The atmosphere was gloomy. The desaturated halls reflected the soulless nature of the bunker. You could hear a faint noise in the distance. The empty halls perpetuated the sound, carrying it as an lone echo off the bare white walls.
People stayed in their assigned rooms. They were small, designed almost like a cell, of which you could enter and exit at your own discretion.
This sound. It was that of two people talking. Or, rather, arguing. A man and a woman were having a disagreement about something in a lab. The woman sat at a monitor while the man was standing, and pacing around her desk.
(Woman: "I do believe I've told you this many times before. You cannot leave. It isn't possible. Do you remember the Great Walkout? What they brought back with them? It caused millions of deaths."
(Man: "I understand that. But we can't stay down here forever. The water reserves are running low, rations are dwindling, we cannot sustain ourselves down here much longer!")
(Woman: "So, what do you suppose we do? Do you think we should seriously try our luck out in the wasteland?")
(Man: "What other choice do we have?")
(Woman: "I'm not leaving. Even if I did want to, it's against the rules. Those guns at the exits would shoot anyone down who even tries to leave.")
(Man: "H.S.A. personnel can leave at anytime!")
(Woman: "No, no, no, that wrong. That's not true. Only the retrievers can.")
(Man: "You know what? Who cares?! There has to be a way for us to leave.")
(Woman: "And like I said, even if there was, I'm not leaving.")
(Man: "Why the hell not?!")
(Woman: "I've put too much time and effort into my studies down here to just leave it all behind. I'm not abandoning my research, not when I'm this close to a huge revelation. This could be huge!")
(Man: "Oh, what? Are you going to reverse the rapture? Get a grip, goddamnit!")
(Woman: "Are you mocking me?")
(Man: "I am not mocking you. I just think this is ridiculous!")
(Woman: "Then you leave! I'm staying!")
The man's nostrils were flaring with anger. He stormed off out of the room they were in, and into the lifeless halls.
The cafeteria was filled will people. Many of which were at the food stand, banging on the glass window. They were crying out for rations, but they never received any.
People pushed and shoved each other. Fights broke out constantly among citizens.
The man who had left the room was no citizen. He worked for the H.S.A. as a researcher. He held special privileges citizens did not, such as increased daily rations.
He was a good man, if not a bit selfish. But today, he had made the worst mistake of his life. A man with higher privileges was making his way toward the citizen's cafeteria. He wanted to cross over into the housing district to talk to someone.
The citizens had been waiting for a day like this. A single day for a single slip up. That's all it took.
The researcher walked in front of a door. He grabbed his card, which had a red stripe on the top indicating his higher status, and used it on a sensor next to the door, which unlocked it from his side.
He opened it and walked into the cafeteria. Everything went quiet. People stopped their fighting, they stopped their screaming and crying, and everything came to a standstill. The only thing that moved was the researcher. He was confused as to why everyone had frozen up.
The attack came from behind.
An arm wrapped around his neck, and he was pulled into a chokehold. A man much larger than the researcher held him. He wildly flailed his arms in a panic. Two more people came by and held both his arms still. He suddenly heard the sound of plates shattering. Citizens smashed their plates into long sharp shards.
The citizens approached with a crazed glare in their eyes. They almost seemed to snarl at him. He tried to scream, but he couldn't get enough air through his throat to make a single sound. At that moment, he knew he was doomed, but that didn't stop him from kicking and squirming.
The citizens began to stab the researcher with the shards of plate. The sharp edges pierced right through his thin blue button-up shirt. Red blood stained the blue shirt, and the researcher had soiled his undergarments.
The pain was so immense he somehow found a way to let out a long high-pitched scream despite being choked. He got his arms away from the two people holding him, and he reached out towards the ones stabbing him in a pathetic attempt to redirect their blades, and when that didn't work he clenched the arm that was around his neck. His unclipped nails dug into the skin, causing it to draw blood. The researcher was still screaming all the while.
The researcher passed out, his face as pale as the walls, and they threw his body onto the ground. Multiple people jumped on top of him trying to grab his card. They began fighting each other for the card like ravenous wolves would fight over a carcass.
Many other citizens gathered around waiting for the one who would emerge victorious, so they could follow them.
The ones fighting over the card began to stab each other. One was stabbed in the neck, and then in the temple. He bled out and died on the spot. The other two held onto each other, and they rolled around in a scuffle.
The person on top stabbed the other right in the arm. They responded by plunging their shard right into their armpit. They gave an audible gasp and they backed off. The person on the bottom still held the shard, so when they backed away, it was pulled out of the wound, and blood immediately poured out of it like a waterfall.
The person who had backed away had the card, but they dropped it to tend to their wound. As soon as they dropped it, they were trampled by the ones until he crowd trying to get the card as well.
An alarm sounded off as they fought amongst themselves, and two armed guards walked into the room.
The situation got very tense. The guards threatened the citizens, but none seemed to care. In fact, many threw themselves at the guards, who opened fire at them. And of course, two guards were no match for more than a hundred citizens who were in that room at the time.
Both guards were taken down at killed. One had their skull crushed under the shoes of around a dozen people who were stomping on her, and the other had their gun stolen and they were shot in the pancreas and lungs. He drowned in his own blood.
The card was eventually used and they got access to areas they otherwise couldn't get into. Hundreds of citizens ran down the halls looking for an exit, taking down anyone who got in their way.
Back in the lab, the alarms also set off. The researchers got nervous and left the lab, but the one woman who was in the disagreement stayed. She was stubborn. She didn't care about anything going on in the bunker. She only cared about her studies.
She could hear the stomping of feet come down the hallway.
He simply sat calmly in her seat. They all ran past the door. She shook her head and looked back at her idle monitor.
The mob were making their way down the bleak halls. Multiple guards had tried stopping them, but their determination was unwavering. Even when a dozen people were killed in a shootout, they kept moving on. They took down a guard, shooting one and bludgeoning another's head in with their own helmet. The white walls were painted red that day.
They finally made it to a hall that turned left. A sign hanging on the ceiling said, "Designated H.S.A. Personnel Only! Do not pass!"
The sign was bluntly ignored, and they passed anyway. There was an elevator at the end of the corridor. They people had gotten so excited, many didn't see the guns on the ceiling being deployed.
A loud siren rang. That was the final warning. Actually, no. That siren was the final strike. It was an audible signal that they had screwed up. With a sequential metallic click from each gun, they began firing. Dozens of people were mowed down. Bodies piled on top of each other. So many tried to run back where they came from, but it was so crowded that they couldn't get far enough to escape the hellfire coming from the automated guns on the ceiling.
No one was able to escape that day. The bloodshed was masterfully covered up and no one was allowed to speak of what happened. But mistakes tend to repeat themselves when they aren't learned from. This exact scene happens in bunkers all around the world. It became too big to cover up.
2053