Cartographer

Harvester

Although boring, this is safe and not in complete darkness. I and all other eleven students put our hands up for first preference.

Trapper

Hunting bugs for the rest of my life? No thanks.

Bat breeder

I would rather die. Apparently, so would everyone else.

Stew maker

Okay… not bad, I will admit. The cooks are always favoured; they manage to make moss, bats and bugs somewhat edible. This was my second choice.

Miner

Hell no. That shit's hard work and the mining crew NEVER makes any worthwhile progress. This rockbed is too hard for our inept tools to carve through.

Healer

I once thought this would suit me, until I saw one of the scavengers return from outside with their flesh turning translucent and melting from their bones. No… I didn't want to see that again.

Scavenger

Scavenging used to be fine and safe, but the Madness of the world hit closer to our new home and venturing too far led them into irradiated lands. It is too dangerous now.

Cartographer

Every few years the leaders elect a cartographer to replace the last that inevitably went missing. The caves go on for miles and we need to keep stretching to find more resources.

Teacher

There aren't many kids down here, it could be a pretty cruisy gig… if not for the Leaders. My teacher told us we live in a dystopia. Tyler was standing at the back of the room with us, and he pinned her under his hard stare. No, being a teacher was too much pressure.

I couldn't help but notice that Leader was not a career option. With the way Tyler ran the show with Alice, it wasn't exactly a democracy. That became clear even before I finished school at fourteen, even before we got to choose our job preferences.

“Owen, you didn’t choose a third preference,” the teacher had said.

“He will be our new cartographer,” came Tyler’s gruff voice from the back of the room.

“Like hell I am!” I protested. “I’ll pick scavenger. At least if I die on the job it’ll be outside and not deeper down here.”

“We already have scavengers. We need a cartographer.”

“Why’s that, don’t you trust your scavengers to bring back resources anymore?”

Tyler’s eyes flashed, which raised shivers down my spine. “How dare you disrespect our brave scavengers, boy? You will go to The Hole for a day.”

“The… Hole?”

Nobody spoke a word of protest; the room was silent when Tyler snatched my arm and dragged me away.

We told each other scary stories about The Hole. I once heard that a kid who misbehaved was tossed down there, but the next day… he was gone. Tyler and Alice themselves laughed at the rumour, before they looked at me seriously and said that they put miscreants down there so the mountain could decide if they deserved a second chance.

My Gran held me while I cried as a child, fearful of the black hole they threatened. She wiped my tears and told me Alice and Tyler were only joking, but then Martin the stew maker said that Tyler threw my parents in The Hole, and that is how they died: their adult bodies being pushed by the fury of the river down the mountain into a pit at the bottom until the pit filled with water right before their lungs did.

It terrified me when Tyler’s vice-like grip pinched my wrists and he lowered me down into the dark hole in the rockbed. The rock was soft beneath me, smoothed by the caress of rivers long past gushing torrents and now an airy hallway carved into the mountain. If I turned my head I could see the tunnel stretch as far back and as far in front as my dark eyes could see. Above, Tyler just looked at me with a grim expression.

This was the first time I saw the soft glow of the minerals in the empty river tunnel. The specks were mesmerising, a galaxy of blue and pink lights swimming in a black expanse. I bathed in their beauty. The tiny balls of energy were tiny beacons of hope which wiped away my panic and soothed my mind.

I'd never seen the night sky but when I tried to describe the lights in The Hole, Gran had this faraway gaze.

“Stars,” she said. “They are like stars. I sure miss the open night sky. It is beautiful, Owen, I am sorry we can’t go out and see it.”

I sit here now, nineteen years old and just as stupid as I was when I first stood up to Tyler, wondering if I will ever see her again. Tyler and Alice are going to force Gran out of the cave in two days.

The mountain creaks around me and a deep rumble shakes the pebbles at my feet. Some of the pretty lights embedded in the walls of the deep tunnels blink out, my beacons of hope diminishing one by one.

The bombing continues out in the open world. Gran told me that Mutually Assured Destruction happened. Mad, she called it. She said the world went Mad. The forests were burned to ash, the grasslands turned to sand, the cities flattened into rumble… and occasionally our mountain will shake with the wrath of the Madness outside 62 years after the war began.

I eat the last piece of moss left in my bag by my dwindling light. Twenty-six days I have wandered the depths of these tunnels, crawling through cramped spaces so narrow my chest can barely squeeze through. I’ve gotten stuck a handful of times but I never let the panic rise. I can’t afford to spiral out when Gran is depending on me.

This season, less than half of our usual yield of moss by the cave entrance is available to us and it isn’t enough to feed us all. Even if we catch every last bug in the place, it will never be enough. Almost a month ago we had to ask the question: who do we sacrifice? For the children to have food, others must starve.

Our leaders decided it would be the elderly who would eat their last meals before they walked the scorched earth outside. They were praised for giving families a month to spend their last days together but I see they are taking in the guise of giving.

My gran won’t be going out there, not if I have anything to say about it! She was a founder of this place - they all were - and now look at how they are being thanked. They are being pushed out of our refuge to either starve to death or die in the desert outside that used to be a forest.

How cruel.

Angry tears brim, I blink feverishly. I won’t let her go. I won’t let Tyler kill her like this.

I pick up my candle and continue traversing the cave system, pausing occasionally to update my maps. I have exhausted various routes and this is the last one I have time for. I hurry through at a jog, painfully aware of how low my candle is getting and how cold it is.

I am chilled to the bone, but it doesn’t matter. I must continue on, I must battle through my chattering teeth, my numb toes, my fingers so cold I can barely trace the lines of my maps properly. My mind is growing as shaky as my body, it takes all my energy to remain focused.

I didn’t expect to be down here this long. I began rationing my food halfway through but now I’m out. I found more mapping supplies, a spare candle and a letter goodbye to her husband on the decayed body of the previous cartographer I found trapped in a narrow passageway. I took her heart-shaped locket, too.

The descent is steep, now. I sit and slide down carefully one inch at a time, hoping I will be able to climb up again. My tattered shoes lose grip and I slip a metre down, shredding my hands on the sharp rocky surface. My candle falls down the rest of the way and blows out, leaving me plunged into utter darkness. I measure my breathing and wait a moment, extending my awareness into the void.

Echoes of my candle falling rattle out, and as I sit still a different sound swims into my ears like hopeful tendrils reaching out to me in the dark, something wanting to be found. The noise is something otherworldly, like wind rushing through the higher tunnels by the cave entrance but the air around me doesn’t shift. I press my ear to the chilled rocky wall and the sounds grow louder. Something on the other side of the wall is calling to me.

I look down at the descent awaiting me and spot a glow emanating from below. Despite the pain in my hands I continue on, gritting my teeth and holding my breath between each slide down. Minutes pass, or maybe it’s hours. Without the candle, I am lost for a sense of time. Each minute feels as eternal as the tunnels.

The new cavern welcomes me. I drink in the sight of twinkling lights filling the space but the strong glow comes from phosphorescent rocks that light the cave better than a candle ever could. In the dim light, I can see the dark shapes on the walls and touching the moist, squishy object confirms my discovery: moss. It’s everywhere.

The noise like a gale grows louder as I walk through, packing my bag tightly with moss. With the sweetness on my tongue, the watering of my mouth, the moisture on my hands from the moss, I finally realise what the sound is.

A river gushes through the depths of the mountain, a hidden stream nurturing the heart of the caves with beds of moss and insects. My fingers dip into the river and I bring the drops to my lips. The taste is fresh, crisp, and cool. Most of all, it tastes like freedom.

I hurriedly scoop up some into my canteen and tie it to my belt before I hop through the cavern to pull out my map by a luminous rock. My heart pounds nervously. I would have to travel fast to make it back to our local caves before Gran gets sent outside.

I grapple my way back up the slope, scraping my knees until bloody, before retracing my steps home with the aid of my map. I climb over the body of a previous cartographer again and a pang of sadness hits me; I wish I could return her home with me but I can’t afford to be slowed down.

I burn a new candle.

The hours pass, and the new candle’s short nub of wax left signals my deadline.

Familiar caves begin to surround me and it urges my tired legs forward. Soon I race through the main tunnel that connects our food hall, healing room and residences up toward the tunnel entrance.

“Stop! Nobody is leaving!”

Heads turn my way and Gran smiles with tears in her eyes.

Tyler shakes his head, angry. “This isn’t a choice! Our aged residents need to leave for the youth to survive.”

“Oh yeah? Your hair is grey too, you should leave with them.”

Nobody looks impressed with me, but I don’t care.

“I am the leader, what I say goes.”

“Why are you leader?” I challenge him.

“Because I manage our resources.”

“Oh? Well, the power is in my hands, now.”

I pull out the moss from my bag and begin handing it around to the elderly who can only nod their thanks, speechless. I give Gran my water and find Johnny in the crowd, giving him his wife’s necklace and letter to him.

“If you want to keep a supply of food, then what I say goes.”