We weren't afraid when all the world's volcanoes went off in one ear-shattering burst.
We weren't afraid of the aftermath and how the air would be nothing but ash for centuries.
We weren't even afraid of losing our loved ones or lives in the fallout.
We were afraid that They might have survives too.
So we crouched in our bunkers and waited for the world to settle again, praying that we'd made our ventilation shafts tall enough to not be smothered by the ash and that the filters wouldn't clog up before the surface temperature had stabilised.
We waited for what felt like aeons, silent and still and too terrified to even contemplate our rations or tend to the livestock or do anything other than listen for Them and Their call. The initial blasts knocked over most of our cameras and microphones leaving the surface full of empty space where They could so easily be gathering.
Though we could see that nearly all life had died, those empty cameraless spaces continued to taunt us with the promise of an unseen threat. Eventually the paranoia grew too great and we made the mistake of letting someone out to repair our equipment, to mend the spaces and put all of our minds at ease.
We didn't see what happened to them.
They just walked into the empty spaces and never came back.
We hoped that they might still be alive but something brought their bodies back to us last night.
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