It was like entering a new world. The bunker was like nothing they’d experienced or seen before. After being outside in the weather, the heat and then chill, the moist air and the dry, a consistent temp and ventilation system that kept things constant was like stepping into heaven.

In the middle of the room, the roof was set higher, angling down toward the sides, all of concrete and steel, with some wooden wall attachments here and there, giving the feel of a house, a real one.

“Hello,” Bue said, stepping forward bravely. “I’m Bue.” She paused and then bowed her upper body, a formal greeting, her hands behind her back. She bit her lip as she stood up straight again. “It’s nice to meet you.”

The old woman grinned before extending her arms and slowly pulling the teenager into a warm hug, patting her back carefully and evenly. Bue, uncertain at first by the affectionate touch, soon melted into the embrace, the tension in her back falling away.

“Hello, Bue. You can call me Grandma or Grams if you want.”

By the time she pulled back, there were tears in Bue’s eyes and the old woman, Grams, patted her cheek lightly with a knowing look. She turned to the others. “All of you can call me that,” she said, as Sarah shook her hand rather than hugged her, Grams not offended in the slightest by the distant greeting. Her smile remained the same as she shook Exel’s hand, patted Magnice’s cheek, and hugged Lott. They all introduced themselves, giving her their names.

“Any friends of Richard are like my grandchildren too.”

“Friends?” Bue asked, raising her brow, recalling how Grams appeared to assume Slooky had no such relationships just a few minutes ago.

Grams held a finger to her lips with a smirk, eyes mischievous.

“Shh.”

They all laughed quietly at how she’d teased Slooky.

“Hey, Grams! Where’d you put the extra cots?”

With a sigh, she turned to the hallway in which that very person had disappeared off to. She put her hands on her hips, waiting.

When she didn’t reply, he appeared at the end of the hallway again, looking for her. He spotted her, next to the rest of them, taking note of her expression. He glanced around, then down at himself. There wasn’t anything wrong, at least that he could see.

But she was giving him the look.

It said he was in trouble.

“What?”

“And where are you tracking in all that dirt on your shoes?” she asked bluntly, glancing down at the dirt leading from the door, all the way to the hallway.

With a sigh, he bent over and slipped his shoes off, walking them over to the mat by the door.

“I’ll clean it up.”

“Mhm.”

“Later.”

She didn’t reply verbally, just lifted her brow again.

“I’ll get them settled first. Geez.”

“Storage room. Behind the boxes.”

He paused at her reply. “What?”

She gave him a deadpan reply.

“The cots.”

“Right. Thanks.” He stooped down and pecked her cheek before racing off in his socks, back down that same hallway.

The group shuffled into the room, taking off their shoes, one after another. Lott set hers down against the wall, on the matt, next to Slooky’s. Exel placed his down, nudging them until they were evenly placed, neatly in line. Bue kicked hers off, out of the path of the door. Sarah set hers down along with Magnice’s, righting Bue’s haphazard placement.

She closed the door, just as a loud boom shook the ground. Closing a secondary inside door, the sounds of the storm were muffled, as if they were happening far away.

“Hey guys, come over here. This room’s easiest to clean. Just leave your clothes on the floor when you change. I’ll get to it.”

Slooky led them to a large room, looking to be a bathroom, shower in the far corner, a pathway back for a toilet. It was a storage for blankets and towels, a first aid shelf, and an otherwise empty space.

There was no need to be shy or modest as they, with almost robotic and mechanical motions, set their bags down and changed from their filthy clothes into something presentable and clean. Though they’d been given their own rooms for so long, it was as if they didn’t have any sense as to hide from sight at the exposure of skin, no matter where it was on them or another.

As they traded out their clothes, the room was silent. Despite the suddenly heavy atmosphere and the knowledge that staring was rude, glances were stolen all around as bare skin was exposed to light.

It wasn’t in a lecherous manner.

No.

Something far different than that…

It was information on each other.

Things that weren’t said aloud, of things that weren’t ever to be shared.

Bodies told stories, almost as well as mouths did.

Almost.

Exel was decorated with achievement marks all across his torso, except, it seemed, only two resided on his back, up on his shoulder blades. But, as it were, all of his torso was covered. Large and small, old scars, with an occasional horribly jagged line that spoke of pain, took over the remainder of the skin. There wasn’t a square inch clear of a visible damage. It appeared as though he’d been in more than one brutal fight over the years.

The scars, however they appeared in reality, within Exel’s mind, they were attributed to learning. He’d studied hard in those days, those hours, those moments. He’d grown stronger over time. And he didn’t care to increase the number of large defining marks on himself.

He gingerly took off the clothes covering the wound on his shoulder and set his shirt aside before rifling through his bag. There was a stolen glance over at Sarah, who was facing the other way, pulling out a pair of sweats and a loose shirt before removing her own. An old scar drew a line across one side of her lower back, and above it, achievement circles seemed to bloom in the shape of an upside-down anchor, a curved line of circles, the middle at the base of her neck.

Noticing Bue hesitant on pulling clothes from her bag, as somehow there were only shirts in there, Sarah pulled a second pair of sweatpants from her own and handed it to her. Though they were two different sizes, the strings could be tightened, so it really didn’t matter how baggy they were on her legs, or how long, as she rolled up the bottoms to a comfortable length.

Lott slipped on a pair of pants before sliding her arms into what looked to be something similar to a robe, folding over itself in the front. She tied a belt around her waist, keeping it in place. As her shirt came off, a massive burn mark made an appearance across her upper abdomen.

Not all of their achievement marks were on their torsos. Lott’s had been spread out, everywhere. And just like the lines going down the sides of their necks, Bue’s circles drew lines down the outsides of her thighs, a few decorating her hips just under the scar. And Slooky… as timid as they all weren’t in changing their clothes openly in front of everyone else, some rudeness couldn’t quite be helped as he stripped out of everything.

The others had kept their undergarments on.

It appeared, as he went completely into the nude, that all of his achievements were near joints, except for two, on the sides of his ribcage. As he switched out his underwear, he noticed a few stray gazes.

Shaking a finger in the air, he made a declaration for all.

“Ain’t no way I’m sharing these. If you forgot undies, that’s on you.”

The one with the least number of scars, that is, having none at all, was Magnice. As Slooky moved to help him change his pants, speeding along through his own changing, somehow getting finished faster than everyone else despite undressing the most, they all noticed one thing drastically different with their resident genius.

“Jack…”

“How…”

“Why don’t you have any?” Exel was the first to make a complete sentence.

“Any?”

There was not a single line on his skin. Not along his neck, not in achievement marks. Nothing. Nothing at all.

And it was impossible.

“Oh, you mean achievements? I get upgrades instead. Invisible ones.”

“…why? How?”

He shrugged, looking away from them, as if embarrassed for the truth to be revealed, to show he was, in more than just one way, different than them. He couldn’t walk. He didn’t have achievements or lines.

Magnice knew he was the strange one, had hidden it when he first overheard them speaking about the bold marks on their bodies.

“I’m not sure. It’s always been that way. Thought it might have something to do with…” He instinctively glanced down at his own body before lifting his shoulders again, uncertain. “Either that, or a system error. You know how Fallacy is set up like a game. Like something was set up in an odd way when I started.”

There was some silence as the rest of them processed the information, noticed Magnice’s own reluctance to talk about it, clearly insecure about it.

“Alright,” Sarah said first, the others nodding along once she finished speaking. “Doesn’t make you any different.”

Magnice smiled at them, until Slooky helped him get his pants back on, by lifting him up, an amazing feat, making up for what was said earlier.

“Look! I can carry you!”

Unamused, Magnice glared.

“Try running.”

They stayed in a stalemate, a silence passing over them briefly.

“Nah.”

Slooky set him back down carefully, the first to look away sheepishly. It was right then that Grams knocked on the door and peeked in.

“I found something you might like,” she said, approaching Magnice with a wheelchair. Though it squeaked a little as it moved, everything was in working condition. “Thought you might want to get around on your own. No stairs in here.”

Elated, he hopped into it and moved around a bit. He inclined his head to her.

“Thank you.”

She nodded and left, Sarah and Lott right behind her, falling into a discussion about supplies as they walked away, Grams leading them off toward the pantry. Once finished, Exel took himself on his own personal tour of the bunker, absorbing it all.

Back in the main room, Slooky cleaned up the mess he’d dragged in before slumping down with a heavy sigh onto the couch next to Bue, propping his feet up on the table in front of him.

As he’d decided to wear shorts, Bue caught sight of an irregularity on his calf, a large ugly scar. She nodded to it.

“What happened there?”

When he noticed her gaze upon it, he lifted his leg, angling it so it was more easily seen.

“Ah, that? I was about ten or twelve, I think? Took a nasty tumble down a cliff,” he explained.

“Does it still hurt?”

Shaking his head, he poked at it carelessly, even spreading the skin around it. He shrugged.

“It hurt for a long time. But, Fallacy rewards those who achieve, right? Spent enough hours running around in there, and got this.” He turned his leg, shoving his sock down onto the top of his foot. A circle with the shoe of a runner in the center lay dark against his skin. Next to the shoe design was a medical cross. “It’s because I leveled up that I don’t have pain anymore.”

Bue leaned closer, poking at it.

“Oh. That’s so cool.”

They both laughed lightly.

“I’m sure you’ve got a speed one, don’t you?”

Bue stood up with a grin. “Sure do.”

She lifted her shirt without hesitation, just above the waist, right at the bottom of her ribcage, her fingers grazing her side as she did. Similar to his was a shoe, right in the middle of the circle. The difference was that it had a delicately intricate design, too hard to miss, and a bunch of tiny lines, like illustrating speed, or a breeze blowing past.

“Used to only have five lines,” Bue remarked.

Slooky looked to her face for confirmation as he replied.

“That’s like 30 lines there.”

She nodded. “One or two for each level,” she said as she lowered her shirt and returned to her warm spot on the couch.

“Are you serious?”

Her next nod made him let loose a low and impressed whistle. Rolling into the room with a sqeak, Magnice gazed at the two of them with interest, having heard the noise.

“What’s going on?”

Slooky hooked a thumb toward Bue.

“That girl makes me feel like I didn’t do enough laps around Fallacy, you know? We’ve got a prodigy runner here, and we call you a genius,” he joked. “Now there’s two! How was I even chosen for this,” he said, lifting his hands to the ceiling as if asking that instead.

Bue and Magnice exchanged smiles.

“Come on Slooky-Slook,” she said, poking his shoulder. “You’re pretty awesome too!”

He turned to her slowly.

“Now, you’re using that name, saying that after you just got MVP? Goodness, Bue, I feel worse with that attempt at comfort.”

Loud and boisterous laughter was heard, all the way in the pantry room.

“We’ll have enough for two days.”

“If we don’t fill our stomachs,” Lott added solemnly, touching a bag of rice carefully on the shelves that were far too empty for comfort.

Sarah nodded.

“We have to get food.”