Elevators don’t work down here. There’s very little electricity. We use that for necessary times only. The light comes from torches and lanterns. We’ve constructed a sort of lift that you pull a rope to activate.

Once you pull it, you use a makeshift weight made of rocks and attach it to the rope. Then you climb onto the lift. It automatically brings you up to the level you need to get to. The amount of weights attached is equal to the level you go to.

Pulling down the lift is a bit trickier. You have to remove a precise number of weights, and if you remove it too quickly the lift will come down rapidly and crash.

Just like how removing too many weights is a problem, adding too many is a bigger one. You will go up too far. There is an emergency escape mechanism in the lift.

Today I had too much on my mind. I walked over to the lift, intending to go to the kitchen on the highest floor. Cooking always calmed my nerves.

I bent down to pick up the weight, forgetting to pull the rope first. I sighed. I placed down the weight and yanked on the rope so it came down far enough to put on the weights.

I climbed onto the lift and sat on my heels so as to reach the rope. I tied it around the weights. In my racing thoughts, I temporarily forgot how to count. I miscounted the weights and nearly added too many.

I finished adding the weights and allowed it to pull me up to the top.

I sat down, legs crossed. I began to meditate. It allowed me to think.

I was feeling calmer. Until my head brushed something. I realized I was touching the tightly packed dirt roof. I gasped as I suddenly knew I had added one too many weights. “No worries,” I thought to myself. “Look for the emergency escape mechanism…”

I searched for the trapdoor with the latch and soft landing pad. I could unlock the trapdoor and throw down the pad so I’d land safely.

I located the door. I fiddled with the latch. I panicked as I realized it was rusted. Nobody had used it in years! I pulled and pulled. It refused to budge.

My only two options were to stay there until someone pulled down the lift somehow, or dig my way up to the surface.

The first option was out. It was impossible to pull down the lift when there was someone on it. It was for safety reasons.

The one option left could be deadly. Havoc and destruction had been wreaked on the world above. The air was unbreathable. Dragons roamed the sky and blasted fire on the surface. Forests were burned down and all species except humankind, dragons, and some bacteria were extinct.

Dragons would ruthlessly kill nearly any human who dared climb out of the surface. For extreme, extreme emergencies only, there were gas masks packed in a storage bin on the lift. I thought this was a fitting time- stay there and starve, or dig my way out and possibly survive.

I strapped a gas mask onto my face. It stank of dirt and mysterious smells that developed in the bin over time. I began to dig.

The brittle dirt flaked away as I scratched it. I scratched until my fingers were raw and pink. I decided that method was too slow. I punched the roof. I punched it over and over again. A crack slowly formed in the roof.

I shielded my head. The dirt and rocks collapsed on top of me. I climbed my way out into the destruction above.

Giant dragons circled the sky. The clouds were blood red and fire burned along the horizon. A slight crackling sound burned in my ears.

My rattling breathing was the loudest thing in the world until a dragon roared.

I grinned at the havoc I had wreaked.