It was nice and warm inside.

  “Get lost! You’re not welcome here!” Harvey berated Mavis as he held his wife in his arms, she was shaking in fear. He needed to be strong for her.

  The other survivor drew his pistol, pointing it at Mavis, shaking. He eyed Harvey and Wilson accusingly “You… you led her here! You led her straight to us!” He couldn’t bring himself to fire the gun before it disintegrated in his hands. But not only the gun – his hands also partially disintegrated as well.

  “AHHHHHH!” he screamed in pain, collapsing to his knees as blood gushed out. Harvey’s wife also screamed at the sight of him. Wilson was silent, his eyes fixed on the floor. He couldn’t bear to watch. All he saw was Mavis’s shoes at the top of his field of view.

  “Oops” Mavis remarked callously.

  More people had joined them in the entrance to see what was going on and were shocked at what they saw. The man’s son was among them. “Dad!” he screamed out. He rushed over to him. There was muttering and unease until they all saw Mavis, and then they were silent. A sombre mood filled the hallway. Despite having survived for so long, through all of this, they knew they were now all doomed.

  Mavis walked over towards him as well, and as she did so, the others stepped back and went away. Parents went to huddle with their children, clinging to an unreasonable hope that they might be spared. It was all they could do.

  “Do you want me to put him out of his misery?” Mavis said coldly, now looming over the man and his son.

  “No!” the boy yelled, tears in his eyes.

  Havey went over to help the man to his feet and together with the boy, the dragged him away to bandage him. Harvey’s wife followed him, mustering her courage to ignore Mavis as she passed her, just as her husband had done.

  Wilson now realised with horror that only he remained here in the hallway, with Mavis in between him and the inner parts of the bunker beyond. He looked ahead to see if there was any way he might slip by. Nope. He stared at the back of Mavis’s head, her long blonde hair dishevelled and dirty. She was around the same height as him. Then she turned around to face him.

  He stared into her deep green eyes, as she stared back at him. He was captivated. These were the eyes of God.

  “Can I have some food?” she said.

  Wilson’s courage and fear washed away from him and all that was left was for him to simply obey. With an unnerving calmness, he walked towards and then past her, pausing momentarily. “Come” he said simply, then continued onwards without looking back to see if she was following him.

  They arrived in a large room where many families were huddled, whispers silencing as they passed by. Then they proceeded further to a storage room. Here, boxes, crates and cans of food were stacked from the floor to ceiling. Wilson stopped and turned around to face Mavis who was in the entrance doorway.

  “So… where’s the food?” Mavis asked him, puzzled.

  “Here” Wilson took a can of baked beans from one of the open boxes and handed it to her.

  Oh, the food was inside this, she realised. She had come across similar things before. Sometimes they were easy to open, there was just a tab on the lid that you pulled and it came off. But not this one. How was she supposed to open it? There was nothing on the lid… She tried to pry it open with her hand, but it wouldn’t budge, until she applied so much force that the sides twisted, deformed and then the two halves of the can ripped violently apart down the centre, emptying the contents onto the floor and surroundings with a splatter. Mavis held only the two crushed metal pieces of the can in her hands, which she threw to the floor in frustration.

  “Ugh, this is so frustrating! How do you open these things??” she stormed over to stand directly beside Wilson, who stepped aside so she could retrieve another can from the box where he had got one moments earlier.

  “You’ve never opened a can before?” Wilson said, amused.

  Mavis glared back at him murderously. “I didn’t say that.”

  Focusing once again on the can, she used a technique she had learnt before through trial and error. It was the only way she had been able to figure out how to open these. The top part of the can began to shimmer with movement and then dissolved into a fine powder. The only problem was that it then fell straight in, coating the food. Mavis groaned with disappointment. She had tried to direct the dust outwards, but hard barely been successful. Most of it had still gone inside. It didn’t really matter. She could still eat it, which she had done before. It just wouldn’t be an enjoyable experience.

  “See, look,” Mavis showed the can to Wilson. “Now it’s gonna taste completely horrible,” she complained.

  “Here, I’ll show you –“ Before Wilson could complete his sentence, a burly man appeared in the doorway and without warning began to fire a machine gun. Bullets sprayed everywhere. “TRAITOR!” he screamed at the top of his lungs as the bullets pierced Wilson. Mavis felt the bullets as merely light taps on her back. She felt sorry for Wilson – had she seen the gunner, she might have been able to stop the bullets and save Wilson’s life, but now as he fell to the ground, she knew it was too late for him. He was dead.

  Mavis turned around, annoyed.

  “We will never kowtow to you!” the gunman proclaimed. “We will never surrender!” One of his bullets pierced the can Mavis was carrying, before she vapourised him together with his gun. A saucy liquid began to drip out of the hole in the can, running down onto Mavis’s fingers. She brought it up to her lips and drank some before it all seeped out, but she couldn’t bring herself to continue after just one mouthful. It had a horrible metallic taste that she couldn’t stomach. She threw the remainder to the floor in disgust, and went back out into the large open room.

  The shaken survivors were huddled around the walls, cowering near their beds, with all their possessions around them. Some children had begun to cry at the sudden outburst of gunfire and noise.

  “Please, it’s not our fault.” A desperate woman said. Another woman beside her begged her to hush and be quiet, but she continued. “We didn’t want this. Please don’t hurt us.” All she thought of was the two children at her sides and what she could do to save them. She needed to do this much. After all, Mavis was only girl. Surely she would understand they weren’t the enemy.

  All Mavis cared about was getting someone to show her how to open those damn cans. Mavis heard the woman over by a wall to her right and walked over to her. She grabbed her hair and dragged her across the ground. “NO, please! “ the woman screamed hysterically. “They’ll kill me! They’ll kill me!” Mavis looked back to where the woman’s daughter was being restrained by another person as she called out for her mother through tears “don’t hurt her!”. Her son had retreated, frightened, into the shadows behind.

  Mavis stopped and left the woman, whose name was Bethany, on the ground, grovelling at her feet. “Who?” Mavis asked. “Who are ‘they’?”

  Bethany sobbed as she got to her knees. She supposed it was already too late to hide her intentions now. She looked over to where they were seated against the wall – two armed men. They had been trying to hide among the others. Realising Beth was giving away their position, they got to the feet and fired their guns at her. But Mavis had followed her gaze too, and spotted them just in time. She was shielded from the bullets by Mavis, who turned them to dust as they flew through the air. Bethany flinched at the sounds and seemed confused when she hadn’t been hit. Surely they couldn’t have missed from such close range? But then she saw the bullets turning to dust, as fragments of them fell to the floor, and to her amazement realised Mavis must be protecting her.

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  The two gunmen were soon vaporised by Mavis. “Anyone else have a death wish?” Mavis asked the crowd with open arms. No one spoke up except for the wails of a woman presumed to be the wife of one of the people who had just died. Mavis contemplated killing her too, but decided against it, looking over at the children who were clearly still intimidated, and then down towards their mother who was still arm’s length away. Bethany was weary but seemed to confirm there were no other agitators, by the more relaxed expression on her face. Mavis left her and returned to the storage room.

  Bethany stood up and walked back over to her family, embracing them. She remained with them for a few moments, but then pulled away. There was something she had to do. First, she rummaged around in some things near the wall until she found a can opener. She looked over towards the storage room, mustering her courage, then walked towards it. She needed to go and thank Mavis for saving her life.

  Mavis was bent down on the floor to salvage the can of food she had discarded. Unfortunately, not much remained as most has spilled out. Though still, she dipped her hand into the can and retrieved some morsels which she placed into her mouth. It still tasted awful, like metal.

  When Bethany entered the room, Mavis was surprised to see her. She was surprised anyone, let alone this woman, would have come in to follow her. She was carrying what appeared to Mavis to be quite an odd device. Bethany, too, was surprised to see Mavis crawling on the floor. “Hey”, she said as Mavis looked up at her to see who had come in.

  Bethany walked past her to the box of cans and pulled one out. Then she went back and crouched down to kneel where Mavis was. “Look – this is how you do it”, she told Mavis who had now sat up, watching intently as Bethany demonstrated the operation of a can-opener.

  Mavis was intrigued when she had finished. “Ah, I see… “ she remarked, smiling. “But where did you get that device?”

  “This?” Bethany held up the can-opener. “It’s a can-opener. I just have it with me. There are many different types.” Once she had removed the metal lid, she moved the can over towards Mavis on the ground. “I… I just wanted to say thank you, for saving my life.”

  Mavis didn’t know what to say. She felt like she didn’t deserve it. How could anyone possibly thank her? After all that she had done…

  She just stared at Bethany – she could tell the woman was still afraid of her, but was trying hard not to show it. “What’s your name?” she finally asked her.

  “Bethany”.

  Mavis put the can of baked beans to her lips and began to eat from it. It tasted so much better.

  “Don’t you want some bread or something else to go with that?” Bethany asked. She knew the others in the bunker might hate her for this, but she didn’t care. The girl in front of her didn’t seem like such a monster in this moment. She was just like a child, that didn’t even know what a can opener was. Whatever the circumstances of her upbringing were, it didn’t seem great. She felt curious to ask but didn’t want to pry in case it made her upset.

  “Ok.” Mavis replied.

  Beth led her out of the room and through the large chamber where everyone was gathered. The other survivors kept their distance from her as she approached. They went into the kitchen.

  “We made this fresh today.” Beth pulled out some bread from a cupboard and handed a slice to Mavis.

  “Thanks” Mavis poured some of the contents of the can onto the bread, and then began to eat it. It was delicious, the best food she had eaten in a while.

  “Well, I, uh, I better get back there.” Bethany indicated back to the main room. She had tried to be polite about it. Her family was probably worried about her.

  “Wait” Mavis said through a mouthful of food and then swallowed it. “Can I stay with you?”

  “Uh, okay, sure.” Beth replied uneasily. Usually they didn’t bring food into that room to prevent it making a mess. But oh well – she didn’t have the courage to say anything about that.

  Bethany went back over to her family at the wall, and Mavis followed.

  “I’ll introduce you to my family.” Beth said to Mavis. “This is Vince, my husband.” He looked at her wearily but relieved that his wife was okay. “This is Annie” Bethany said of her daughter, a girl around 8 years old, who immediately clung to her mother, eyeing Mavis suspiciously. “This is Jake,” Bethany said of her son, who was around 10 years old. He was hiding behind her, but she pulled him out in front of her. He looked up at Mavis.

  “Hi” he said shyly.

  “Hi” Mavis replied.

  They sat down. Soon, Mavis was finished eating. She at in the corner beside them, looking around at other people who had resumed some sense of normal activity, despite her being there. Idle chatter in hushed tones, games, and the like. She wanted to explore this place – find what other rooms there were, and also the bathroom and toilet. So, she got up and left.

  It wasn’t a lavish residence by any means. It was merely functional. There were no toilets really. Only buckets. Mavis had observed others going into a room to use them. They sure had a fright when they saw her, quickly scurrying away without saying a word.

  Mavis returned to the main chamber and it seemed like everyone was getting ready to sleep.

  “Lights out soon” Harvey announced. He saw Mavis enter the room and glared at her, but quickly looked away, saying nothing. Mavis returned to the corner where Bethany and her children were.

  “Here, you can have this.” Beth offered Mavis a blanket, but it wasn’t really that cold in here. Still, Mavis took it, then lay down on the floor in the corner, facing the wall. She remained there with her eyes open, contemplating the events of the day. Soon, the lights were switched off. After maybe another hour, she became familiar with the idle sounds of the bunker and then fell asleep.

  ??????

  Everyone in the bunker was asleep. Everyone except for a woman, who had today witnessed the death of her husband. She couldn’t possibly go to sleep, while that monster was here inside the bunker with them. How could this travesty happen to them! It was completely absurd, a cruel twist of fate – no, it was the fault of Wilson and Harvey. She was glad at Wilson’s death, but the other weasel had managed to avoid any consequences. It was because of him that they were all in danger. She had to do something.

  Quietly, she removed her blanket and snuck out of the room, to the kitchen. There she retrieved a large knife from one of the drawers. She returned to the main room and looked towards where Harvey usually slept with his family. It was hard to make out in the darkness, but the faint glow of the orange standby lighting was enough for her to realise none of them were there. She cursed him under her breath. They must have locked themselves in the communications room, fearing for their safety.

  Nevermind that. A better idea surfaced in her mind as she spotted Mavis sleeping in the corner at the far wall. Adrenaline rushed through her. She would kill Mavis instead!

  Sneaking past the sleeping bunker dwellers, she reached the end of the room and went over to Mavis. Crouching down, she held the knife in her hand above Mavis’s body and then brought it down to stab her hard.

  But something very unexpected happened. The knife pieced through Mavis’s clothes in her chest, tearing them, but it when it reached her skin it just stopped, fixed in place. No matter how hard the woman tried to press down on it, it wouldn’t go through. She felt the blade become hot as the tip seemingly began to glow, as it slowly rose and fell in rhythm with Mavis’s breathing. The woman became frantic as knew it might awake Mavis at any second. She withdrew her hand, but the knife remained upright, seemingly hovering in the air. She considered running away, but when Mavis didn’t awake, she grasped the knife again and this time, with some effort, pulled it out. The tip had dulled.

  She tried again, this time aiming at Mavis’s throat. She tried to cut it with one slice, but it was as if her skin was a solid wall that merely dulled the blade, made of some sticky substance that seemed to catch the blade on it, causing it to stick and require some effort to remove, but causing no harm or cuts. Frustrated, the woman tried once again to stab Mavis, this time in the face. She aimed directly at Mavis’s closed eyes, and brought the knife down with both hands, as hard as she could.

  Again, it did not pierce her, but this time, Mavis’s eyes snapped open. She inhaled sharply, recovering from another episode of the familiar nightmares which haunted her. It took her a few moments to realise the knife pointed at her, millimetres away from her eye.

  The woman who was holding it had felt its temperature increase dramatically at the moment of supposed impact, and had tried to remove her hands, but was only able to remove one. The hand which grasped the handle remained stuck there for some reason. Now she realised Mavis was awake, and she screamed out, but it was too late. Mavis had seen her, and no sound escaped her lips. Instead, she felt pain in her entire body as her clothes fused with her skin. She was unable to move.

  Mavis wiped away the knife from her face, feeling the warm metal blade on her hand. It fell away in large chunks of brittle pieces. The woman who had been holding it, still clutched the handle, frozen in place, terrified. Mavis turned over and got up slightly to orient herself, then focusing on the woman, compressed the matter of her entire body into a small sphere-shaped stone, the size of a tennis ball. It hovered in the air momentarily, then Mavis let it fall to the floor with a clack. Before it could roll away, she melded it into the hard stone floor. She did the same with the chunks of the knife. The only evidence now remaining was a wavy surface texture on the floor there in those places, which was not quite as flat as everywhere else. But likely no one would notice that.