Outside.

23 years we've been shut in. I can't really remember what was out there. I’ve been locked in since I was 5 years old. The stories I was told by my Aunt were supposed to scare me, to instil fear so that I would never want to venture outside. I always was an inquisitive child.

Now here I stand, one of four, in front of the big steel shutters that have been our sanctuary, our safety, our barrier, our prison gate. Stood together between closed doors, one behind, one in front. Once we step out, we are on our own. We are the chosen, the immune, we will travel into the destruction. Our mission:- Find the blueprint of our new world.

For 10 years we've been preparing for this, 5.00am starts every day, gruelling physical training, strict diets of root vegetables and protein shakes, vitamin injections twice a day. Reading and learning day and night. We are the elite, we are the only ones that can do this.

The stories of the outside became fact once the elders handpicked us from the rest, maybe close to forty thousand in our underground city. We were chosen because we were never scared, we were intrigued. Always hanging around the pod where our elders made decisions, cheeky and nosey as children, brave and knowledgeable as teens. We were a band of misfits , we never followed the rules, well, until we were chosen. Then we did anything that they ordered, desperate to get outside. Now here we are.

Heart thumping in my chest. What if the air hits us and we die? How do they know we’re immune? Are they sending us straight to our death?

One of my Aunts stories rushes through my head. Her neighbour contracted wave five of the disease. She said he started with shortness of breath but deteriorated so rapidly, within an hour he was swollen to three times his ordinary frame with puss dripping from every orifice. Dead after 90 minutes.

Shaking the images from my head I take a deep breath and slip the dark visor over my face. We're told that the light outside will be painful to our eyes. A banging noise makes us jump, with a shudder the steel creaks and starts to roll upward. Blinding light slowly illuminating our feet, then our legs and up and up. Even with the visor I’m screwing my eyes to almost closed. Never have I seen such brightness. I’m breathing heavy, I haven’t died, so far so good.

The shutter screeches to a halt, were frozen in place, taking in the dirty grey world that we've been told about.... Except it isn’t.

We look at each other in complete confusion. In front of us is the bluest expanse of water we have ever seen, in the books we studied seas and lakes did not look like this. Trees and greenery as far as our eyes can see, the sky blue and the sun warm and bright.

Our elders described the world as basically dead. Grey, smoggy, burned. This is something else, something absolutely beautiful.

We step out, its warm, yet the air feels damp. Its so completely different to the air inside the city, old air, recycled through rickety conditioning units. The smells out here are divine, I'm not sure what they even are, grass, trees, water maybe? All I know for sure is that I like it.

We walk slowly, taking in the magnificence. Giddy and chattering animatedly, we are all so excited and for a few minutes, the mission is forgotten. The others are slowly lifting their visors, squinting in the sun. I do the same. Wow its bright, its blinding, I squint too, slowly opening my eyes wider as my vision adjusts.

Jamie suddenly screeches loudly and throws himself into the water, I panic thinking something has got him, ready to dive in after him I realise everyone is laughing. He's coming back out, dripping wet scooping his long blonde hair out of his face.

“That's your first wash this year isn’t it Jamie?” Curtis laughs as he’s flicked with water.

Its just so... I plop down on the grass, breathing deep. This might actually be paradise.

Just then we hear a noise, a noise that doesn’t seem to belong. Kind of a whirring or buzzing. I jump up.

“RUN!” I shout and we all take off into the trees. We form a circle, back to back drawing our knives ready.

“ What the hell was that?” Clara whispers, her breath ragged.

Its getting louder, its above us we think but we cant see anything there. Scanning all around us, trying to see what danger awaits.

“I see it! There!” Jamie hisses, pointing up towards our right.

“What is it?” I question, it looks familiar but I'm unsure.

“Its a drone, you’d know that Sarah if you paid any attention in weapons class" Curtis scowls. I roll my eyes. Like I need telling off right now.

“Ok then geek, what is it and why is it there?”

“More to the point, who’s controlling it? There aren’t any people outside" Clara whispers nervously.

Suddenly the drone whips away, disappears over the hill at the other side of the water. We sit down. Curtis pulls the map out of his bag and studies it.

“Great" he sighs “Over that hill is where we're heading"

We drink some water, repack our kits and off we go. Drone or not, we have a mission. We trek for what seems like ages because of the heat, keeping under the trees as much as we can in case the drone returns. It doesn’t, but were constantly watching and listening. Its existence has really rattled us. Where did it come from? Was is armed? Are there people out there? Should we be afraid if there is?

We come out of the trees near the top of the hill. With no cover Curtis tells us we should crawl the rest of the way, keeping as low as possible in the grass so we wont be seen so easily. Its hard but there’s not very far to go and we reach the top within about fifteen minutes. Creeping up over the top, on our bellies now. We look down. Before we have chance to take in what’s on the other side, the familiar buzzing seems to surround us. We flip over on our backs. There are four drones forming a square around us. Well, its been nice I guess. Least I got to see outside before I died.

One of the drones pings and beeps, this is it, I close my eyes.

“Please follow" a robotic sounding voice says.

I look to Curtis and the others, he just shrugs cautiously . We get to our feet and the drones set off slowly down the hill. I look up and gasp. At the bottom is what seems to be a town. Full of houses and people and animals. There’s even what looks to be fields of crops and little roads. These people have not only just come outside. These people have been here for years while we've been stuck underground, fearing for our families. Living in the dark afraid of a disease that clearly no longer exists.

We march down the hill in silence, nobody knows what to say. We're all lost in our own thoughts. Have we been betrayed? How did the elders not know? Why have they been describing a world destroyed, a world black and charred from the fires of containment? Do they know?

We reach the bottom and a scary looking man with a big black beard greets us gruffly.

“This way" he growls.

I’m scared, what are we walking into here?

He leads us to a large white house and takes us inside. Its so grand, there’s a staircase in the centre that slips to the left and the right. Golden banisters and art on the walls. He walks us into a room with plush velvet seats and a huge wooden table. Kind of like the meeting room in the pod, but brighter and more sparkly.

Sat at the table is an elderly woman, she’s wearing a purple coat make from some shiny material.

“Sit down, I’ve been waiting for you" she croaks.

We sit, Curtis looks at her untrusting.

“What do you mean you’ve been waiting for us, how could you possibly know we were coming"

“I’ve been here in this house for 23 years, waiting for you all" she says quietly. “You are very late, all the others came ages ago"

We all stare at her dumbfounded. How did she survive the disease? Who are all the others? Why has she waited for us?

“My husband worked with the army" she begins “The army created the disease, they didn’t mean for it to be released like it was, they were making it as a weapon. Unfortunately once it was out, it was out and nobody could control it. Oh it was horrible , people I loved dying in front of me, the chaos, the smell of the dying, I just wanted it to end. Then my husband brought me here. He had found a vaccine and a cure but the army didn’t want to know. They didn’t want to admit what they had done. How could they? He gave me the vaccine and hid me away up here all by myself. The people went underground or died. My husband never came back.” She sniffed.

“I still don’t understand why you were waiting for us?” I say quietly.

“Oh because I needed to give you this" she handed me a gold heart shaped locket. I looked at her like she was completely senile. Shot looks to the others who obviously thought the same as me.

“My husband gave me six of these and told me to give one each to those who came"

“There are six underground cities in the country" Clara stated.

“No, only one, they others came years ago" the old lady said rolling her eyes.

I opened the locket, inside was a memory card. “What’s on it?” I said.

“Everything you need to come and live in paradise my dear"

Start writing...pp