At about one o'clock in the afternoon, Tomie and I stopped what we were doing. For lunch, I ate the last bowl of noodles and a few chocolates, smoked a cigarette and put what I thought was useful into a homemade backpack, and lined up all my weapons and two protective suits on the floor.

No one spoke, just sat on the ground facing these utensils and smoked cigarettes vigorously, and the smoke from the exhalation was quietly filled in the bright sun. In the face of such silence, I am not sure that the decision to explore the bomb shelter was the right one, but if I didn't, I would have to stay in this building.

I'm an honor student, the kind of person who is used to calculating the merits before taking action, while Tomie seems to be the one who is driven by emotions and intuition. Taking the initiative was the result of my repeated calculations, and Tomie didn't object to this decision, was it because she had her instincts, or was she accommodating to me?

It would be a lie to say that I don't care about my life or death at all, but if it were my own decision, I really wouldn't be entangled in my end. Choices determine life, this is the life principle that I have summed up in the past 17 years.

But once the choice involves a companion, the choice itself has already begun to deteriorate.

I've read a lot of books, and I've wandered countless times in the fantasy of a predicament created by human beings, and in the logical ending, there is no happy ending. Therefore, after a lot of imagination, I decided to live only for myself, and let the choice between life and death be limited to me.

However, at this very moment, I feel the weight of a person's life. It is not illusory, nor is it confined to the ego. Every word and action we take has an irreversible impact on each other every second.

If at some point in the future, Tomie dies, because he is disturbed by me, he dies in the exploration of the bomb shelter. If she stays and stays with me, she might survive. Such thoughts poured into my mind in silence with a ferocious gesture, and I couldn't help but laugh at my own sentimentality.

This is the first time I have been worried about my own choice.

I sat on the ground nervously, my palms clasped together and my thumbs pressed tightly against each other, like a quail trying to bury my head in my arms. At this moment, Tomie wrung out the cigarette butt on the ground and stood up. There was no trace of annoyance on her face, and her natural attitude looked the same as usual.

"Let's get started." She said.

"Hmm...... Well. I replied vaguely, stood up, paused and said, "Actually, I'll just go myself." ”

Tomie gave me a surprised look and picked up the hazmat suit in front of him.

"Do you want to eat alone? No way. ”

"...... so," I groaned, picking up my protective suit, "Go inside the bomb shelter, it's your decision?" ”

"Of course." She replied without hesitation.

"Probably dead."

She cast a slight gaze, fluttering, but it made me feel a certain oppression, and I couldn't help but explain: "I mean, if it weren't for me going down, you would go down......"

She immediately interrupted me, almost laughing.

"You're not a man at all."

"yes......" I could only smile wryly: "I...... I'm just not used to it. ”

"That's good."

"What?"

"Good leaders will think about their subordinates."

"I'm not the leader."

"You're a member of the student council, aren't you?" Tomie's words left me speechless: "The student union officials are the leaders of the students. ”

"Well, that's different, after all, the work of the student council doesn't kill people."

"Now it will."

Tomie's tone was blunt, and his attitude was not tactful, but he was not angry. I think she's motivating me, and that's probably the difference between adults and children, and the difference from what I think I'm maturing.

I couldn't reciprocate, I could only nod and smile, a little stiff, but suddenly my mood was much better. Perhaps to be a real man, both courage and grace need to go through a similar test. Maybe sooner, but you can't never grow up, or think you're growing up forever.

If you don't want to be a man without responsibility, you have to survive at this time.

I swapped the bag of greystone.

"Four for me, five for you." I emphasize.

Tomie stared at me for a moment, smiling and shaking his head, no objection.

"Do you know the truth? I am a Master in Psychology. That's what she said.

Tomie and I put on protective suits, which were as thick as winter coats from the soles of our feet to our necks, but not yet to the point where we could not move. The wrists, ankles, and waist were fastened with bandages, and then a helmet made of an iron pot was put on, with goggles buckled on the forehead and a mask hanging from the neck. I was afraid that I would not be insured enough, so I put a layer of poncho-shaped plastic film on the outside. The temperature was not low on this day, and the airtight outfit quickly made us sweat.

Tomie stuck three javelins between his back and his backpack, a flashlight tied to his shoulders, a bundle of ropes tied around his waist and a throwing rope with heavy loads tied at both ends. With a fire axe in one hand and a portable flamethrower converted from a gas stove in the other.

I was similarly equipped, but I had a kitchen knife with a long handle, a bow and crossbow with good arrows, and an extra quiver. Most of the arrows are ordinary arrowheads, and five are embedded with sharpened tips, and two have arrows replaced with hook claws in case they need to climb.

Stopping at the entrance of the bomb shelter, I took a deep breath and turned her head to look at Tomie, who was also casting her gaze, her eyes full of unshakable color. So I pulled down my goggles and put on my mask. Tomie had already stepped down the steps into the gloom below.

The first step stops at a depth of about five meters and divides into two branches, left and right. Tomie didn't stop and headed straight to the left, the light being blocked at the folds, darkening in layers as it went deeper, and the coolness lapped against the air-exposed facial skin.

Tomie and I turned on the flashlight, and the distance that the cone-shaped beam could illuminate gradually shortened, and it was fixed at a distance of 10 meters at the most. Beyond this distance, everything is shrouded in a terrifying haze.

A large number of particles wander in the beam. The world of black and white.

There are lamp holders on top of the wall, but there are no bulbs. The walls were covered with turquoise moss, and the air was cloudy, filled with a smell that felt dirty at the sight of it, from stains in the cracks of the walls, from black grains of solid like animal feces. In many places, there were cracks caused by excavations and disrepair, and the area was completely emptied before it was abandoned. ,

Occasionally, you can hear some trivial sounds, and shadows swish past you in front of you or at your feet, which can be startling inadvertently. They are creatures who are good at surviving in dirty, dim environments, and the damp and harsh environment that humans hate is like heaven to them. They feed on their companions who also live in these environments, or drag food they get from the outside world into the darkness, leaving them to rot before and after eating.

The structure of the cave is composed of corridors of different sizes, stairs with seven turns and eight folds, rooms of different sizes and empty halls, which extend to a depth of dozens of meters, like a huge labyrinth. I can be sure that the courtyard above my head is no longer the same place.

This complication was expected. My bow and crossbow have been put away and replaced by paper and pen. Every time I went around a corner, I made a mark on the wall and drew a map in my diary. We didn't walk fast, carefully searching every corner in the hope of discovering something different. No one should have been in here before, and we didn't find any humanoid creatures or corpses.

We are safe for the time being.

After reaching the end of the first time, we return to the nearest corner and head in the direction we haven't walked. In this silent and dark world, time became a blurred concept, and I followed Tomie, and soon after, she led me to what seemed to be a granary. The wall above the doorway was carved with vague handwriting, which was no longer legible, and some seeds were found in the barn.

"Didn't you get eaten?" I was a little stunned.

"Maybe they can't get in." Tomie took off the flashlight and swept it through the walls and corners. The place is completely sealed and even cobwebs are scarce.

"The gate is not locked."

"Judging by the dust and the axle, it doesn't look like it was ever opened."

I stepped forward to pick up the seeds. The seeds were purple-red, the size of a grain of rice, and it was impossible to tell what kind of crop they came from, and she didn't know if she asked Tomie. In short, not wheat and rice.

As I pondered, I looked along the wall in front of me to the top of the wall, and I didn't know what the road was, but I always felt that the lampholder at a height of two meters was a little strange.

"Achuan, here." Tomie called me behind his back.

I followed, and she stood in front of another lampholder to take a look.

"I'll go up and take a look, you're going to frame me?" She asked.

I shrugged my shoulders and crouched down, letting Tomie straddle my shoulders like a horse. She leaned forward, and I had to lower my head to see what she was fiddling with. When she came down, she had a wooden thorn in her hand, with white silk threads wrapped around it.

"What do you think?" She asked.

"Cobwebs?"

"I don't think so." She said for sure.

But when asked what it was, she couldn't say it herself, and what made her care was something else.

"The lines are coming in from across the wall."

"Cracks in the walls?"

"That's right." "And it's flat, like it's artificial," she said. ”

I think I felt that something was wrong with the lampholder, and maybe it was the same reason.

"What's on the other side of the wall?"

"Just go and see it."