~10~

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I walked down the flight of stairs and stopped in my tracks. I let out an audible gasp, the bunker was not what I had been expecting at all judging from the fortress outside. In front of me was a large circular corridor, black walls with blue, green and metal lines along the side. Jacopo stopped in front of a fingerprint scanner and put his hand on it, opening the door for someone who was pushing a trailer full of beds behind us. Inside, it opened up to a circular room branching off all around us. The floors were polished black too, with circular green motifs engraved into it and looked super high-tech. People were bustling all over the place, looking busy and hassled, some carrying electronics, others kitchen pots or first aid kits.
"There," he pointed at the door right across from us, "that's the elevator, it will take us down to the living quarters." My gaze followed the person with the beds as he opened the doors to the lift and pushed the trailer in. "We need to go this way though, to the main office." He turned left onto the first corridor, stopped at the first door and knocked. A voice from inside said "come in", and he pushed the door open.
Inside, the room was furnished in a very Scandinavian style, light wood floors and grey walls. Plants were lined across a shelf next to books and a desk was placed in the center, on top of a carpet, surrounded by chairs on both sides. Someone sat behind that desk typing fast on a keyboard. She looked up and smiled, "Hey there! Welcome to the base! My name is Sara, nice to meet you," she held out her hand and shook ours, "We don't have much time to lose, unfortunately, so you will have to go into the center with me and get scanned immediately. She got up and gestured to a room behind her, and catching our worries looks she added, "Don't worry, it's quick and pain-free."
We followed her into a small room painted black, filled with odd machinery and computer screens. She pointed at a platform and told us to stand there. Maria and I glanced at each other hesitantly, both equally overwhelmed, but knowing we were all quite rushed at the moment, I handed my bag over to Maria to hold, took a deep breath, and stepped onto the little platform. Immediately, Sara started up the machines and the whirred around me, scanning my eyes and handprints. She told me to hold out my hand and printed a number onto it. #60566. "What is your name and birthday?" she asked, and typed it into the system.
"What is this number for?" I asked.
"That is your Walker ID. Everyone here has one, see?" She showed me her wrist and sure enough, there was an ID there too. Following suit, Jacopo did the same.
"Right, you're all set, now you can open the doors with your handprint or eye scan." She demonstrated how to use the scan on the doo nearby, showing us where the eye scanner was too.
I stepped off the platform and took the bags off Maria. Soon, both of us had officially become part of the Walkers, and were being directed to the living quarters.

The elevator opened up onto more polished wooden floors, just like the ones in the office. A long corridor was before us with doors on both sides, presumably bedrooms. Some doors were open, people arranging beds inside. There was a window on the right showing a common room with tables, chairs and fatboys. Board games had been arranged in a hurriedly built IKEA shelf along with puzzles, books and CDs.
Jacopo led us down the corridor and placed my hand onto the lock for room 5. "This is your room, you're both sharing it with two other girls."
The door opened with a click. Inside, two bunk beds were placed on either side of the room, one night table in between them and a cupboard on the left. It was a plain room, wooden floors and white sheets. The walls were white too and the furniture all looked like IKEA. It made sense though, cheap and simple furniture for an apocalypse bunker? Yeah. No one was going to buy extravagant exotic stuff and decorate each room with flowers or god knows what. The top floors had looked like they were used regularly, but down here the floor was dusty, the walls bare and the placement of everything hurried.
"Leave your bags here. We need you to help us move furniture in here. Also before I forget, bathrooms and showers are in room 8. The door is usually open though, you can't miss it."
We set our bags down and followed him back into the elevator.

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