place and returning to the surface eventually, and it was all that kept them from going insane. As for the tall guy, his sanity seemed to have been hanging by a thread already, and now the young man's words caused him to snap. The people at the table collectively held their breath as he came at Computer Guy, ready to throw a punch at his face, but the younger man ducked and dove under the table for cover.

"Is there a problem here?"

Someone from Security approached the table, attracted to the ruckus like a moth to the flame. His voice came out muffled and distorted from underneath his helmet. The way he blazoned the rifle hanging from his shoulder was an indication for his preferred method of problem solving.

"Yes, there is! He's a liar and a traitor!" the tall man screamed while he attempted to fit his large form under the table to pull out the other guy from underneath. "He says the authorities have been deceiving us!"

The entire canteen had fallen silent by now and watched what was happening. To doubt the leadership was a grave offence, a form of treason. The bunker city had as little mercy for traitors as it had resources to keep its fragile society from total collapse.

As a former member of Security herself, Alyssa  could imagine what the white-armored man was thinking in that moment. His job was not to make these people feel safe. It was to quell the rumors, and silence the dissidents. Officially, their task was to 'keep the peace', but in reality the guards were trained, almost indoctrinated to defend the higher-ups and their word under all circumstances. Not just a few of them had cruel and sadistic streaks. Little luxuries and favors bought their loyalty, and many of them looked down on the ordinary inhabitants of the bunker city. In return, public opinion about the guards wavered between accepting them as a necessary evil, and regarding them with equal amounts of disdain in return.

"But what if what he says is true?" A woman broke the momentary silence that had descended upon the room, and instantly all eyes were on her. "What if the war really just isn't ending? What if we're stuck down here... forever?"

The guard slowly turned to face the woman, the translucent visor of his helmet barely concealing his expression of contempt. The tension in the room became palpable as he stepped up to her, straightening his back to appear as tall as possible.

"What did you just say?" he asked icily.

"I mean... when the first bombs fell, they told us we'd be down here for a few weeks," the woman said, addressing the crowd more so than the guard. "That turned into months. And now it's been two years since the exodus, and we're still down here. What if that guy's right and we'll never be able to get back up there? What if-"

A murmur went through the room, and a shiver descended down Alyssa's spine at her words. But it wasn't because of the haunting truth in them. It was her instincts, kicking in just a split second before the security guard lost his temper and hit the woman across the head with the stock of his rifle to shut her up.

It was a fatal mistake. Alyssa had seen similar things happen before, so it didn't come as a surprise to her when the other people at the table suddenly rushed forward. There was usually a point when the downtrodden became so desperate that they stopped worrying about their own lives, and their fear of the guards was overshadowed by a mad thirst for retribution.

The group descended on the guard like vultures on a carcass, except that he wasn't quite dead yet. But Alyssa knew he would be soon, because his armor and weapon weren't enough to protect him against the sheer power of their desperation and hate-fueled fury. The guard began to scream as they quite literally tore him apart with their bare hands.

From there, the situation escalated completely, and Alyssa had no intention to play any role in it. She had already crossed half of the distance to the exit before the guard fired a shot that hit somebody at the other end of the room. His screams attracted other guards, and everything went downhill from there. As the riot fully erupted, everyone soon seemed to be fighting everyone indiscriminately, and that gave the guards the edge over the disorganized and malnourished citizens again.

Barrages of shots rang out and reverberated with painful intensity among the metal-covered bunker walls. Reflexively Alyssa dove under the nearest table for cover, and found herself face to face with Computer Guy, sitting there with his arms wrapped around his legs, blankly staring off into nothingness.

"Come on," she hissed and yanked at his arm. "We need to get out of here."

He snapped his head around to face her, and his eyes widened as he met her gaze.

Most people considered Alyssa intimidating, or uncanny on the best of days. Right now, with her face dirtied from engine grease form her last job and her short blonde hair sticking out in all directions, she likely looked positively demonic to the startled man. But what really rendered him so speechless were probably her eyes. It usually was the eyes.

About a hundred years ago, when humanity had been at the peak of its scientific ingenuity, some great-grandparent on her mother's side had vainly spent a lot of money on genetic engineering of their unborn child, resulting in a striking lilac eye color. Everyone born from that line since then had shared that peculiarity, even though such features normally got diluted with each generation. But in Alyssa, the trait was just as strong as in her late mother, and her grandmother, if her mother's stories were to be believed.

The man was about to say something, but Alyssa didn't let him finish. She grabbed his arm and dragged him along, out from underneath the table, just mere moments before two bodies, entangled in close combat, crashed into it and it collapsed under their combined weight.

She jumped to her feet and made her way towards the exit. Somebody yanked at her arm, trying to pull her back to the center of the skirmish. She whirled around and grabbed his hand, using the momentum of her pull to bring him close enough to punch his face with minimal effort. With her other hand, she broke his fingers, but she didn't even hear him yowl in pain, she had already disappeared in the crowd again.

A guard stepped in her way, trying to stop her from leaving the room. He wore his helmet, but he hadn't put on his uniform properly. She knew all about the weak spots of that body armor from her own experience, and this guy seemed to have been provided with a particularly ill-fitting one. She landed a lightning-fast punch against his exposed throat. By the time he sank to his knees, gasping for air, she was already past him and halfway out of the door.

Outside the canteen, she didn't stop. She ran, never once looking back. More guards were rushing past them, towards the site of the fight. Luckily, they didn't pay her any heed.

In the questionable safety of a shady corner, she finally came to a halt. She had operated on instinct, so the realization of what had just happened didn't fully settle in right away, not even once she had made it out.

"Thanks..."

Alyssa had forgotten about the man. She hadn't realized that she had dragged him along all the way. She looked down on her bloody knuckles with a certain detachment from the sensation of pain. There was too much adrenaline in her system, and it still clouded her mind.

"You shouldn't have done that," Alyssa finally said. "Not in a place like this. Of course they'd react like that."

"I honestly don't give a shit," he scoffed. "It's the truth."

"Still. Telling all those people that they're never gonna see the surface again for as long as they live..." She swallowed at the realization that she was one of those people herself. "Of course they're gonna be upset. They'll want to believe you're a liar, even if...."

"But... there's more..." the man whispered. "You realize what it means, right? If we can't go back?"

She slowly looked up and met his gaze. And she finally understood why he had spread the news, with no regards for his own safety. There was a look of total resignation in his eyes, combined with a spark of madness that had ignited a last fire of fury in him, along with the volatile mood back in that room. Now, that fire was barely flickering anymore. It was about to die down completely, and before he spoke, she already knew why.

"The air."

The words were so light on the man's breath as he exhaled that they were barely audible.

"It's running out."

Word Count: 1957
Total: 2737