Day 11 – Hope Whispers
The radio sparked to life around midday.
The squad, scattered around the Metro platform, froze.
Then—
> "...Imperial Command to all surviving personnel: airspace regained. Enemy forces have pulled back from Achios Prime's outer perimeter..."
> "Defensive lines holding."
> "To any and all survivors—remain in position. Assistance is en route. Repeat: do not engage. Stay hidden. Help is coming."
The words echoed like a prayer.
Lili sat by her garden, one small hand over a blooming leaf, her eyes wide.
"Does that mean... they're winning?" she asked softly.
The Corporal gave a faint laugh—dry and tired. "Sounds like it."
Shorty exhaled like he'd been holding his breath for a year. "We might actually make it."
Even Garr leaned back against the wall with a low grunt that sounded almost like relief.
But the Sergeant—he stood still, arms folded, brow furrowed.
---
Later That Night – The Sergeant Speaks
The others were cautiously optimistic, gathering closer to the radio between tasks, checking gear, cleaning weapons, just in case.
But Voss didn't share their hope.
He finally spoke when the rest were out of earshot, just him and Lili near the garden light.
> "Pulling back," he muttered. "That's what they said."
Lili blinked. "That's good... right?"
He stared down at her, something tight in his jaw.
> "Not always."
His voice was quiet. Hard.
> "You only pull back when you're losing ground. You only tell people to 'stay hidden' when you've already lost control."
> "It's not a message of hope. It's a warning. And they dressed it up in sugar."
She didn't fully understand.
But the tone in his voice made her stomach twist.
---
Day 12 – Contact Slips
The radio sparked again.
This time, the voices weren't composed.
They were rushed. Crackling. Cut off.
> "...Dawnlight actual—launching now, confirm uplink—"
Static.
> "—enemy movement on the—what is—no! No!"
A scream. Gunfire.
> "Pods falling—sky is—they're inside the walls!—"
Silence.
> "—Emperor—preserve—"
Then the signal broke.
The squad stared at the device like it might start bleeding.
The Corporal shook his head. "It's falling apart."
Shorty looked visibly pale. "That was a dropship, wasn't it?"
Garr cursed under his breath, his large hands tightening on his weapon.
Lili didn't speak.
She just stared at the ground.
---
Day 13 – When the Sky Changed
The next transmission was worse.
It wasn't a call.
It was a wave of sound.
Voices. Dozens. Maybe hundreds.
All shouting. Chanting.
> "Glory to the Emperor!"
> "Hold the line!"
> "For the Imperium!"
> "Glory—glory—glory—"
And then—
A sound.
A deep, distant rumble.
Not like an explosion.
Like the planet exhaled.
Then—silence.
The kind that doesn't end.
The kind that feels final.
---
The radio died.
No more sparks.
No more hisses.
Just a dead, black screen.
---
The squad sat in silence for hours.
The Corporal kept trying to re-tune the frequency.
Shorty sat with his head in his hands.
Garr stared at the ceiling like he expected it to fall.
Lili curled up against the Sergeant's side, not speaking, not moving.
He didn't push her away.
His arm shifted just enough to rest near her back, a silent barrier between her and the rest of the dying world.
---
The Corporal finally snapped.
> "What the hell was that?"
No answer.
> "It sounded like they... all started shouting. Like a ritual. Then boom."
"No confirmation of what happened," said Shorty. "Could be anything. A reactor going. Last stand. Maybe they took out a spire."
"Nukes," Garr said grimly. "Has to be."
The Corporal shook his head. "They wouldn't—Achios is an agri-world. They wouldn't nuke their own planet."
"They would," said Voss, coldly. "If the enemy already had it."
That shut everyone up.
---
That night, the temperature dropped.
Dust crept through sealed vents.
And the air began to carry a faint bitterness.
The Sergeant stood watch by the maintenance door, his rifle on his lap, Lili still curled beside him.
The others lay quietly across the chamber—breathing, but no longer sleeping well.
There were no more voices from the radio.
No more promises.
Just silence.
And the glow of the garden.
Still alive.
Still warm.
***
The air had gone still.
Colder now.
Dust from the vents no longer drifted lazily—it just hung there, weightless, like the silence that had followed the last radio broadcast.
> Glory to the Emperor.
Then static.
Then nothing.
---
Two days passed. Then three.
The squad didn't say much anymore. They worked in shifts, checking tunnels, maintaining the barricades, cleaning weapons they hadn't fired in days. But the quiet was eating at them. The kind that gets inside your helmet, under your skin.
It was Shorty who finally cracked.
He stood in the middle of the station chamber, his helmet under one arm, a fire in his eyes.
> "I've had enough."
Everyone looked up.
> "Three days. No contact. No signal. The planet's dead, and we're still down here like rats in a tomb. I say we head to the surface."
The Corporal muttered, "You're mad. If the nukes didn't kill the air, the snow will."
> "Then I die under the sky," Shorty snapped. "Not like this. Not slowly. Not in a goddamn box."
The Sergeant said nothing. He just watched, calm and cold.
Lili shrank back slightly from her spot beside the garden, clutching one of the lightstones to her chest. Her small fingers trembled.
> "We put it to a vote," said Garr finally. "That's fair."
The others nodded. Quiet agreement. The mood was shifting—hope fraying into frustration.
Then—
Lili stood up.
She didn't raise her voice. She didn't yell.
She just said it.
> "I don't want to go."
The whole room turned to her.
> "It's scary out there," she whispered, eyes wide. "I don't want to see the monsters again."
She hugged the lightstone tighter.
> "I don't want to go outside. Please don't make me."
Silence.
The Sergeant's gaze didn't leave her for a moment.
Then he looked to the others.
> "There's your vote."
Shorty cursed under his breath but didn't argue. Not out loud.
---
That Night – Purpose Finds Them Again
They stayed.
But something changed.
Waiting wasn't enough anymore.
So they started building.
---
The Corporal mapped the tunnel structure, marking ventilation paths and unsealed escape routes.
Garr began hauling rubble, clearing a larger area beyond the garden for potential expansion.
Crackshot reactivated the power conduits in a side room, rerouting dim lighting to the sleeping area.
Arlen, the Medic, turned an old kiosk into a proper triage bay. He even started sterilizing old food canisters—in case they needed to collect rain again someday.
And Lili?
She followed the Sergeant.
Everywhere.
---
The Seeds of Something More
He was assessing the far side of the platform when she spotted it—a collapsed kiosk near the old snack vendors. Half-buried. Forgotten.
She crawled under the bent shutter, poking through dust-covered debris. It smelled awful.
Old, rotted fruit. Black and moldy. But hidden beneath a pile of paper wrappers and dried wrappers, she found something.
A crinkled plastic shopping bag, sealed in layers of wax paper.
Inside: the remains of an ancient fruit basket—desiccated, but not empty.
And at the bottom?
Seeds.
Apples.
She gasped, cradling the small handful in her palm like treasure. She ran out to the Sergeant, beaming.
> "Look what I found!"
He took one glance at the bag, and his eyes widened—not with awe, but calculation.
He plucked one seed from her hand.
Held it to the light.
Then, very quietly:
> "Wood."
The others looked over.
> "Trees mean lumber. Wood. Fuel. Shelter. Furniture. If these grow, we can build."
He turned to the others.
> "We're not just surviving anymore."
He looked at Lili.
> "We're starting over."
---
And in that moment, for the first time since the sky had gone dark—
the tunnel felt just a little brighter.
***
---
> Metro Occupation Day: 157
---
It was hard to believe they'd survived this long.
Five months. One hundred and fifty-seven days since the fall of Mikri Poli. Since the sky turned green. Since the world above burned and then froze beneath a veil of dust and ash.
They hadn't seen the sun since.
But they were still here.
---
The Tunnel World
Their home, once a hollow Metro station filled with blood and shadows, had transformed. Slowly. Quietly. Day by day.
The cracked stone had been scrubbed. The debris cleared. Vending machines torn apart and rebuilt into furniture, shelving, makeshift workbenches. The old ticket booth became a kitchen. A stairwell storage room turned into a dormitory, sectioned by hanging cloth and scrap plating.
A proper compost bin was built. Water recycling lines ran through a rigged purification system tied to two steady lightstones. A heater salvaged from an emergency power core was wired into the back wall—it didn't make things warm, but it kept them alive.
They weren't just hiding anymore.
They were living.
---
The Infected – The Haunting Choir
They never forgot what lurked beyond the sealed tunnels.
Some nights, the air itself seemed to hum.
Scratching—at pipes, at walls, just at the edge of hearing.
Low growls.
Wet, bubbling laughter.
And sometimes… singing.
The same broken, horrible melody.
> "Join our song, sing along… through our bile, we will smile…"
When that happened, no one moved.
Even Garr stopped breathing.
Every light was dimmed. Every voice silenced. They would sit in perfect stillness, for hours if needed, until the noise faded again.
> "They're not hunting," the Sergeant had said once. "They're just... waiting."
---
Lili's Garden – The Heart of the Underground
Lili's garden had grown into something sacred.
What had once been six sprouts in a cracked corner now covered an entire third of the station.
Rows of vines, stalks, roots, and even two slow-growing apple saplings reached toward the lightstones above like pilgrims reaching for heaven. Each plant was healthy, vibrant, and unnaturally perfect.
Because she had blessed them.
Every seed she planted, she cradled in her hand, whispered to, poured light into. She didn't know the words—but her heart seemed to know what to say.
The Sergeant had built wooden supports for the apple saplings using scrap rail metal and braided wire. He checked their growth like a man inspecting weapon racks.
> "Two years," he muttered. "Maybe three. Then we have timber."
> "And pie," Crackshot added.
---
Lili Herself – The Growing Light
She had grown too.
Not in height—she was still small, still delicate, her hair still that soft halo of pale gold.
But something inside her had changed.
Her light pulsed stronger now. Her garden no longer required conscious effort—her presence alone made things grow.
The squad noticed.
They never said it outright, but it was in the way they looked at her now. Less like a child. More like a priestess. A totem. A holy relic.
Lili didn't quite understand that.
She just liked helping.
She liked when Garr smiled softly after biting into a tomato.
She liked when the Corporal stopped pacing because the herbs made the air smell better.
She liked how the Sergeant knelt beside the apple trees every morning and gently brushed the dirt around them with a soldier's precision.
---
> "It's a miracle," the Medic had said once, very quietly, to no one in particular.
"No," the Sergeant had replied. "It's work. It's her."
---
And Still They Waited
They never stopped listening to the radio, even after it died.
They checked the tunnels weekly. Set traps. Laid string lines. Counted footsteps in the dark. Watched for changes in airflow.
Hope didn't come from the surface anymore.
Hope came from Lili's garden, from the soft glow of the lightstones, from a child who had smiled the day the world ended and had kept smiling ever since.
They didn't know what would come next.
They only knew they had to be ready.
---
***
---
> Metro Station Day: 732
---
Two years had passed.
Above, the world remained dead and silent. The sun had not shone in hundreds of days. What little heat remained in the upper crust of Achios had long since faded, buried under ash, ice, and rot.
But below, in the heart of the old Metro system, life persisted.
The Sergeant had built them a shelter.
But Lili had built them a home.
---
The Garden and the Girl
The old platform was no longer a ruin. Between the walls of stone and steel, greenery thrived beneath glowing lightstones—apple saplings now stood waist-high, tomato vines crawled across scaffolding frames, and flowering herbs perfumed the stagnant air.
Lili knelt in the garden's heart, humming softly, carefully tending to a patch of carrots. Her small hands, once delicate and soft, were now confident, skilled. She knew the soil here better than her old neighborhood. She could tell from the color alone whether a plant was thirsty, whether it needed more light or less warmth.
Every time she touched the soil, the light in her chest pulsed softly—a comforting thrum, a second heartbeat. Her blessings had grown more potent. She could feel it now. Her garden responded to her thoughts, her moods, her presence.
She wasn't just growing food.
She was growing strength.
---
The Infected Above
They still existed. Somewhere in the tunnels.
Sometimes, at night, the squad would stop mid-conversation, heads turning as one at the faintest sound:
Scratching.
Wet breathing.
A soft whisper that wasn't a whisper.
And sometimes… that terrible lullaby.
> "Join our song… sing along…"
But it was never close.
Not anymore.
The Sergeant believed they were hibernating.
> "Like insects," he muttered. "Waiting for heat. For movement. For a signal."
So the squad stayed quiet. No music. No loud drills. Everything had a rhythm now—like monks in a temple. And Lili was their candle.
---
The Routine
They had fallen into routine.
The Sergeant inspected defenses daily, walking the perimeter like a warden in a holy place.
The Corporal handled radio maintenance—even if there was nothing left to hear.
Crackshot built traps and gadgets, turning scrap into tools.
Garr reinforced barricades, cut support beams into usable frames, and carried Lili on his back when she got too tired.
Arlen, the Medic, catalogued every injury, every illness. He now used Lili's healing sparingly—rationed like ammunition. Her energy was precious, sacred.
And Lili? She learned.
Every day, the Sergeant made her study the Book of Mankind. Every night, she practiced script. Every week, she tried new seeds, new prayer-blessings, new ways to make her lightstones more efficient.
---
Lili and the Sergeant
Lili often followed the Sergeant when he did his rounds. She liked how he moved—quiet, assured, always purposeful. He reminded her of someone.
Not her father.
Her mother.
Strict. Focused. Unyielding. Always pushing her to do better.
> "Fix your stance."
"Don't hold your breath when you shoot."
"If you're going to pray, then mean it."
He never coddled her. Never smiled.
But she had seen him once—kneeling beside a dying seedling in her garden—whispering something to it.
She had pretended not to notice.
She often called him "Sarge." But in her mind, she called him Mother-Iron.
---
Little Moments
Garr built her a proper stool so she could sit comfortably while planting.
The Corporal taught her how to solder broken relays and repair old heating coils.
Crackshot made her a flower-pin from melted bullet casings and gave it to her with a wink.
Arlen carved a wooden charm—half-angel, half-soldier—and gave it to her quietly on her birthday, though none of them were sure it actually was her birthday.
And one night, when she woke from a nightmare, shaking and cold—
The Sergeant wordlessly took off his coat, wrapped it around her, and sat beside her until she fell asleep again.
---
The Apple Trees
They were almost shoulder height now.
Still young. Still tender.
But strong.
When Lili touched their bark, she could feel them growing beneath her fingers. Not just sprouting—but learning. Reaching. Rooting.
> "One day," she told the Sergeant, "we'll have enough wood to build real walls."
He nodded.
> "And maybe chairs."
---
Hope in Stillness
No new broadcasts came.
No ships arrived.
No new threats revealed themselves.
And yet—they endured.
Lili looked out across the garden—at the soft lightstones, the rising steam of boiling soup, the quiet murmur of the squad playing cards beneath a salvaged tarp—and she smiled.
The world above had ended.
But below, under the roots of ruin, life had taken hold again.
---