Gusts of humid wind greeted me as I swung open the door, Tucker instantly became silent as we both walked out the burrow. Trailing silently behind, with his erect ears pricked and stance rigid, Tucker switched to work mood. Darkness embraced me through the false facade of neon green light. Despite being so far underneath layers and layers of soil, minerals, rubble and ruin, Cibus remained illuminated. Not with electricity, no, too precious, and certainly not with natural sunlight which was reserved for those who lived above ground, but by fireworms. Those crawling creatures that writhed in lamp bulbs, mutations of Cibus.

Soldiers, like me, emptied out of their burrows, eyes furrowed with confusion and lips pressed together in fear