Young Writers Society

Unlike her brother, Solaris wasn't unfazed by the paw: she stared down at it for the first moment it was extended, then shook it with a slender hand of her own. Solaris, by all accounts, was pretty - beautiful, even - and that detail made his unease return. Ryder knew he was letting himself get too paranoid, but he also knew he had good instincts. There had to be something about this situation that was rubbing him the wrong way.

"It's nice to meet you as well," she said, briefly ducking her head down in greeting as she shook his hand. After she withdrew it, she turned to Briar. "My name is Solaris."

Briar kept a neutral expression, "No it's not." It was a statement, there was no question involved.

Even as she said it, though, Briar wondered if it was the correct move. Maybe she should have held back? She shoved the doubt aside. What was done was done, the consequences were all that mattered now.

Ugh, even Solaris wasn't comfortable around him. At least she wouldn't be able to see his expression.

He briefly glared at Briar. Lasan wanted to say that now wasn't the right time to say something like that, but she'd already said it. So, he had no real choice but to carry on that conversation. "Is that true?" he said, looking over at Solaris.

Solaris, like with the paw, seemed unfazed, but her brother grew visibly agitated at the insult. "Don't be mean to sister!" he exclaimed. He appeared to like her leg, but also seemed to be considering leaving. What he was planning on doing afterwards, Ryder wasn't sure.

"I'm not sure I know what you're talking about," Solaris said, giving her brother a comforting pat on the head. She didn't even look in Briar's direction - not because she hadn't heard, but because she wasn't going to pay her the least bit of attention.

"Um, when Gareth called you by your name, he started to say something else?" Lasan said. He couldn't help but admire how Gareth and Solaris were so protective of each other, but ignoring Briar was a bit rude, and he felt like he needed to know a little more about them in as dangerous a situation as this. "What's that all about?"

Solaris gave Gareth a look. It wasn't an angry one, but the type that hinted that this wasn't the first time a situation like this had happened.

"He was probably going to give my childhood nickname," Solaris said. The guilty expression that flickered across Gareth's face as he sucked on his finger said otherwise, but Ryder didn't interrupt. He was trying to get a good grasp on what was going on, and something told him that she was bound to slip up eventually.

"He started to call you 'Lu'," he said when Solaris didn't say anymore; it was an attempt to prompt a slip. He wasn't sure how well it was going to work, but it was worth a shot.

"He used to call me 'Lala' because I always sang to him," she said.

Briar heard the lies in her voice, but she stayed quiet this time. Maybe she should let this play out. Let her lie. No one kept a secret indefinitely, after all.

"How did you get here?" she asked, the curiosity that flavored her tone melting away to leave it once again blank.

"I'm not sure," Solaris said. That, at least, sounded truthful. "I just woke up in the bunker."

Gareth tugged on the fabric of her dress. "Food?" he asked, pointing a pudgy finger towards the open hatch.

"You already ate," she said. "And it's rude to eat in front of others."

"I don't mind," Ryder interrupted, watching the two curiously. Maybe it was because they were from different places, but that custom was one he had never heard of before.

Oh, that made a surprising amount of sense. Neither of the others seemed like they especially believed it, but it was a sweet name. Lasan would have to think of something to call Mal.

"Yeah, I have no problems with it," Lasan said to Gareth. "Help yourself."

Briar recounted what she saw in her head. There had been some food there, a lot, even, but she didn't know how long they were going to be there, or if the storm was going to return.

"It may be best to conserve resources," she said, trying to calculate exactly how much food there was in her head.

Lasan waved a paw around. "It's not like we're running low on hatches," he said. "I'm not sure how many rooms there are, but there's so many of them and so few of us that I don't feel like we need to conserve a lot. The people they were meant for are all, well, dead."

"We don't know that they're all dead," she said matter-of-factly, "And we don't know that every hatch contains food. This looks to me like a fallout shelter of some kind," she said, mentally comparing it to the one beneath her father's manor, "If I'm right, there won't be food stored in every room."

She didn't elaborate further. She had already said more than she should have, according to her father's rules. She stiffened at the idea of what might happen if she broke another rule. She didn't even question that he would find out.

"It's best not to assume we have more than we know," she said the rule aloud, hoping it would be clearer than her previous explanation.

"Ugh, can we go to a warmer place before you argue about this?" came a voice from beneath Lasan's blankets.

Patting where he was reasonably sure Mal's head was, the lizard then folded his arms. "We know a lot more than that, actually," he said. "The bodies that we found were skeletons. They appear to be in the same place where they died, which, knowing how long it takes for a dead body to break down, must've been a long time ago. Also, each of those shelters is one room, looks like it was meant for one person, and the few we've come across look the same. I think we do have a lot of resources."

"It still might be a good idea to conserve our resources," Solaris countered, crossing her slender arms. "It's difficult to guess how long we're going to be here, and how far out we can travel."

Ryder mirrored her posture. "That is a good point," he agreed, "but we can't ignore the land around us. I can't speak for everyone else here, but I'm good at finding resources. Would a little snack hurt?"

While the discussion was going on, Gareth had wandered up to Lasan and was staring at where Mal was buried underneath the blankets. He tilted his head to the side. "Someone there," he guessed. He sniffed the air. "Heard them. Smelled them, too."

"I agree with Ryder," Lasan said. "It doesn't look like there's a whole lot stopping us from traveling - we can break into more of the shelters if we need to. My nose isn't as great as I'd like it to be, but I think there's some things I can pick up on. Maybe food, if it isn't in those weird packages."

It was about then that Gareth walked up to him. Looking down, Lasan realized that Ryder was the only person who knew that Mal was hiding in Lasan's blankets. Whoops.

After a brief pause, Lasan crouched down and whispered, "Sorry, that's just my boyfriend."