Metro Station Day: 1,095
Three years.
It had been one thousand and ninety-five days since the surface vanished.
Three years since the sun had last burned through the skies above Achios.
Three years since Mikri Poli screamed and choked beneath green clouds and the dead learned to laugh.
And still, Lili endured.
She was taller now. Not by much, but enough that her boots didn't flop anymore and her sleeves no longer needed constant rolling. Her golden hair was longer too—tied back in a rough braid most days, or tucked into her hood when it got too cold. Her face had thinned slightly, cheeks less round, her eyes deeper, wiser.
Still blue. Still bright.
But no longer innocent.
She sat now in the far end of the garden chamber, legs folded beneath her, back hunched slightly as she worked on the wall.
The same wall she had been drawing on for years.
It had started with charcoal—burnt wood and broken firesticks—but had grown over time. Now, it was a mosaic of black lines and smudged fingerprints, dried flower petals pressed between sketches, small shards of colored plastic arranged like sunrays and wings.
She called it her Wall of Light and Memory.
It was her sky. Her museum. Her prayer.
She was focused today.
The latest sketch: a tree.
Not one from the garden.
A real one. With bark and branches and twisting limbs, with birds perched high in its shade and children playing below.
Children like her.
Or like she had been.
Behind her, the Metro hummed quietly with life. Not noise—there was never much noise anymore—but the soft murmur of the others moving through their routines. Garr's boots thudding as he moved water barrels. Crackshot's muttering as he soldered another busted panel. Arlen murmuring inventory notes over old medkits. The Sergeant's voice issuing sharp orders from the far corridor.
All things familiar.
All things that meant safety.
But even in safety, there was emptiness.
Lili stopped her sketching and looked up at the blank space near the top of the wall.
That was where she always hesitated.
Where the sky should go.
The blue.
The light.
The color she hadn't seen in over a thousand days.
She sighed and leaned her forehead against the cool wall.
"I want to see it again," she whispered.
"Just once."
A gentle warmth pulsed in her chest.
Not from sorrow.
But from her light.
It didn't answer her. It just… listened.
She picked up her chalk again and returned to the drawing, adding small birds to the branches—tiny arcs, barely more than dots, but they made her smile.
She paused again when she felt someone settle beside her.
She turned. The Sergeant.
He didn't look at her, just stared at the wall.
She kept quiet.
So did he.
After a long moment, he reached into his coat and pulled out a rolled-up piece of plastic. Unfurled it. Inside were new charcoal sticks, carefully sharpened.
He handed them to her without a word.
Her breath caught. She took them like they were glass.
"…Thank you," she said softly.
He nodded, then pointed at the sketch of the tree.
"The trunk's too narrow," he said. "Needs more base or it'll fall over in real wind."
Lili smiled faintly.
"You always say that."
"Because it's true."
She looked back at her tree and added a thicker line.
Then, hesitantly:
"Do you think we'll ever see a real one again?"
The Sergeant didn't answer right away.
Then, low and firm:
"If we survive long enough."
She turned to him, brow furrowed.
"Do you ever miss it? The outside?"
"Every day," he said.
"Even the wind?"
"Especially the wind."
"Even the rain?"
He looked at her now, finally.
His eyes—steel-gray and tired—softened.
"The rain most of all."
She nodded slowly, then shifted closer to him, leaning slightly against his side. He didn't flinch. Didn't move away.
He just sat with her.
The two of them in silence, watching the garden wall grow.
Later, as the others returned from the tunnels with scraps and fresh leaks in the pipes to fix, the Sergeant finally stood.
He ruffled her hair—rough, but careful—and said:
"Finish the tree."
"Why?"
"So when we build it one day, we'll know where to start."
Then he turned and left.
Lili looked back at the wall.
And she drew.
***
> Metro Station Day: 1,460
---
Four years.
The sun had not touched the earth in four years.
Above them, the cities of Achios lay buried beneath a sea of gray ash and frozen snow, sealed under an endless nuclear winter. The winds had quieted, the infected had gone still. The laughter no longer echoed through the night—but it lingered in memory, carved into the bone-deep silence.
But below, beneath the broken skeleton of Mikri Poli's once-thriving Metro network...
Life endured.
---
The Garden
They didn't call it the garden anymore.
Now it was just The Grove.
It spanned nearly half the old station now—rooted in scraped-up soil, compost, dust, purified runoff, and the filtered remains of what life they had to offer. Over the years, the ground itself had deepened. Soil grew richer. The fungus in the tunnels had retreated, unable to withstand Lili's slow, radiant pressure.
The apple trees—once saplings—had grown tall, bending slightly with the ceiling curve, their branches trimmed and directed with care. They bore small fruit—hard and tart, but edible. Each apple harvested was treated like a ceremony. Garr had made a wooden bowl to hold them. Crackshot had whittled one into a crude soldier and put it on Lili's bedside.
The trees weren't alone. Rows of potatoes, carrots, onions, and mutated tunnel vegetables grew in neat, low trenches. Tomatoes clung to trellises made from old rebar. Herb vines curled up lightstone stands, filling the air with the smell of mint and basil.
And in the middle of it all—Lili.
---
She moved like a caretaker, hands brushing leaves, checking for rot, clearing waste, whispering things only the plants could understand. Her light didn't blaze now—it simply was, a constant warmth that radiated in pulses through the soil and air. She didn't even need to touch the stones anymore. The plants knew her. Grew toward her.
> "They like it when I sing," she'd told the Medic once, years ago.
"Maybe they think I'm one of them."
Maybe she was.
---
How They Survived
It wasn't easy.
No one expected it to be.
They had food. Air. Water. Warmth.
But not peace.
The threat of collapse was always there. A tremor in the tunnels. A glint of eyes beyond the light. A bad cough. A broken tool. A cold night too long.
But they survived because they had structure. Purpose. And Lili.
> "We protect the girl," the Sergeant would say.
"That's our mission. Until the Emperor himself tells us otherwise."
---
The Men – Where They Stand
The Sergeant:
Still hard. Still unyielding. He had added more gray to his hair and more calluses to his hands. But his voice remained sharp, his commands precise. He patrolled daily. Rebuilt the barricades. Inspected every wall crack like it was a battlefield wound.
He taught Lili history, war doctrine, theology.
He made her repeat the Creed of Mankind every morning.
He sharpened her blade even when she wasn't using it.
But when no one was watching, he'd kneel by the trees, press his palm against the bark, and murmur things under his breath.
Lili sometimes called him "Sarge."
But in her heart, he was still Mother-Iron.
---
The Corporal:
He'd mellowed with time. His sharp tongue softened. His eyes grew tired. But he was the loudest voice at night—telling stories, arguing with Crackshot over card games, pretending the silence wasn't clawing at the back of his mind.
He kept the radio going, even after the batteries were stripped.
He'd found an old speaker system and looped recordings of Lili reading over it—so her voice filled the station when things felt too empty.
He joked often. Too often.
But Lili had seen him cry, once, holding a broken vox unit to his ear like it might still speak.
---
Garr (The Heavy):
If the garden had a wall, he was it.
He slept near the trees. Sat beside the compost pile like a sentinel. Tended to the water line with quiet reverence. Lili often rode on his shoulders when her legs ached from crouching all day.
He spoke the least.
But he built the most.
Chairs. Storage bins. A worktable from old platform steel.
And a small carved bench under the apple trees, where Lili sat and drew.
---
Crackshot:
Still sharp. Still twitchy. Still the best shot underground.
He'd fashioned little wind chimes out of scrap wire and teeth from old infected. Hung them near the vent tunnels to warn of movement. They jingled sometimes, and he claimed he could tell which noise meant what.
He made Lili her first bow.
"Guns are good," he said. "But arrows don't wake the dead."
He kept a notebook full of sketches and plans—blueprints for what they'd build when they went topside.
---
Arlen (The Medic):
Weaker now. Older. His hands trembled sometimes.
But still careful. Still clean. Still the one who whispered, "Let me see," when Lili scraped her knees or showed signs of exhaustion.
He rationed healing. Always tracked Lili's energy, her LCU (not that he called it that).
He insisted she rest every day. No arguments.
Sometimes he sat with her. Quiet.
He was the only one who never asked for healing unless it was truly needed.
---
Lili – The Light in the Stone
She was seven now.
Taller. Stronger. Brighter.
Her light had grown with her. More intuitive. More potent. Sometimes when she sang, new sprouts pushed through the soil. When she cried, the air grew warm with pressure. When she laughed, the lightstones pulsed in harmony.
She didn't call it magic.
It was just her.
---
She missed other children. She missed ice cream. The sky. Running in parks. Books that didn't talk about war.
But she had purpose.
And a garden.
And people who looked at her not like a burden—but like something worth living for.
And she didn't want to let them down.
---
What They'd Built
The Grove: A full indoor biosphere with fruit trees, herbs, and crops.
Sleeping Quarters: Divided space with privacy curtains, warmed with lightstone tubes.
Storage Zone: Sealed off old station room used for preserved rations and gear.
Tool Bench: Made from platform rail, where Crackshot and Garr built tools and repairs.
Water Purifier: Vented system filtering tunnel condensation.
Waste System: Composting latrine converted into a fertilization station.
Chapel Corner: A small altar where the Book of Mankind was kept—Lili read from it every week.
---
They were not just surviving.
They were enduring.
And deep beneath a dead world, under the weight of ash and memory, an apple tree bloomed in the dark.
---
***
Metro Station Day: 1,828
Lili Age: 9
The pain came first.
Dull, strange cramps low in her belly that grew sharper as the morning wore on. She thought at first it was something she ate—a bad root, a too-ripe tomato, maybe one of the strange purple beans they'd grown last month that always made Crackshot fart and groan afterward.
But this was different.
It wasn't in her stomach. It felt... deeper.
Like something wrong had slipped loose inside her.
Lili ignored it at first. She always did. There were weeds to trim and moisture levels to check and a lightstone near the herb vines that had dimmed overnight. She focused on her work like she always did—quiet, careful, steady.
Until she knelt to tie back a climbing tomato vine—
—and saw the red smear on the stone beneath her knees.
At first she just stared.
She blinked. Looked down at her pants. At the dark stain blooming beneath her thighs.
It wasn't like a cut. It didn't sting.
It was just... blood.
So much of it.
She sat back, breathing fast now, hands shaking as she pulled her coat tighter around herself.
The others were nearby. She could hear them—the thud of Garr's boots, the Corporal's voice swearing softly as he burned breakfast again, the faint whirring of Crackshot's auto-wrench spinning in the workbay.
She should say something.
But her throat locked.
She stumbled to her feet and started walking.
Not fast. Not stumbling.
Just quiet.
She didn't know where she was going—only that she needed to not be seen.
Not yet.
The Medic Finds Her
She made it halfway down the corridor toward the old ticket office when Arlen spotted her.
He was coming from the infirmary with a handful of dried leaves when he paused, squinting at her silhouette.
"…Lili?"
She froze.
He stepped closer.
Saw her hunched posture. The way she clutched her coat around her legs.
Then he saw the blood.
He didn't shout.
Didn't ask.
Just moved forward gently, like approaching a wounded bird.
"It's okay," he said softly. "Come with me."
She didn't answer. Just nodded—once—and let him lead her.
The Infirmary
The small clinic wasn't much—a converted vending bay with two beds, a salvaged curtain, and shelves stacked with bandages, herbs, and carefully rationed painkillers.
Lili sat down slowly, still hugging herself.
Her lower stomach ached now—dull and heavy.
Her legs were cold. Her back ached.
The Medic brought her warm water, wrapped a clean blanket around her shoulders, and sat nearby without a word.
After a long pause, she whispered:
"…Am I dying?"
He smiled. Not a happy smile. A tired, warm one.
"No," he said. "You're growing."
He explained slowly.
Gently.
She was old enough now, he said. Her body had changed. It was part of being a girl—a woman.
It would come once a month. It would hurt sometimes. It would be messy.
But it meant she was alive. Whole. Healthy.
And yes—it was going to be okay.
Lili didn't speak. Just stared at the wall, tears brimming in her eyes but never falling.
How the Men Reacted
The Medic kept it quiet at first.
He told the Sergeant only what he needed to know. "She's not sick. She's fine. It's just… time."
The Sergeant nodded once and left without a word.
He didn't ask questions.
But for the rest of the day, he stayed closer to Lili's quarters than usual. Stood guard longer. Sharpened her knife for the fifth time that month.
Garr heard next. He didn't say anything. Just grunted and brought extra hot water to the washroom. Left a fresh wool blanket by her bedroll. That night, he sat by the garden longer than usual, whittling something in his massive hands.
Crackshot didn't speak for a full day.
When he did, it was only to the Medic.
"…We can't keep pretending she's a kid," he said. "Not anymore."
"Doesn't mean she's not still one."
Crackshot nodded.
Then pulled out an old sketch of the stars and burned it quietly in the stove.
The Corporal paced for an hour after finding out. Muttered. Swore. Punched the tunnel wall once, hard enough to bruise his knuckles.
"Five years," he muttered. "Five godsdamned years down here. And now she's—what, supposed to just… grow up with us? No school. No friends. Just rot and dirt and old men?"
He stormed off and came back two hours later with a half-finished storybook he'd written by hand.
Gave it to Lili without a word.
Lili's Room That Night
She curled up in her bedroll, the new blanket wrapped tight around her.
The pain was dull now. Manageable. The bleeding had slowed.
But the ache in her chest was worse.
She stared at the ceiling.
Thought of her mother.
Of other girls. Of birthday parties she never had. Of perfume and long hair and other voices like hers.
There were none down here.
Only men.
Old, tired, broken men.
And she loved them. Truly.
But she was starting to understand something terrible:
She was the only one like her left.
The Turning Point
The next morning, the Sergeant called a meeting.
He said nothing at first. Just stood at the center of the garden, the trees rustling softly behind him.
Then:
"We have a problem."
No one spoke.
Lili stood near the apple trees, watching.
"We've done our duty. We've protected her. Raised her. Built something down here. But we all know the truth."
"We can't stay."
He looked at her—not with softness, but with respect. With something like guilt.
"She deserves more than root stew and rust."
"If we wait too long… this place becomes her whole life."
The squad was quiet.
Then, one by one, they nodded.
Crackshot: "Back to the surface?"
Garr: "Check the port."
The Corporal: "Find a ship. Or die trying."
Arlen: "She's our legacy."
Lili stared at them, breath caught.
For the first time in years, she felt something she had forgotten:
Hope.