He had a knife, but he did not regard it as a weapon to fight off a horde of zombies. It simply would not work.
As he thought this, a zombie ran into him, making him lose his balance. The zombie just kept running toward the lightning, bumping and tripping along the way.
Blaze watched the zombie with amusement, finding it less scary somehow. But it was definitely a nightmare for the person who was about to face the horror of being chased and bitten by them.
As he neared the crater, his curiosity grew. What secrets would it reveal? What treasures would it hide? He quickened his pace and reached the edge of the depression. He scanned the surroundings, looking for anything unusual or valuable.
He picked up a handful of soil, but found nothing remarkable. Only some black glass shards, probably formed by the intense heat of the blast that had carved out the crater. He tossed them aside, uninterested.
He dug deeper into the ground, hoping to uncover something more. His fingers hit something hard and smooth. He brushed away the dirt and saw a concrete surface, with some metal bars sticking out of it. They were bent and twisted, but they had survived the impact.
He realized what he had found. It was not a natural formation, but a man-made structure.
A bunker.
A bunker built by ordinary people, not by the governments that had abandoned them and only saved the elites and the professionals.
A bunker that had offered shelter and hope to those who had faced the chaos and the calamities that had plagued the world.
The bunker was wide and shallow, unlike most bunkers that were deep and narrow. It was not designed to withstand a nuclear bomb, but to protect from toxic gases, cosmic rays and radiation.
There were facilities for growing food, purifying water, generating power, and treating wounds. It was a self-reliant and secure haven for those who had planned and prepared.
This discovery confirmed Blaze's location. He was close to the south gate of Sarion Settlement.
There had been attempts to communicate and cooperate between the bunker and the settlement, to unite and integrate. But these attempts had been repeatedly rejected, as the bunker's population was nearly half of the settlement's.
The settlement's protectors were wary of accepting such a large number of newcomers, fearing that they would disturb their order and harmony that they had built over the years.
They faced many challenges in integrating the bunker dwellers, such as accommodation, resources, and security. They needed more land, more buildings, more supplies, and more defenses to cater to the bunker dwellers, who had different demands and desires than the surface dwellers.
Moreover, the bunker was self-sufficient, giving it up this early would be foolish for the bunker dwellers. And moving five thousand people was too daunting, even if done gradually. It would require a lot of coordination, transportation, and protection from the perils of the outside world.
Besides, the bunker dwellers preferred to remain in their safe and cozy underground home, rather than risk their lives in the harsh and hostile surface world. They had adapted to their lifestyle, and did not want to change it for an unknown future.
Blaze gazed at the lightning flashes in the distance, wondering if the survivor came from the bunker. He asked himself, why leave?
What could have compelled a bunker dweller to abandon his safe and comfortable underground home and venture into the stormy and dangerous surface world?
Was he searching for something that he could not find in the bunker?
Was he escaping from something that he could not face in the bunker?
Was he just curious and adventurous, wanting to discover the unknown?
Or they were running out of resources, forcing them to look for alternatives?
Meanwhile, inside the bunker, the usual white lamps in the ceiling were replaced by the red light from the wall, indicating an alert.
The alert was a sign of trouble, a sign that something was wrong with the bunker's systems.
The bunker dwellers were accustomed to living in a stable and secure environment, where everything was automated and controlled by the bunker's artificial intelligence. But now, they were confronting a crisis that endangered their survival.
The bunker had been relying on its backup generator for five days now, without the main power lines restoring it would be disastrous.
The main power lines had been damaged by an earthquake that had rocked the bunker five days ago, causing a massive overload in the main generator.
The main generator was the lifeline of the bunker, providing electricity for all the facilities and equipment. Without it, the bunker would soon lose power and become a dark and cold grave.
The strange thing was the failure should not have happened even with a high intensity earthquake. To make the generator suddenly overload was very unusual.
"Boss…" a man said opening a door to an office room.
He walked into the room where his boss was sitting at a desk, looking at a monitor that displayed various data and graphs, and studying the bunker's blueprint.
The boss was the leader of the bunker dwellers, a man who had kept the bunker running for years. He was respected and trusted by everyone in the bunker, and he had always ensured their safety and comfort.
The man who entered his office was his assistant, a young man who had learned a lot from him.
"So, what did the owner say? Can we manually pump the water?" The boss asked his assistant, who had just returned from talking to the owner of the bunker.
The owner was an old man who had financed and designed the bunker before the world went to hell. He was also a visionary who had foreseen the disasters that would strike humanity and prepared for them accordingly.
He lived in a separate section of the bunker, where he had his own private quarters and entertainment.
"The old man said no, he told me stories that the generator overloading was not possible and wouldn't happen anyway so the bunker didn't consider manual operation." The assistant replied, shaking his head.
He had tried to convince the owner to help them fix the water pump, which was vital for providing water to the bunker dwellers and their crops. But the owner had declined, saying that it was impossible for them to operate it manually without power.