Earth's Revolution

~12~

Opening the door, I noticed the bunk bed on the far right was occupied. I stopped, startled, before remembering we had two new roommates, or rather, we were the new roommates.
"Hello?" A short haired girl with bangs looked up curiously.
"Hi, sorry to disturb," I replied, before cringing at my own words. Sorry to disturb?? This is my room!
"Ah no worries," she laughed lightheartedly, "I'm Aelis by the way, nice to meet you!"
"Likewise! I'm Leah."
"Maria."
The second girl eyed us from the bottom bunk bed, seemingly uninterested. "My name is Mia."
"Perfect! Now I'm going to sleep because I've heard it's going to be a long day tomorrow," piped up Aelis, falling back into her pillow and, soon, so did we.

Mom?
Yes darling?
I mis you
So do I dear
How are you all? Are you okay?
Yes, we are safe in the bunker. Your bed and belongings are here too.
Thank goodness
And you? Did you find the walkers?
Yes, I'm safe in their bunker right now.
That's great to hear, I love you
I love you too
Go to sleep now
Okay mum. Goodnight
Goodnight

                                       ***

"Right, so first things first, as you already know today is the start of the solar flares. We don't know how long these will last, but likely a long time if we don't do anything about it, I'll get back to that later."
We were all sitting in a makeshift circle in the common room, tired and groggy, but all of us 100% invested and interested in what Alan had to say. After all, this was our life now.
He continued, "This base has three floors. Top floor had all our tech stuff, our offices, kitchen, hospital, dining room, gym. Middle floor, this one, has our rooms, bathrooms and the common room. The last one has an extensive crop field that was already being grown from a while back, so we should have fresh food soon. We do need to make it a little bigger, so that's a job to do. We're gonna need to organise ourselves well if we want to survive down here.
First I need to know how many of you would be fine with leaving this base, obviously taking measures, with aim to basically save the planet." Pretty much everyone in the room chorused something along the lines of "anything to save the planet", or "of course we would".
"Great, because Max here along with his team of scientists abroad have come up with a way to efficiently cool down the atmosphere and heal the holes in the ozone layer. It does need to be diffused from a specific area and that would mean days, possibly weeks of travel. Obviously not all of us will go, I'm thinking maybe a group of five or six. We can discuss it later.
Secondly, I mentioned the crops but were going to need to farm them, and enlarge the fields and garden, so that's another role you can be allocated here. We also need cooks, personally, I'm no top chef, but we don't need fancy food. We need to survive.
Now lastly we're going to need to clean this space, but everyone should chip into that. There's a room full of cleaning supplies on the top floor and I suggest we do a full scrub once a week more or less. We can organise it later.

Now the scientific discovery isn't complete yet, we're thinking about a week until it is ready, so until then just get used to the base and I'm going to write up a paper where you can add your name to different jobs around here. Does that sound good?"
The entire room, that had been absolutely silent and attentive, nodded their heads in unison and a chorus of agreements sang through the air.
"Perfect! Then let's go have breakfast."

We stood up and walked over to the elevator, but not all of us could fit so Maria and I ended up hanging back with Max and Alan, and taking the next lift.
"Does anyone know if the solar storm has hit yet?" asked Maria, as we walked in.
"Well it's due in..." Max quickly darted his eyes towards his watch, "...approximately 4 hours. But it will hit the Southern Hemisphere first, although soon it will heat up the planet considerably, and as the Earth turns it will slowly fry up our soil. Probably make all water sources dry up, we'll have to prepare for that," he added as an afterthought.
"Well most people today claimed they would be okay with leaving the base, but I doubt many of them actually are, especially in these harsh conditions," Alan added worriedly.
"Maybe we can go through a physical examination first to check if we're physically able?" I proposed.
"Now that isn't a bad idea, thanks for the suggestion. We'll need someone who can walk for kilometres on end carrying supplies, and who is okay with resting during the day and walking at night when it's less hot."
"Well, I've done long hikes before carrying food, water and pretty much everything I would need down to clothes and tent parts on my back. It's not the same in the current conditions, but at least I've had experience with it, and I know I can do it."
"So have I," piped in Maria, "I think we will also need to train our fighting skills. In these conditions, I doubt everyone has been able to get in the government's bunkers, and those left behind could go rogue and fight us for supplies if needed."
"You're probably right about rogue people. I'll add self defence training into our schedules. We should avoid fighting them unless it's absolutely vital though. We don't want unnecessary lost lives."
The lift arrived and the doors opened, finalising our conversation, as we left to eat breakfast.