The Haven [PRS]

mycket privat rollspel mellan mig och thecellabration a la vi vet handlingen och jag börjar

It had not rained for at least three days. The earth beneath their feet seemed to crack when they walked on it, dust whirling around their boots. The walk had taken them ten days and their supplies were running out. They would perhaps survive one or two days more, but that was pushing it. From the beginning they had been twelve people and now they were down to seven. Most of them had dropped out long ago, but the rest of them had stayed strong, searching for a better life. The same type of migration had happened years ago, but the moving of people in this world was rare. It was hard to walk within the cities and even between them with the desert and hot climate that had taken over most places. The dense forests that used to be were mostly dead, but a few had survived. No one dared to touch them though, the human touch killed things – that was something you learned from a very young age.
Nika wiped the sweat from her forehead and paused for a minute, making the group halt. The warmth was suffocating and the air was filled with hot dust that made her lungs burn. How much longer would it be? The group was quiet, some sitting down on the ground to rest their feet. Nika decided to drink the last drops of her water, to get some energy for the last presumed hours of the walk. She threw the empty aluminium bottle on the ground; it would only be dead weight if she kept it.
“Let’s go”, she said before slowly beginning to move further. So they walked, all seven people, but for a shorter time than they expected. Over the horizon, they witnessed The Haven. The walls raised up quite a bit, with barbed wire on top. The view felt like a prison, but Nika knew it wasn’t the case. When they would get inside the walls, the scene would transform to something out of a sci-fi movie. She was quite certain The Haven was more advanced in technology than any other haven. The walls and the barbed wire was just for looks, to make people run the other way; same saying went for the giant guns placed neatly in every corner of the giant building. Some people in the group held their breath, not believing if what they saw were real or not; others shrieked with happiness. Finally!
It took just about 30 minutes to get to the wall with a faster pace. Nika ran together with two of the younger people in the group and after the 30 minutes everyone was there. Gathered around in a small group, they all looked up at the huge wall surrounding The Haven. It seemed to lack a door. But after searching for a way in, stroking her hand over the wall, she felt a crack. She felt around it and it seemed like her hand traced the outline of a door, even though it was barely visible to the eye. While she tried to figure out a way to open the unusual door, something made a sound. Together with the group, the sudden noise made her jump – away from the door, that now opened slowly sideways, into the wall and displayed a white light shining from inside of the wall. Somewhere in the light, there were shadowy figures moving towards the group.

jag skriver så tråkigt r.i.p men skyller på world-building och att det är mitt första inlägg ok also sorry att detta tog så lång tid
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There was a lot of preparing surrounding new travellers coming to the Haven, and days when it was predicted to happen were unusually eventful. Nowadays it was rare, not a lot of people had the means to travel through the extreme environment. Sometimes, they knew, the Haven’s outside appearance even scared them away when they saw it. However, the tall walls and barbed wire surrounding it wasn’t for stray groups of travellers. The people were usually happy to take them in, and when they did, they liked to be ready.
While it was slowly quieting down by now, no one wanted to work for too long in the broiling, mid-day, desert sun if they could help it, earlier that morning had been way busier. Most people had gotten up early – collecting resources, making food, preparing shelter for the newcomers. Possibly medical aid as well, spending days walking in the desert didn’t do good for anyone. Usually, some rest and hydration would do the trick, but in other cases more help would be needed. So they had to be prepared for that, too.
Labour in the Haven was divided by skill, resulting in everyone helping provide for each other. If you were good at cooking you would do that, people with green thumbs handled the farming, there were factories for electronics and weapons (rarely needed, luckily), possibly more high-tech than you’d expect. Then there were the people with medical knowledge, passed down from previous generations of educated doctors. There were also people working security, and some smaller occupations too, running little stores selling various hand-made things, barber shops and stylists, even artists and musicians – but that was more like a hobby.

There were some other important roles as well, though. Ivy had gotten up at sunrise that morning, mostly because she was too excited to sleep. She had recently turned 18, now considered an adult, and her occupation of the day was to be on the welcoming committee, along with some other inhabitants of various ages. Their job was to meet the newcomers at the entrance, show them around, help them, make them feel at home. Ivy was very proud of having been offered this responsibility. And she couldn’t wait to, first-hand, get to hear what they had been through. She had been born in the Haven, and so had her parents, so she had no idea what it could be like to arrive here from the outside world. All she knew were the stories she had grown up with. Most children found the tales about the horrors of whatever was behind their walls very interesting – begging for them to be told before bed at night. As she had gotten older, Ivy knew that possibly a lot of it was made up by parents who didn’t want their children to run away from the safety of their home. But she also figured that they had to be based in some truth, obviously there had to be a reason for everyone to want to stay here – and for people to want to risk their lives travelling here.
An announcement over the Haven’s speaker system informed everyone that the group of people were now approaching, and asked for the welcoming committee to gather by the entrance. Ivy was among the first to arrive there, but the rest weren’t far behind. They were five people, only one younger than her, a girl that was looking just about as nervous as Ivy felt. The other three she knew had done this before, one of them an old man who himself had been a newcomer in the Haven once. All of them bore water bottles and light food to offer the new group, expecting them to probably very much need it.
After what Ivy felt was an eternity, standing still under the hot sun, waiting, they heard a clanking noise on the other side of the thick metal wall, and then a formerly invisible crack opened in the otherwise smooth surface. Ivy put on a smile that she hoped was welcoming, as the hidden door moved sideways into the wall, the crack widening. She couldn’t wait to meet whoever was on the other side.

The light was overwhelming and so was the five shadows that appeared out of nowhere. The group was almost blinded by not only the white light, but the sheer joy they felt over making it. Nika could barely grasp the situation before her group started celebrating their victory. It had taken them ten days to make it and to some in the group, it was crucial. The youngest in the group, two girls at the age of sixteen and eighteen, were in tears and embracing each other. It was becoming more rare for people to not accept same sex couples, but certain havens never gave up the idea of it being wrong – such being the one they left behind. The younger ones parents did not accept it, which prompted them both to leave and not look back. But they were not the only ones with a reason to leave. One of the older women of the group, Yorinda, approached Nika and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“We made it. You made it”, she said with a shaky voice, not being able to hide the raw emotion she was feeling. Her story was quite touching, if one knew of it. She had left her children behind to save herself from an abusive husband and it was only made possible because of Nika. She had orchestrated the whole thing. The gathering of people, the food and water… This time she wouldn’t leave people behind. For a show of affection, she touched Yorinda’s hand and looked her in the eyes.
“And you made it too”, Nika said, emphasizing the word ‘you’ to make it clear that she was at the walls of salvation because of pure will, not only because Nika gave her the possibility to do so.

The attention was brought back to the five figures in the wall opening when an older man in their group started talking. Nika had a hard time listening and focusing on the information he was giving or rather the story. It seemed he was talking about the first time he showed up to the Haven, something she was not too interested in. Instead she let her eyes wander over the other four people, noticing two younger girls standing beside each other and looking nervous. With the light shining from behind them, they looked like prophets coming down from heaven directly. But the bland voice of the older man immediately crushed that thought. However, they looked clean – something that Nika sure didn’t do. She looked down at herself, brushing off some of the dust from her pants that barely made a difference. She couldn’t help think what her face looked like, probably spotted with mud and dirt from the ten day travel.
“We have not only water, but food for all of you. When you get inside, there is medical aid for those in need”, she heard the old man say. No one of the group made a move, seemingly nervous about the encounter of new people. Nika took a step forward and another one, walking up to the man and grabbing the water bottle he was holding out towards the group. She didn’t bother to say thank you and just passed the bottle to her group, who gladly shared the water, just a bit away from the welcoming committee. Nika smirked at the man, letting her eyes instead lay upon one of the younger girls – staring directly into her eyes. They were green as far as she could see, a stunning eye colour for the skin complexion the girl had. Nika forced her eyes away, taking a step back towards her group again. The man was going to speak again, but Nika held up her hand to silence him.
“Let’s not”, she said, still keeping the smirk on her lips. “It’s getting quite boring and we are all tired from the ten days in the desert. How about we move on to the tour of the place, old man?” Nika looked over her shoulder to see her group slowly moving forward, some nodding in approval of her statement so she did the same and started moving too, before an answer was clearly given.

Ivy straightened her back, wanting to make a good first impression, as the door finally opened enough to give her a good view of the newcomers and the world outside. Curiosity got the best of her and she leaned forward slightly, subtle enough, she hoped, trying to get as good a glimpse as possible of what was outside the walls. She thought that maybe it would give her a better understanding of why she had been shielded from it all her life, but she couldn’t see anything other than sand. Perhaps not too surprising in the desert. Shaking off the slight disappointment she instead turned her gaze to the people standing there. There were seven of them, and they all seemed very happy to have made it there. Two girls, who looked to be about Ivy’s age, were hugging each other, with tears in their eyes. Ivy couldn’t help but smile broadly at the sight of them. Two others, an older woman and a girl who was standing slightly in front of the rest of the group, possibly the leader, Ivy thought, were talking, but she couldn’t really make out what they were saying beyond a few stray words. It was none of her business anyway, she knew.
The leader of her own group, the old man, called Rufus, started speaking then, telling the story of when he had arrived at the Haven many years ago. She had heard it before, so she wasn’t really listening. Instead, she kept intently watching the strangers, imagining what their journey must have been like. She should offer them her water, was it time to do that yet? She decided to wait and just do whatever the rest of the committee were doing. The man went on to shortly introduce the Haven, before handing out the water bottle he was holding. Ivy figured this was her cue and prepared to do the same, when the girl at the front walked up to him and grabbed the bottle with a smirk, and proceeded to pass it around to the rest of her group. Ivy felt a little bit taken aback, now even more unsure of what to do, when the girl suddenly looked at her. The light brown colour of the girl’s eyes gleamed beautifully in the sunshine, but looking into them made her feel almost intimidated. It could be the way the girl was holding herself, she was short but somehow appeared taller, at least to Ivy, and seemingly very confident – probably, definitely the leader. Ivy felt more and more self-conscious by the second while the girl kept her eyes on her. It was a relief when she looked away. Ivy only felt worse, though, when the girl held a hand up to Rufus who had been about to start talking again, and proceeded to call him a boring old man. Ivy had had the same thought, and it made her feel guilty now, but at least she would never voice it. The newcomers started to move forward, and so her own group took the lead to show them around the Haven. Ivy followed, now feeling very discouraged.

Nika was the first one of the group to enter the Haven and the sight before her eyes took her breath away, it was nothing she expected. At first glance it might have looked dull when the first thing they saw was the steel railing with chipped white paint over it. There was a walkway around the perimeter of the wall, made in the same steel as the railing and also having the same white paint over it. The only difference was that the walkway seemed newly painted and barely chipped at all. But what took Nikas breath away was the view from the walkway. Just a floor below was the most amazing sight she’d ever seen. It was a plaza, filled with flowers and greenery with shops surrounding it. She spotted a gardener walking around, watering and caring for the plants just as another person cleaned out the bins that were scattered around the place. The plaza was filled with people and noise, children running around and playing with each other and other people just sitting on benches and enjoying their time. Nika wanted to get down there, but before she could raise her voice to say so – the older man she’d spoken to before shortly explained the situation. The upper floor, which they were currently standing in, was only for utilities to keep the Haven running. Even if it wasn’t visible, it was the most crowded place of all. The walkway led into different rooms where people constantly work, planning for efficiency and new ideas to keep them safe. Close by the entrance in the wall was an elevator to all floors, but not all were going to be accessible to them yet.
“The tour will be quick”, he said harshly and left his eyes lingering on Nika. He explained the plan. First, they were going to see the plaza for a short bit and then taken down another floor for the sleeping quarters and drop of their stuff. Thereafter, other people of the welcome committee would explain how things worked around the Haven and they would take up jobs as soon as possible. So down they went in the elevator, which was a new experience for all the people of the group. Nika couldn’t help but hold on to the wall before the robotic voice exclaimed “PLAZA” in the speakers and the doors opened with ease. And there the plaza laid before their eyes and it felt like Nika was in love all over again. According to another person of the welcome committee, the lighting in the plaza was not only produced by solar panels but had plenty of natural lighting from the glass ceiling that they decided to put in thirty years ago. The only small issue was the walkways above, cutting some of the light out from a few spots of the plaza but in its entirety, it was just as beautiful. But it wasn’t long before they were shuffled into the elevator again to go down for the sleeping quarters. The ride down was quiet and took just a bit longer than the ride to the plaza and when they reached their level the speakers croaked “LEVEL ONE” before opening the doors. This is about the time the grand look of the entrance and the beauty of the plaza begun to fade. Even though it was very different to other experiences, the thing that they called floor one looked dull. The walls were made out of concrete and the same walkways with railings were incorporated there as well. It wasn’t just a floor, but the walkways lead around the walls and ended in stairs further down. When Nika peeked over the edge, it seemed like a bottomless pit with darkness swallowing the lower floors. The younger girl of the bunch probably noticed her nauseated face and quickly said:
“Don’t worry about the darkness! It’s only to save light and energy, since most people should be out from the sleeping quarters by this hour. The lights will be turned on at an appropriate time!” It didn’t help Nika worrying though, were they in need of saving light and energy? She quickly shook to thought away, trying to stay positive for the sake of the group. Because of the darkness, the group refused to go to their rooms and decided to leave their baggage in a broom closet that was located at the top floor. The group was still standing crowded in the broom closet when the older man started speaking once again.
“Now it’s the time to learn about this place in depth, which I’ll let over to the people who were born here. This is nothing you can negotiate about”, his eyes were burning into Nikas skin. “The most important thing right now is to get everyone working, if possible. So do share your abilities so we can quickly find an appropriate job for you.” He ended his short speech with a deep breath before turning around and Nika couldn’t help but chuckle at his words but fell quiet when she felt one of her companions nudge her shoulder. She never meant to be rude, it just came naturally as some sort of a defence mechanism. It was a way to cope with the change, for the better she hoped. The place they’d entered was astonishing, that was something Nika couldn’t deny. Neither could she deny her want to know more about the place, even though she acted like she didn’t care. In silence she agreed to the man’s statement, she wanted to get working as soon as possible – in whatever department they seemed fit. She cleared her throat and looked at the people in the doorway the broom closet, looking for an escape from her feelings. But instead she just said: “I’m quite excellent at everything, if that’s any help for the working situation.”