text: [Themes: sci-fi, war]
  
  Can't be any worse than what's going on now, and you might as well be on the winning team.
  
  "Alright, I'm in. What do we do?"
  
  Elliot smiles.
  "Glad to have you on board, as for what we do, you'll see. You'll all see. Leon, and Brenda you're all coming with me. The rest of you go back to your rooms, tomorrow your loyalty will be rewarded, I promise."
  
  Elliot and his gang leave, you close the door and go back to sleep without thinking anymore about it.
  
  The next day you hear a lot of yelling and screaming when you wake up, you get dressed and leave your room to see what's going on. You see a crowd of people gathered outside Ron's door. You make you way through the crowd and see Leon holding Nina who is struggling and hysterical. Elliot is nearby speaking.
  
  "I DIDN'T DO IT! YOU'RE LYING! YOU'RE ALL LYING! (Sob)"
  "I saw her! I saw her lurking around last night when I heard some noises. I just wish I'd done something then! I'll never forgive myself. I just thought she was taking a walk, little did I know she was going into Ron's room and killed him! Why? Because she found out he was having an affair with his secret lover William!"
  "What the fuck...?" you say to yourself and take a quick look inside Ron's room. You see Ron's body lying in a pool of blood on the floor in his underwear, his throat has been slashed. Nearby is another body killed in the exact same way. Its William who you really didn't know anything about, you guess you know he was gay now though.
  
  "Huh. I guess that explains why Ron never took any interest in Nina." You say to yourself. Meanwhile Elliot is continuing his speech.
  
  "She even dropped the killing weapon outside her door! Brenda found it when she was going to talk to her this morning! Look!" Elliot shouts when Brenda shows everyone a bloody scalpel.
  
  "Oh we ALL didn't know Nina, until we found his dead body! But we all know that YOU had a giant crush on him and practically stalked him. It isn't hard to connect the dots here Nina! You found out he was carrying on with William and you in a jealous rage killed them both! Now granted William and Ron were breaking GZS policy with their behavior, but they didn't deserve this! To be brutally murdered by an insane love sick stalker!"
  "I'M NOT A STALKER! (Sob) I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!"
  "Enough! It's apparent that we need to punish you, for your heinous crimes. Though I feel you deserve death, I am in no position to determine your ultimate fate...I say the people should decide!"
  
  Some of the people in the crowd begin to chant "Death!", and most of those are followers of Elliot. It doesn't take long for the rest of the crowd to follow. Elliot's got 'em all by the balls. He has completely manipulated this herd of sheep into believing and following him, on little to no basis in evidence. They're all just believing what he's telling them. You know damn well he's set this whole thing up to blame poor Nina. You can't really do anything about it though; nobody's going to believe you.
  
  It's too late anyway, after a few more words from Elliot, you see Leon carry out the crowd's wishes and break Nina's neck. Now Elliot makes another speech.
  
  "It is done...it is regrettable, but it is done. Leon, you and some of the others please dispose of these bodies in the incinerator...I didn't think we would have to use it so soon and under such tragic circumstances. I suppose we'll need another shelter leader now to guide us through this dark time...well whoever is proposed, I hope they will be willing to listen to some of my ideas about how we should increase security around here so nothing like this ever happens again."
  
  "Hey! How about you become our shelter leader Elliot? You certainly know how to take charge of a situation and you obviously are concerned about all of us!" another one of Elliot's lackeys shouts from the crowd where upon a short time later everyone else is following again.
  
  You stand watching a complete fraud take over with mere words. It would appear that even after Armageddon some things never change. Elliot goes through a modesty routine to make him look good and then "humbly" accepts.
  
  You may have just allied yourself with a ruthless sociopath at best or a complete mad man at worst. Time will have to tell.
  
  Five years pass...
  
  Time tells that you've allied with a completely ruthless sociopathic mad man.
  
  The Shelter's population has grown a little; but not excessively. In fact you're likely to have room for quite some time. Elliot employed a vicious sterilization program to make sure of that. Having a medical background he was able to do the procedures himself with the medical supplies in the shelter. Shortly after he started employing that procedure the initial "cult of personality worship" by everyone stopped and a lot of people regained there senses, but of course by then Elliot had already entrenched himself. There were a few attempts to kill him, but those were always averted by Leon. Elliot now walks around with a couple guards at all times, with Leon is his head bodyguard.
  
  He claimed that it was for the good of the shelter and granted perhaps it is going to make things easier, but it's obvious that not everyone was keen on this idea. Most of the people who followed Elliot from the beginning were spared this fate though. Disobedience from anyone is punished severely.
  
  However things aren't too bad for you.
  
  You are pretty much indispensable and you keep it that way. You're now in charge of maintaining the central GZS computer system which you primarily insist on doing by yourself. Eventually you manage to get the damn thing running at near maximum efficiency and nobody has too many problems with things breaking down anymore. You also do something else to ensure your safety which is carrying your gun secretly on you at all times. There have been times where you've wondered if you should kill Elliot, but you haven't ever killed anyone before, let alone with no provocation, you don't know if you have it in you. Also he hasn't really bothered you, if anything you're one of the few people he's consistently been okay with.
  
  As long as he's not bothering you, you don't really feel the need to kill him. He leaves you to do your job and you leave him to do his...
  
  But is it ALWAYS going to be that way? There may come a day when for whatever reason he decides to get rid of you. Megalomaniacs aren't particularly known for their trusting nature.
  
  > leave it alone
  You decide there's no need to kill Elliot. If the day should come where he begins to think about getting rid of you then you'll kill him. You need a personal reason to do it; you can't just do it on a whim.
  
  You go back to your job and think nothing more of it.
  
  Five more years pass...
  
  You've been down here ten years and you're beginning to get a feeling of unease.
  
  Elliot has turned this place in a cult compound. He's had children by all the remaining fertile women in the shelter and sterilized just about all the remaining men. He's completely indoctrinated everyone to think the way he does at this point, anyone who was still resisting him has been dealt with. He's got complete obedience from everyone now. You get the impression that killing Elliot wouldn't do much good at this point, since you'd just be overwhelmed soon afterwards by his followers.
  
  He's regained his cult of personality, and you're just about the only remaining sane person left. Oddly Elliot still thinks highly of you, and has never tried to do anything to you either; he continues to let you do your job, with one exception. He's been sending his older children to the computer room for you to teach them how to use and work on the central computer.
  
  "What's this?"
  "Don't touch that! That'll be next week's lesson!"
  "Can I access the game database?"
  "No!"
  "Ohhh I got a lady to appear on the screen and she's naked!"
  "Stop that and pay attention!
  
  You've become a glorified baby sitter, you've gone half insane and you're ready to put the damn gun to your own head at this point.
  
  Over the years you've been wondering about the surface. You wonder if it wouldn't be better than living in place. One time when you were considering leaving you overrode the safety controls to the elevator which would allow you to bring it down. You could bring it down. All you'd have to do is gather what supplies you think you're going to need.
  
  The only problem is thanks to the idiotic GZS shelter design; you'd need to trust Elliot's kids to send you back up from the computer room.
  
  > leave the shelter
  Fuck it, whether this plan works or not, you don't care, all you know is you can't stay here anymore. One thing that's working in your favor right now is the fact that Elliot and everyone else is in the conference room (Which he turned into a "meditation room" where he's preaching some sort of weird philosophy to everyone.) You need to be quick though. You press a few buttons to make the elevator begin its decent. You only need one kid to help you in this task, so you get the one who is the best behaved and does more or less what you say. You get Jane.
  
  "Jane I need you to come with me. As for the rest of you, go ahead and access the game database and play with whatever, just don't touch anything on the central computer!"
  
  The kids gleefully start following your instructions while you and Jane leave.
  
  "Where are we going?" Jane asks innocently, while walking beside you.
  "I need to check on something back in my room, the central computer says something broke down, but I need to see if it actually did, or if it's a glitch in the monitoring system. Now if something did, I'll need to get in there and open up the paneling and do some re-wiring. Could be dangerous, so I need you to run to the medical room and grab a first aid kit just in case. Nobody should be in there right now, so just take it."
  "I dunno, Daddy doesn't like people taking things from there without permission..."
  "Its okay, this is for the good of the shelter."
  
  Upon hearing that mantra, Jane seems to be more receptive to follow your orders. You tell her to wait by the elevator door when she gets the med kit. You rush to your room, load up on water and leave hoping that nobody has wandered by. You see Jane holding the med kit and looking in wonder at the elevator door which has opened up. Good its here and everything's going according to plan. Now for the final stage.
  
  "Hey! This door opened up! Daddy said it shouldn't ever open up. He says he doesn't want anyone to leave."
  "I'll bet." You mumble before addressing Jane properly. "Yeah, I know he wants to keep us all safe. Nothing was broken in my room, but I think something screwy is going on with the shelter's systems and I need your help to fix it because I think you're the only one talented enough to do it."
  "Yay!" Jane says in pride.
  "Glad to see you're excited, because this is REALLY important. You have to follow my instructions to the letter. You think you can do that?"
  "I think so."
  "Okay, back in the computer room on the central computer on the right side you'll see a green button flashing. Press that one. Then when the screen asks for confirmation, click on yes and press the enter button. You got all that? Repeat it."
  "Go back to the computer room, go to the big central computer, and uh...look on the right side for a green flashing button. Press that button, then the screen will ask me a question and then I click on yes."
  "Excellent, now after you do that, you might get a screen telling you the status of the elevator, telling you its going back up. That's what we want it to do. We don't want anyone leaving right?"
  "Right!"
  "Okay, I'm going to stay here and make sure this elevator doesn't come down anymore, I need to open up some panels and do some re-wiring, so I'll be taking that first aid kit now."
  
  You take the kit from Jane and tell her to go back to the computer room and do what you told her and to continue monitoring the elevator status just to make sure it goes back up and stays there. When she's out of sight you quickly enter the elevator, and soon the door closes and you're on your way up.
  
  You are nervous as the elevator ascends, you half expect it to either start coming back down, or worse just stop suddenly mid way through trapping you.
  
  None of that happens though and as soon as that door opens up again, you run out into the foyer you entered ten years ago and past that into the outside world again.
  
  You see a bright light. It's the sun; you forgot how bright it could be. You never thought you of all people would be glad to see it again. You see everyone's cars still parked here, well almost. You can tell that few of them must've been taken at one time; a lot have just been plain vandalized. Your van still looks the same though, nobody in their right mind would steal that thing, and it already looks vandalized. You wonder if it would still start, but you left your keys to it in the shelter. You doubt if it would though.
  
  "Meh, I need the exercise anyway."
  
  You cover your eyes and take a far view of your position. Nobody around, there's not even a sound except the wind; you're all alone as far as you can tell and this is what you missed. Once again you have peaceful solitude. You don't know if you'll make it out here, but anything's better than staying in the shelter.
  
  You begin to walk...