The Afterlife Academy Saga

Chapter 10

10

After working tirelessly, all five of us gathered back in the living area to pool our information and figure out what to do next.

Exhausted, I fell down on one of the couches which was still dusty, but no longer covered in debris and rubble. Ryoko and I did a good job cleaning them.

Flavia joined us from the storage room with a big cardboard box while Astrid and Sim came back from clearing as much of the collapsed entrance.

“You alright?” I asked, earning a nod from Astrid.

“Yeah, fine.” She sat down in the corner of one of the green couches, her legs pulled up under her. Dark circles framed her red eyes, a clear indicator she’d been crying. Yet, she seemed more composed than before.

“Ahem.” Flavia cleared her throat, taking the attention off of Astrid. “I’ve got the inventory here.”

“How’s it looking?” The Elf sat down next to her, trying to sneak a peek from the page.

“Eh! I’ll read it to everyone.” She pushed him away and held up the list. “I’ll hang it up on the storage room door, so I’m not going into massive detail. Just the most important bits.”

“Okay?” I straightened out my back, stealing a glance at the Dragon next to me. Dust and dirt covered her face and her hair was frazzled from the intensive cleaning, but she still looked beautiful.

“We’ve got cleaning supplies, bleach, lots of matches and lighter fluid. We have two small camping stoves with plenty of gas. We’ve already been using one of them over there and I found some… Let me show you.” She rummaged through the box and held up a rectangular tin with a foldable handle. “A bunch of these, whatever they are.”

“Mess tins,” Sim supplied.

“That’s what they’re called?”

“I believe so.”

She nodded. “Okay. We got a couple of mess tins, old cutlery, some canteens to store water in. Besides that, plenty of mugs, some of which we’ve already been using.”

“What about food?” I asked, my chest clenched in anticipation. I knew we’d torn through a lot of rations in our drunkenness yesterday, which was a real faux-pas on our part. But then again, last night we thought it would just be a day or two before we’d be out here.

Flavia sighed. “That’s next on my list. We have about twenty gallon of water and seven bottles of vodka. Yesterday, we opened nine rations and wasted about three. We can’t do that anymore. We have seventeen more rations, a box of protein bars, and three bags of beef jerky.”

Ryoko raised her hand. “How long will that last us?”

“Ummm…” Flavia looked up at Sim. “How long?”

“How many are there again?” he asked.

Flavia checked her list again. “Seventeen. They’re all-day rations.”

“Seventeen… With five people, that’s about five or six days worth of food comfortably, but with the jerky and the protein bars, we should be alright to stretch it to just about two weeks. But you won’t be gaining any weight and after that… Well, let’s not talk about that.”

“You seem to know a lot about all this survival stuff.” I reached across for one of the mess tins, just to get a close up look.

“I did a lot of camping with my dad.” The Elf rummaged through the box. “Are there more edibles?”

Flavia gestured to the storage room. “There are some cans without labels and a bit of chewing gum.”

He pulled a face. “Okay, not too bad. Could’ve been a lot worse.”

“What about coffee?” Astrid asked, speaking up for the first time since her hysterical outbreak.

“There’s some in the rations, I believe. But I also found two entire tins, luckily.” Flavia held up the metal containers, happily shaking them. “At least we’ll have our coffee.”

“Thank the gods,” Sim chuckled. “Being stuck is already bad enough. I wouldn’t want to witness Wind Children without their coffee.”

Now there was a truth. I drank it, but I never really understood the obsession with it. I knew it made me the odd one out between my peers, but it just didn’t really appeal to me.

But with that in mind, I’d seen Wind Children without caffeine. It was not a pretty sight and wars had been fought over less.

“Alright, we got coffee, food, and booze. We’ll be fine.” The Elf’s voice shook slightly, but he was clearly trying to hide his worries. “There’s no need to panic. Yet.”

“So what do we do now?” I asked, looking around the group. Both Astrid and Ryoko were paler than usual and even Flavia seemed out of her element.

Sim shrugged. “I don’t know about you, but I could use another drink.”

“Really?” I looked at him. “We’ve only just sobered up and kicked our hangovers.”

“So? What else is there to do?”

“I—” Well, there he had me. We needed to do something to pass the time and if alcohol could take the sharp edge off, why not? “Fine. But can we figure out the bedroom situation first? I don’t want to sleep on the couches again.”

He nodded. “Sure. Girls to the left, boys to the right.”

“You’re the only boy,” Flavia deadpanned.

“Would you look at that? Well, I guess that works out in my favour then,” he declared.

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Astrid weighed in. “I’m not sharing with a Dragon, no offence.”

Ryoko shrugged, not even dignifying a snarky response. “I don’t really mind where I sleep.”

“I think Wind Children to the right, non-Wind Children to the left,” my classmate rambled on, flicking her blonde braid over her shoulders. “That makes sense to me.”

Sim held up his hands. “Wait a second. So Ryoko and I get to be uncomfortable and awkward together while you three have a little Wind Children sleep over? No way.”

Flavia sighed. “Then what do you suggest?”

A devious smile flickered across his face. “Flavia bunks with me and you three first-years can share.”

“In your dreams,” she noted dryly. “Ryoko and Ylva can share, they’re used to it from being roommates. I’ll share with Astrid and Sim can sleep in the storage room.”

“Oi!” he protested, before nodding approvingly. “Actually, that sounds good to me. I’m there for a bit of privacy.”

Astrid smiled. “No complaints from me.”

I exchanged a quick look with Ryoko. While we were used to sharing a room, things were complicated between us. And I didn’t know where I stood with her at this point in time.

“I’m good with it if Ryoko doesn’t mind,” I finally said, leaving it up to her.

Her eyes flickered mysteriously, but she nodded. “I’ll bunk with Ylva.”

I didn’t know why, but her agreement set fire to my heart. Maybe we were trapped in a bunker, maybe we wouldn’t come out of this alive… But maybe I’d die without a broken heart.

“Ylva?”

I jolted out of my melancholic thoughts. “Yeah?”

“Vodka or rum?” Flavia asked, holding up two bottles.

“Ummm… Doesn’t matter. No, I’ll take some rum,” I replied, still a little dazed from staring at Ryoko.

“Alright then. Here.”

She nudged Astrid next to her, who passed me the metal mug while rolling her eyes at me.

That girl.

Ugh, she really rubbed me the wrong way. We’d been caught in a rivalry for so long, I didn’t even remember how it started. But I knew I disliked her guts and she hated mine.

“To the bunker,” Sim toasted, a lot more solemn than last night.

I raised my mug dejectedly. I didn’t want to spend a week or two in here, but there was nothing we could do about it. Just the bleak acceptance that this was now our reality. “Skol.”