Doomsday by Design

#1 of the Doomsday Chronicles Trilogy

Free Speech Press

Is doing the right thing worth the risk that comes with it?

On the dawn of the holocaust, no one was prepared to face the end of the world.

Even the nationwide network of doomsday preppers—a network spanning across the states, even into Canada, Mexico, and beyond—could’ve scantly comprehended the severity of the disaster soon to come.

The founder of the network was a man named Dorian Levi, an eccentric type who lived with his niece in the isolated town of Woodpine, Nevada. The doomsday-prepping insurgency was a club of sorts, a massive one stretching across states and countries, connected by their website, phones, radios, friendships, families, and communities—though despite their passion for their projects and preparations, many of them never expected their insurgence to become needed. For some, it was merely a hobby—and for others, it was a lifestyle, as numerous members of the Insurgence merely lived lives of self-reliance, of fishing, farming, ranching or hunting.

But Dorian Levi stood out among the rest, as he was originally none of these things; Dorian was simply the man with all the wild ideas, and his friends amidst his expansive community were pleased to indulge his imagination.

However, his niece—Sandra Levi—couldn’t care less.

Sandra was a young woman, a lonesome soul who spent much of her time contemplating on her life, pondering which colleges she might attend or what career path she might eventually choose. Despite being in her twenties, she felt no rush to decide; she had a quiet and stable job at the public library, and she had all the time in the world to choose a life path.

But if her Uncle Dorian had his way, her lifestyle would become one like his—a strange and unpredictable one filled with wild theories of the future, bizarre plans for numerous drastic possibilities, and plenty of overbearing preparations for whatever insane disaster he thought might arrive.

She simply couldn’t understand it; Dorian had the energy and ambition of a man less than half his age, and he always believed in his strange lifestyle with every fiber of his being. Building a bunker on their home property—inventing wild contraptions inside—stockpiling food and guns—and even siphoning his money into his bugout location to the north, a huge chunk of property owned by he and many of his Insurgence friends—it was all insane.

Yes, he was as passionate as he was inspired with every precautionary step—but throughout all his years of hoarding and over-preparing, Sandra couldn’t shake one single, troubling thought.

What on earth was the point of it all?

Dorian was a great believer in old-school values, self-reliance, and wariness of the government—and quite honestly, Sandra never really minded his beliefs in these regards.

However, the drastic extent of his doomsday prepping seemed overwhelmingly unnecessary, and the longer she watched it all, the more she felt as if Dorian was simply wasting all of his time and money. Even if some grand disaster were to occur, it wasn’t as if she and her uncle could do anything about it. In fact, in all likelihood, she and Dorian would both die relatively ordinary deaths at some point in time, just like most other people in the world—and neither of them would be able to prepare for such a thing if they tried.

Sandra knew all too well that death could happen in the blink of an eye—that accidents might transpire, people might be hurt, and death would come in ways nobody could prepare for.

So, it seemed pointless to prepare for every possible scenario in the world.

In reality, bad things would simply happen, most times with little or no warning, and there was nothing you could do about it. That was the simple truth of the matter, something Dorian himself could never seem to see.

But Sandra—she couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t see the world this way.

While Dorian seemed feverishly inspired to change the outcomes of every life situation, Sandra simply understood that those changes weren’t possible or realistic. While Dorian spent much of his time and effort trying to build a grand future, Sandra knew it made little difference to plan for things so deeply—as life often had a way of making one’s plans crumble.

It was bizarre to her that Dorian seemed so childishly confident in his wild ideas of molding the future—after all, how could someone so much older than her cling to the type of childlike naivety that she herself hadn’t harbored in years?

Then again, Sandra often thought herself too apathetic for her own good.

Whereas Dorian always came off lively and friendly, she was cold and detached, and she felt that way most of the time. Perhaps that was part of it…

Still, it hardly mattered.

She knew for certain that she wasn’t wrong in seeing the insanity of Dorian’s dramatic preparations, and that alone kept her distant from everything involving the Insurgence.

She could hardly believe that so many people—hundreds, thousands of people across the continent—were the same as him, always dreaming of some movie-like doomsday and excitedly preparing for the imaginary crisis to come. Every part of it seemed undeniably childish to her, and she simply couldn’t take it seriously. Doomsday preppers existed throughout numerous generations across the world—and most of the time, their preparations ended up going to waste, as no disaster ever fell in their lifetimes and no doomsday ever daunted upon their doorsteps. Yet now, there was a humongous network of preppers wasting much of their time, money, and resources on this very same deluded paranoia. How ridiculous…

Sandra stood before her large mirror in her attic bedroom, surveying herself up and down as her mind continued to wander, yawning and brushing her hair into its usual style. Short and dark ginger, her hair was cut shorter in the back, letting long flowing bangs to drape over her smooth, pale face, much of her bangs combed over to one side like always.

Perhaps the reason for the Insurgence had nothing to do with prepping for a doomsday to come. Maybe it simply gave all the members a feeling of purpose, a reason to act on their ambitions and work toward some kind of goal. It seemed fruitful in this regard, and it certainly brought many families and communities together. No, it wasn’t a bad thing… just excessive, in a way…

After fixing her hair, Sandra began to apply her makeup, black makeup with brushes of smoky silver grazed gently across the tops and bottoms of her eyes, manufacturing a smooth, shiny glaze around her cerulean stare.

It wasn’t the friendships and the communities that she had a problem with. Sandra simply couldn’t comprehend how Dorian expected to be prepared for anything and everything; that goal was as childish as it was unrealistic, and she couldn’t help but think it was a waste of time.

Plus, it also annoyed her to no end whenever he’d try to drag her into his projects, and that was an occurrence that happened consistently throughout the majority of her life. If he wanted to do his doomsday-prepping thing, that was all well and good—but why on earth did he always have to involve her when she wanted absolutely no part of it?

Sandra sighed, zipping up her tight black jacket halfway, a sleek leather jacket she favored over the rest.

After scanning her reflection one last time, she checked her smartphone and read the time, nine-fourteen in the morning. She wasn’t expected to arrive at work until noon, but she wanted to leave the house regardless, perhaps to stop at a restaurant and grab a quick breakfast first…

So, dismissing her thoughts, Sandra pocketed her phone and sauntered out of her bedroom, venturing down the narrow wooden stairs and leaving the attic.

The Levi home sat on the top of a crooked hill, just on the outskirts of town, a long winding driveway stretching down from the home and leading toward the isolated back road that led into Woodpine.

The late morning sun shone brilliantly over Nevada as Sandra meandered down the hill, kicking rocks down the driveway and preparing to insert her earphones.

But just before she could—she heard a bellowing yell from somewhere toward the left, making her wince and slow to a stop.

A thin dirt path stretched off the left side of the driveway, which led toward the bottom of the hillside and around the steep, earthy corner. She knew where that path led—and now, she knew her uncle was there as well.

Sandra slowly turned her head, seeing Dorian Levi standing down the hill atop the dirt path, grinning and waving for her to approach. His wild silvery hairs were messy as always, and he wore his usual attire, thin transparent glasses, dark black overcoat, and a light button-up underneath.

Many mornings began this way—with Sandra trying to leave the house, and with Dorian halting her from his dirt path—but this time, he wasn’t alone.

Another person stood beside Dorian down the small pathway, a slightly chubby man who appeared to be about Sandra’s age, wearing a black jacket with several zippers and studs along the sides and sleeves. He had thick black hair, wavy and just long enough to tent over his eyes and ears, a faint hint of a beard attempting to grow just from the tip of his chin. Sandra recognized the second person instantly, as he was a regular visitor to the Levi home, a close personal friend of Dorian’s, a deeply-rooted member of his doomsday-prepping Insurgence.

This young man’s name was Jon Thatcher, and he’d been around for years; sometime after the death of Jon’s father, Dorian took it upon himself to take Jon under his wing, and he became something of a surrogate son.

And he—unlike Sandra—shared all of Dorian’s wild ambitions and beliefs.

Quite honestly, she was usually relieved to see Jon.

It wasn’t because she was close to him—in fact, she and Jon had hardly spoken two words to one another over the years—but whenever Jon was around, he always seemed to keep Dorian busy and distracted, which would give Sandra some much-needed space away from the craziness of her uncle’s endeavors.

This time, however, it seemed her uncle wasn’t distracted enough to spare her from his projects.

Dorian beamed and gestured for her to march closer, Jon giving her a brief smile and wave.

Sandra swallowed a deep, disdainful sigh before trudging off the driveway and wandering down the dirt path.

“Uncle… whaddo you want?” she grumped, checking her phone. “I gotta get to work.”

“Oh, pfff—c’mon. You don’t have to be there ’till noon,” Dorian smirked, waving her closer. “Come’ere. I wanna show you something.”

Just as Sandra suspected, Dorian broke off to the left and marched around the corner of dirt and grass, leading her toward his most expensive home preparation. Sandra huffed out an irritated breath as she followed Dorian and Jon around the corner—and the three of them arrived on the threshold of Dorian’s home bunker, a thick metal door embedded into the wall of the hillside, surrounded by dirt and hidden from the view of the road.

She’d visited his bunker many times—usually beyond her own volition—but now, a new device seemed to be fixed onto the gigantic metal doorway of the bunker. It appeared to be a keypad of some kind, complete with a small blue screen and several keys below it, containing every letter of the alphabet and every number between one and ten.

“Me and Jon just finished installing it. It’s finally done. Look,” Dorian smiled, hovering over the keypad and pointing at it proudly. “Now we’ve finally got some security on this thing!”

“Mhm,” Sandra mumbled disinterestedly. “That’s fascinating. Can I go now?”

“Sandra—pay attention. This won’t take long,” Dorian stated, motioning for her to approach. “You need to know the password—and don’t tell a soul, all right? You and Jon are the only people I’m sharing this with.”

Sandra blinked, giving him an odd squint. “What about Uncle Carter?”

Dorian paused, then made a sideways nod. “Well, yeah… Carter’s gonna know. But for now, it’s just you two. I don’t wanna text Carter the password. I’d rather tell him in person.”

“M’kay.”

Sandra nodded mildly, sparing her other uncle a brief thought.

Her uncle from her mother’s side—Carter McDunny—was also a deeply-knit member of the Insurgence, but he lived nowhere near Woodpine. Carter lived in the Insurgence bugout property far north of here, and unlike Jon, he rarely visited the Levi home.

“Watch, you two,” Dorian instructed, leaning over the keypad and typing his password slowly.

Sandra and Jon hovered over his keypad, watching as Dorian punched in a seemingly random assortment of letters. He slowly typed out A-R-D-N-A-S, then turned to them and flashed another smile.

“Got it?” Dorian asked, straightening up as the keypad made a faint ping, and the metal door of the bunker began to open behind him. “The password is Ardnas.”

“Oooh,” Jon smirked and nodded, glimpsing over at Sandra. “I get it.”

“I don’t,” Sandra muttered, totally lost. “What the hell is Ardnas…?”

“It’s random—it’s obscure—and nobody’s ever gonna guess it,” Dorian grinned, snapping and pointing at her. “But it’s something I’d never forget. Perfect little code for a forgetful old bastard like me.”

Sandra stared blankly at him. “Is it Latin…?”

Dorian shook his head, smiling wider.

Sandra sighed, quickly giving up on the subject. She knew the Insurgence often used Latin words and titles, but she had no interest in trying to decipher the strange code that Dorian had programmed into his bunker’s security system.

“Well’p… I gotta go,” Jon said, glimpsing at his digital watch. “I got a delivery to make way out east… and my roommate’s gonna bitch at me if I come in late again.”

“I thought you were staying in Sanctum tonight?” Dorian responded. “We were gonna try to fix the pipes in the house out there…”

“Yeah, yeah—but I gotta stop by my apartment first,” Jon told him. “I forgot my tools there.”

“We have tools in Sanctum, y’know.”

“Yeah, but mine are better. I plan on doing a lot of that work myself. Can’t have you breaking a hip or something, old man.”

“Watch it,” Dorian laughed, jabbing a finger at him.

Jon snickered and moved forward, giving Dorian a quick one-armed hug and a two-fingered salute. “Seeya later.”

“Be careful, son,” Dorian advised.

Jon nodded and gave Sandra a goodbye wave, then spun on his heel and marched up the dirt path, vanishing from their sight.

Sandra watched him wander off, then turned to her uncle again. “Can I go now…?”

Dorian released a heavy cloud of breath, his expression seeming to deflate as he gazed into her.

Sandra said nothing, merely returning the stare and feeling somewhat unsettled.

Dorian’s gaze was as genuine as it was empathic, and for whatever reason, it always seemed to unnerve her.

“Just come’ere for a sec,” Dorian requested, his voice softening considerably as he took a slow step into the bunker. “I wanna show you one more thing… then you can go.”

Sandra repressed yet another sigh as she followed her uncle into the darkened bunker, the lighting a stark contrast to the Nevada sun outside.

This bunker was shaped roundly in structure, but there was a large metal wall directly in the middle, creating something of a wide hallway that stretched and rounded into the rest of the interior; to the left was a long countertop against the wall, filled with many of Dorian’s belongings, contraptions, bugout bags, and other random items. To the right, the wall was clear, aside from the numerous posters of conspiracy and doomsday propaganda—and directly ahead were three small beds, all of them identical in shape and size, spaced a reasonable distance from one another. Between the beds was a tiny doorway leading to the bathroom, and around the left corner was the kitchenette, containing numerous shelves and trunks of stored supplies—and beside the kitchenette was a thicker door, locked and sealed off, Dorian’s own personal armory.

“I still don’t really get this,” Sandra remarked as Dorian reached behind her, hitting the button on the wall and making the metal door seal itself shut, erasing the invading sunlight from the bunker’s interior.

“You don’t get what?” Dorian asked, moving toward his countertop.

“I don’t get… why do you need a bunker if you have Sanctum?” Sandra questioned. It was one of the many things she didn’t understand about her uncle’s preparations.

Dorian opened a laptop on the counter—Sandra’s personal laptop—then turned to her and brandished another knowing smirk.

“The bunker is a smaller preparation for a smaller disaster—like, think about a pandemic,” he ranted. “If there was a pandemic, then it’d be dangerous to travel all the way to Sanctum for a long list of reasons. It’d be better to seal ourselves off and wait it out. Certain disasters might need a bunker, while other disasters might need a safe bugout location far from the rest of society.”

Sandra didn’t reply, thinking of the possibility of a massive pandemic and resisting the urge to scoff at the idea.

“Or if there was a nuclear war,” Dorian continued as he powered on the laptop, hovering over it and typing on the keyboard. “God knows where the radiation might go—but if the radiation invaded Sanctum, then we’d need the bunker. And if the radiation invaded Woodpine, we’d need Sanctum. It just makes sense to have more than one safe spot to go to. You never know.”

“Okay… I get it,” Sandra breathed, already feeling exhausted by his rambling. “Forget I asked.”

“Come’ere,” Dorian urged, waving her toward the laptop. “I set up the IVC on your computer.”

Sandra marched closer. “The what…?”

“The IVC—the Insurgence Virtual Chat,” Dorian explained, opening a large window on her laptop, one that didn’t appear to belong to any of her browsers. “It’s connected to the Insurgence website. This is where you can chat with the other members of the Insurgence—and you can video chat, too.”

Sandra squinted at the laptop. “M’kay. What good would that be in an apocalypse? I doubt the internet would be around anymore.”

“It’s good for planning now,” Dorian told her. “Not to mention, we have no idea what might happen in the event of a catastrophic doomsday. The internet might stay up for a couple days—or it might stay up forever—or it might crash and burn right away. You never know.”

“Mhm,” Sandra murmured vacantly.

“It’s just a good fallback to have for communication—but even if it crashed someday, we still have the Insurgence radios,” Dorian mumbled as he typed. “Which reminds me... I need to get both of our radios tonight. I left ’em both in Sanctum…”

Sandra gave him a strange look. “Why does the Insurgence even have a website? Aren’t you paranoid that the government’s watching everything you say online…?”

“Well…” Dorian nodded sideways. “I used to be, but… there’s really no hiding what we’re doing. We purchase massive chunks of property across the country and convert them into small towns just to secure safe bugout locations for all of us… and this is going on in every state across the country. It’d be damn near impossible to hide that from the government. Besides, it’s not like it’s illegal or anything. We do everything by the books, for the most part… so, y’know… what the hell, right?”

Sandra didn’t respond, pulling out her phone and scrolling over Facebook out of boredom. Her uncle stopped and narrowed his eyes at her.

“Put that away—c’mon—pay attention,” Dorian requested. “I’m trying to show you something here. It’s important.”

Sandra swallowed every snarky retort that came to her, raising her head and meeting her uncle’s eyes. She held her phone firmly without pocketing it, giving him a pensive stare.

“See—that’s one of the biggest problems with your generation,” Dorian stated, straightening out and nodding at her phone. “You’re sucked into social media all the time, and you don’t even see what’s around you anymore.”

Sandra stared blankly at him. “You sound so old right now.”

“Yeah, well—sue me—I am old,” Dorian snarked. “Did you know some of the inventors of those social media sites don’t even allow their own kids to use them? It’s because those apps and sites are designed to be addictive and all-consuming. It’s destructive on the mind, and the creators of those sites know that.”

“Uncle,” Sandra mumbled in a slow, stern voice, making a subtle gesture toward her laptop. “You literally invented your own social media site right there.”

“That’s different—it’s just for communication, and it serves a purpose far beyond cataloging people and selling their personal info to God knows who,” Dorian responded. “It’s a platform for self-sufficient people to plan and work together.”

“Uncle… I’m just looking at Facebook,” Sandra sighed disdainfully. “Why do you have to make a big deal out of everything…?”

“Because everything is a big deal,” Dorian replied flatly, turning and facing her fully. “Nobody actually talks to each other anymore. People just regurgitate whatever they see online or on TV. No one bothers to actually live their lives anymore—and I don’t want that for you.”

“You are so paranoid,” Sandra uttered, shaking her head. “It’s not up to some massive mind-control machine how I live my life. It’s up to me.”

“And I agree,” Dorian said firmly, placing a hand on her phone and slowly lowering it. “So put the phone away, and come’ere.”

Sandra groaned and pocketed her phone, joining her uncle and staring at the laptop.

“The password for your account is the same as the one for the security system here—Ardnas,” Dorian explained, typing and signing her in to the IVC. “Aaand there we go. Take a look.”

He stepped aside, allowing Sandra to move forward and examine the computer.

The laptop screen displayed a large window containing numerous things; the bar on the top was filled with links to various parts of the application and the website, and to the right was a long chat room, which was filled with various Insurgence chatters who happened to be online. To the left was a large screen that showed three windows, and all of them were live webcam feeds of three different Insurgence members talking to one another through the virtual video chat.

Dorian reached forward and unmuted the computer, and suddenly, the voices of the three members began to echo from the laptop’s speakers. Two of them were strangers Sandra didn’t recognize, but the third was someone she knew personally—a short, stern-faced redhead, a man with the same hair and eyes as her own.

“Carter!” Dorian beamed, enlarging his window and allowing Carter McDunny’s face to dominate the screen. “I didn’t know you were online! What’re you talking about?”

“Dorian—we were discussing the modified cars in Arizona, and how we need that same security measure here in Nevada,” Carter spoke from the laptop, eyeing Dorian and Sandra closely. “Oh. I see you’ve managed to drag our antisocial princess away from the library today. Congrats.”

“I just wanted to show her the IVC,” Dorian explained, nodding at Sandra and giving her a look. “Well? Say something. You haven’t seen Carter in years.”

“Hey,” Sandra said, waving at her other uncle on the laptop. “What’s up?”

“What’s up? Is that all you’ve gotta say to me?” Carter griped with a laugh. “I haven’t seen you in forever, kiddo. You grew a hell of a lot.”

“Yeah… that’s what happens when you feed ’em,” Dorian chuckled, patting Sandra on the head.

“So, Sandra… when’re you coming to Sanctum?” Carter inquired.

There was a brief, tense silence following Carter’s words.

Sandra was quiet for a moment, biting her lip and wondering what excuse would allow her to escape from the question. Sanctum was a fairytale of a place, the great Nevada safe haven for all the doomsday preppers of the Insurgence in the state—a large plot of property up north, once empty, containing nothing but a small abandoned ghost town. But after Dorian, Carter, and their Insurgence allies came together to purchase the property, they all worked hard to transform it into a prepper’s paradise, a great escape from whatever disasters might fall upon the world. She’d heard about Sanctum nonstop over the years, but she’d never once visited the place, and she really had no desire to.

“I… don’t know,” Sandra murmured at a loss. “Whenever I find the time, I guess…”

“Well… you really oughta come out here soon,” Carter told her. “You wouldn’t believe this place unless you saw it. Every state across the country has a place like this now. Hell—Astrovale is becoming a goddamn metropolis, as far as bugout locations go. Granted, it’s all the way across the country, but still. You wouldn’t believe what a bunch of random preppers are capable of making unless you saw it with your own eyes.”

“Yeah,” Sandra muttered emptily. “I getcha…”

“Hey—I’m gonna sign off now,” Dorian said. “I just wanted to show her how to get into her account on here. I’m gonna let her go to work now. And I’ll be there later today, Carter—so make sure my tools are out when I get there, will ya?”

“Yeah, yeah… whatever,” Carter replied, swatting the air and waving him off. “Seeya later.”

Dorian gave him his goodbyes and shut down the IVC program, releasing a heavy breath and facing his niece again.

“One more thing,” Dorian said, holding up a finger.

“Ugh…” Sandra moaned and tossed her head back, feeling thoroughly agitated. “You said I could go now…”

“Yeah, I know—just one more thing,” Dorian replied, stepping around the corner and entering the kitchenette. “I just wanna give you something, and then you’re free to go. Come’ere.”

Sandra let out a groaning sigh and followed suit.

They both stepped around the corner, entering the brighter fluorescent light of the kitchenette; to the left were numerous tall shelves against the wall, towering metal shelves filled with boxes and containers of Dorian’s hoarded goods. To the right was the doorway to the armory, and farther down the right wall was the fridge and the microwave, both of them sitting across from the long kitchen counter. At the end of the kitchenette, several trunks and bag sat in piles against the bunker wall, containing numerous goods that Dorian thought important enough to store.

Sandra folded her arms and leaned against the wall, watching impatiently as Dorian reached up toward the top of the metal shelf, carefully trying to collect a small box from the back without knocking the larger boxes over. He moved slowly and cautiously, standing on his toes and reaching carefully behind the massive boxes, leaning against the metal shelf and making it waver in its stance, as the structure was clearly unstable—especially with all the things weighing on the shelves.

As Dorian attempted to coil his fingers around the small box up top, the metal shelf shifted loudly against his weight, and Sandra gulped, feeling a spark of anxiety as the enormous shelf shook and wobbled.

“Be careful,” Sandra muttered.

Dorian forced himself to lean upward even more, stretching as far as he could and pressing his body against the shelf a little too forcefully—and just when he managed to grasp the small box, the metal shelf made a loud creaking noise, followed by a loud snap.

One of the legs broke cleanly in half—and the entire shelf came down in a bombastic collapse. The whole structure landed on top of Dorian—as well as all the boxes and bags—and everything landed on him harshly, making him fall hard to the floor. He landed on his back, wincing and gripping the small box tightly, now buried underneath the giant shelf and all his stored goods scattered about.

Sandra inhaled a sharp gasp—and she quickly moved forward, seeing that the huge metal shelf had landed crookedly on Dorian’s leg. She grabbed the metal and lifted it upright with some difficulty, as the structure was quite heavy.

With one great heave, she managed to shove the giant shelf to the side, setting it on the ground before hunching on her knee beside Dorian.

“Jesus Christ,” Sandra breathed, shoving several boxes aside and hurriedly uncovering her buried uncle. “Uncle—you okay?”

She loomed over him, Dorian blinking several times and wincing again, his messy silver hairs now even more askew than usual. He adjusted his crooked glasses and let out a sigh, pushing himself upright and releasing a breathless laugh.

“Well… that hurt,” Dorian chuckled, facing his niece and wearing his signature genuine smile. “I, ah… I designed this… just for you.”

He then placed the small black box into her palm.

Sandra paused, gazing down and examining it. It was a jewelry box, one that would usually contain a necklace or a ring of some kind.

Dorian grinned as he sat on the floor, perched upright amidst his fallen belongings and waiting for his niece to open her surprise present.

Sandra slowly opened the box, staring into it and spotting a shiny golden compass.

The compass was gold-plated and gorgeous, complete with a thick gold chain that fashioned it into a necklace, a small engraving on the side and a fat black needle in the center. The needle of the compass was quite unique, designed in the exact shape of a black spade, identical to the symbol on an ace-of-spades card.

The black spade was the symbol of the Nevada Insurgence, after all.

Sandra slowly lifted the compass, surveying it more closely and reading the engraving on the side. In sleek curvy letters, the engraving read;

~Follow the Spade to Sanctuary~

For several long seconds, Sandra merely gazed into the beautiful gift, feeling totally spotlighted, completely lost for words. It was a common occurrence for her, as she was never good at dealing with emotional scenarios, and having such a sweet, genuine man as an uncle often landed her in these situations, stunned and unknowing how to respond.

“Thank you,” Sandra murmured, flashing a smile. “It’s gorgeous…”

Dorian’s grin grew, and he reached out, patting her on the shoulder and grasping onto her. He gave her a long, profound stare, a loving sort of parental gaze that—yet again—made her feel unnerved, not knowing how to reply.

With no words coming to her, Sandra chose to respond by simply placing the compass around her neck, studying it and smiling down at it as it rested upon her chest.

“Uncle…” she mumbled, twirling the compass and slowly raising her head, now speaking with no forethought whatsoever. “Why do you… why do you do this?”

Dorian’s brows raised. “Do what…?”

“All of… this,” Sandra uttered, motioning to the bunker around her. “What’s… what’s the point of all this?”

Dorian’s smile began to wane. He let out a breath, leaning on his hands and glancing around at all his fallen belongings, now appearing to be deep in thought.

After a moment of pondering, he met Sandra’s eyes again, this time with a more serious visage.

“I don’t know if I’m paranoid or not… but it’s… it’s important,” Dorian conceded, his voice softening. “It’s just important to… make a point.”

Sandra’s eyes narrowed at him, now confused.

Dorian sighed deeply. “It’s important to reestablish the idea of self-reliance in America. The point is… we’re wavering as a country. We’re losing ourselves. Most people have no concept of self-reliance… and so many people just wander through life with no moral compass, and no real goals, and no… no soul. But I think… I really think it’s important to become a real community again. Holding onto freedom, relearning everything that the country’s forgotten over the years… and actually connecting to each other… I just think that’s… very important. It seems like society is geared to discourage that… and that really… really bothers me. Society seems to criminalize anything related to our own freedom, and connection, and independence anymore. You could argue that it’s all a divine conspiracy created by the government to weaken and divide all of us… or you could argue that it’s just a change of the times. Maybe it’s both. But whatever it is… it feels very… wrong. It really seems like we’re all slowly losing our hearts and backbones here in America… and losing community… and losing our connection. The Insurgence exists to create that again… and to keep our souls intact.”

Sandra fell silent, slowly absorbing her uncle’s words and pondering deeply on his response.

Dorian was truly amazing in his impassioned goals, and it sounded as if he was trying to save the entire country somehow. Honestly, she felt a spark of pride in him, even though she herself could never imagine caring so much for such a massive and idealistic goal.

In her opinion, these grand goals sounded like the stuff of fairytales, huge and unattainable goals that no ordinary person could realistically achieve—but Dorian Levi was the most inspired idealist she’d ever known. He used all his family’s inheritance to create a doomsday bunker and to establish the Nevada Insurgence, and he even managed to create a network of likeminded preppers across the country and the continent.

Even though she found his goals unrealistic, she couldn’t deny that he’d accomplished far more than any other doomsday prepper in the world ever had. She just couldn’t know how much of it was truly attainable, and how much of it was just the childish dreaming of a man driven by idealistic passion.

Sandra grasped the compass tightly, gazing into him and feeling a strange conflict brewing inside. She began to understand his motives more clearly now, and she even empathized with some of them—but she just couldn’t feel the same way.

For whatever reason, she always felt as if most goals were hopeless, especially large and unlikely ones. Placing hope in such ideals was a recipe for pain and disappointment, and she carried this belief throughout the majority of her life.

But Dorian’s eyes shone with inspiration, and it was clear that he didn’t carry the same cynical view of the world—not in the slightest.

While Sandra found hope to be useless and unreliable, Dorian positively thrived on it, and that factor alone seemed to be the most powerful core of his personality. She suddenly found herself wishing she could be more like him, that she could care so much for the world around her…

But, for most of her life, she found most ideals to be eternally out of reach, and she cared little for most things in the world. After all, no matter what plans you create and no matter how much you care, everything could be snatched away in a second flat, shattering all your preparations and destroying everything you chose to care for.

Sandra knew that fact better than anyone. The accident that killed her mother imbedded that harsh lesson into her long ago.

If a simple and unexpected accident could destroy your entire world in a second flat, then what difference would it make to plan and prepare, to care and to become attached to all the things that could easily be snatched away by the world?

Dorian studied her somber expression, practically reading her thoughts and frowning sadly.

For years now, he was something of a father figure to Jon Thatcher—and Jon had a lot in common with Sandra. He, too, lost a parent at a young age—but he handled the stress of it very differently than she did. While Sandra became cold and distant, Jon grabbed life by the horns and delved into the prepping lifestyle with impassioned enthusiasm.

Dorian wanted more than anything to break through Sandra’s apathetic disposition, to become closer to her the way he was with Jon—but he never had the faintest idea of how to breach her walls, and it never ceased to disturb him. He loved his niece dearly, after all—and it pained him to see her purposefully keeping everything and everyone at arm’s length.

“Honey… I love you,” Dorian sighed, grasping her shoulder tighter. “And I want… I want you to come to Sanctum with me later today.”

Sandra let out an annoyed cloud of breath, releasing the compass and shaking her head. “Uncle, I really don’t want to…”

“I won’t force anything on you… no lectures, or anything… I swear,” Dorian promised. “I just… miss spending time with you.”

Sandra stared into him vacantly, her expression morphing into an odd mixture of coldness and conflict. Her first instinct was always to back out, to distance herself and to stay away, especially from emotional situations like this—but she couldn’t shake the troubled sadness that dawned on her now, gazing into her uncle’s downtrodden visage and feeling a spark of empathy for him.

Still, she wanted more than anything to simply escape the situation—to retreat to her quiet library job and listen to her music and podcasts through her earphones while she worked, free of all the thoughts and stress weighing on her now.

Dorian let out a cloud of breath, pushing a few boxes aside and slowly lumbering to his feet. Sandra stood as well, grabbing his arm and helping him to stand, as his leg seemed to be paining him from where the shelf had landed on it.

“Uncle… I really don’t wanna go anywhere today,” Sandra told him. “I’ll go some other time… okay? Just let me go to work.”

Dorian grimaced. “You always say that…”

“I’ll go some other time,” Sandra stated. “I swear. I just don’t wanna go today.”

At that, she spun around and marched around the corner, approaching the bunker’s exit. Dorian glumly followed her, and Sandra stopped, pausing at the door and facing him again.

The two of them were silent for a moment, her eyes wandering over to the cluttered countertop again, her gaze landing on her uncle’s usual coffee mug, a white and stained mug filled with black coffee. She never understood how he could drink coffee without sugar or creamer. The taste and smell of straight black coffee was disgusting to her, and the faint scent of it was always looming around him, yet another trademark of his…

“Sandra,” Dorian said faintly, snapping her out of her wandering thoughts. “I love you… and I want you to understand. I really want you to understand. It’s not some paranoida. It has a purpose, and I’d love for you to be a part of it.”

Sandra was quiet for several seconds, releasing a stressed exhalation and feeling totally depleted by all the wild ideals. She glimpsed around at the bunker, shaking her head grimly and giving her uncle a final vacant stare.

“I love you, too… but I just…” she shook her head again, swatting at the bunker around her. “I just… don’t… care. I really just don’t care.”

Sandra spared him a last glance, then marched out of the bunker without another word—leaving Dorian standing alone inside his doomsday shelter, wearing a deeply-etched frown as his niece made her departure.