Hey Everyone! New Story. I've never done a Hunger Games story so… we will see how this goes. Review and let me know what you think! Also I need a beta if anyone is interested! Updates may be sporadic, I have a lot of kids!
Disclaimer: The hunger games series clearly does not belong to me or else I wouldn't be writing boring fanfics!
Everyone talks about the bunkers like they are the only place left. For some, that's true. After the virus started, many people lost their homes. Even more people lost their lives before we found a way to contain it enough to prolong life. Prolonging our lives comes at a cost, though, that most people see as a small price to pay to not let humanity become extinct with the dinosaurs. But most people haven't seen the things I have seen. Most people "grow up" in one of the common bunkers. The common bunkers make sure people have enough food to eat, although, it is the bare minimum to get by. They have mostly fitting clothes, and clothes that can withstand the heat or cold, depending on whether or not your job takes you above ground. Those people are tested to see if they contain the gene that could supposedly save us.
I am not most people.
It is for many reasons that I am not classified in that group. The first being the obvious: I am not part of the common bunker. The common bunker holds the majority of what's left of our world. It's funny, when this started, we were part of a normal society. We had people of every class: the wealthy Wall Street professionals and doctors; the bankers and the like who may not have been wealthy by some people's standards, but they had good things; the teachers who barely had enough to scrape by; and then the poor who never had enough to eat or enough to live on in general. After the virus hit, everyone ended up here in the underground bunkers that were built decades ago in the event of an apocalyptic outbreak. No one ever thought they would actually be needed, but the President at the time thought it was a necessity. I bet he's very proud of himself, wherever he is right now. At any rate, everyone started out in the common bunker no matter what part of society you used to be in. The old society, with all its rules and hierarchy, were officially over.
I am in bunker two, or what everyone refers to as 'B2'. Once more people started finding their way to the bunkers, the common bunker was overrun. There is not supposed to be any favoritism when it comes to the treatment received from which bunker you wind up in, but there is. When the chaos started, we had to elect a leadership team in order to get anything resolved. I can't say I am upset with the leadership team, as there is actually a person from every important area on it; medicine, farming, supplies, food prep, protection etc. Each of those people lead a team that deals with issues and makes sure everything runs smoothly. By the time I got here, about two months after the virus hit, the first bunkers were full, so I was thrown into B2. While I am grateful that they have taken me in, it is obvious they do not take as much care when it comes to us. We generally have enough food for everyone, but as our numbers keep increasing, our food supply does not. We still have a lot of medical problems for people that had problems other than the virus and the leadership team does not seem to see that as a priority when it has finally gotten most of the common bunker healthy-with the exception of the virus of course. There's actually a few people, including myself, who haven't even been tested for the gene they claim will cure us. Not that it bothers me; I don't think there is a cure at all.
Everyone in each bunker has a job, whether it's on the surface or in the bunkers. Once you turn 17, you are assigned a job. If you showed up here and were already over that age, the members of the leadership team took your current skills into consideration before giving you a job. If you worked on any type of education while you were in the bunkers, there was generally some type of training for a specific job involved, so that was taken into consideration as well. I got here six years ago, at the age of 16, and am still doing the same thing I have been doing since day one: book printing. The leadership team seems to think that one day we will need all of these books reprinted for our future, virus free, time. Every day, I get up and write, by hand, different books that I am given. Most of them are history books from the different parts of our land, but there are also the common books; the Bible, dictionaries, encyclopedias, medical journals and even some of the popular stories from centuries ago. It's a very tedious job, but it helps that I have made a few friends down in the book room, where I am currently.
"Hey Kat," Peeta says to me when he walks into the room, ready to start his shift.
"You know I don't like being called Kat!" It's the same conversation we have every time I see him. My name is Katniss, and since he found his way to the bunker two years ago, he has irritated me by shortening my name. I will never tell him, but I've gotten quite used to it. Honestly, I have also gotten quite used to him. Looking at Peeta, you wouldn't think he would be good for anything other than hard labor. He's taller than most of the men down here with sandy brown hair and golden eyes. He's full of muscles but what makes me like him so much is his brain. He's so intelligent that he could easily make people feel intimidated… but he doesn't. His compassion is a part of him that never left him even though he had a rough introduction to the bunkers.
"Sorry, Katniss!" he smiles at me condescendingly. I have a feeling I will never have to tell him I've gotten used to this 'Kat' business.
"What's got you in such a good mood?" I ask, twirling my long brown hair up into a bun. While I am thankful to be in one of the few climate controlled areas of the bunkers, it gets rather hot in the book room when you have waist length hair.
He stares at me for a minute, those golden eyes piercing into my ice blue ones, debating whether or not he wants to mention whatever has him so happy. He does this anytime there is any kind of commotion going on in the bunkers.
"I am in a good mood, Kat, because I just found out that they are soon going to make cure testing mandatory for all of the bunkers. Even ours! Wouldn't it be exciting if one of us had the cure?" he prattles on, but I stop listening. There isn't one single part of me that believes there is a cure. There also isn't one single part of me that thinks following the rules to prolong life or procreate for the sake of humanity is a good idea. Honestly, I feel like it's all bullshit.
The day the virus hit, I will always remember. I am sure that everyone has their own pre-virus story and their own virus story, and I am sure most sound a lot like mine. I was 16 when it hit what used to be the city of Chicago. I lived with my parents. I went to high school. I had friends and a dog. My dad was an engineer and my mother was a college professor. We lived a normal, although very mundane at times, life. Not many people knew about the virus until it was too late. By the time the news started telling people to go in search of the bunkers, over half the population of the United States had been infected. I'm still not clear on the details as to how this particular virus made it to the US, but then again, neither is anyone else.
When it came on the news that we needed to head to our designated bunker, we grabbed our emergency bags with whatever we could pack within ten minutes, and we left. I would love to be able to say that we all made it safely to the bunkers, but that would be a lie. After the six weeks it took us to get to the bunkers, my parents were both very ill. It made sense because they were already over 40. That's when the population found out that if you make it to 40 with the virus, you are an extremely lucky person, although I think the only person who should be considered lucky would be one who never contracted the virus to begin with.
Anyway, my parents died before I had even learned my way around the bunkers. There were many people around who explained how life had been working in the bunkers and who gave me the information they had gathered so far. Not long after I arrived, the leadership team was in place and I was brought down to the book room.
"You aren't listening to me, are you Kat?" Peeta questions, having finally noticed I was not being remotely attentive to his ramblings.
"No. I'm not. And you know why I won't. I don't know how many times we have to go over this," I say quietly while looking around. Although there is no rule against disagreeing with the way the leadership team has set things up, it's usually considered in poor taste to do so in an area so open to eavesdropping.
"Yes I know," he sighs. "You don't believe there is a cure. You think testing people is stupid and you definitely don't want to procreate with anyone, ever. Much less on a time restriction that is forced upon you by the Team."
I look at him for a second. It is times like this, when he gets exasperated with my way of thinking that I can read him the best. It is times like this when I wish I could convince him to run away with me and never look back.