There Is Light

They crawled underground.

The tunnel system once the pride of the community had been neglected for generations. It had been thought to endure eternity but the opposite proved to be true. When electricity failed they tried to adapt to the circumstances. The door to the earth's upper world had been closed after they had rapidly expelled the last virus as atomic warfare ravaged continents one by one. There was no way back only an arduous forward. On hands and knees, the scouting group crawled through yet another hole in the Earth.

Abruptly the foremost stopped. What was it that made the darkness lighter?

What is that, do you see it too?

Are his eyes fooling him or is the end of their world nearby? Backwards he tried to crawl but there was no room. Number two tried to see over the shoulder of the first and averted his eyes in surprise. This was similar to what his grandmother had told, was it the light at the end of the tunnel that had taken her?

The light, he whispered, the light at the end of the tunnel!

The light at the end of the tunnel is a figment of humanity's imagination, scout number three said. No one has ever seen the light. Forward, forward we are the scouting group.

Hesitantly, the foremost crept on

followed by the rest. In his mind, he held a conversation to encourage himself.
That grandmother had not been mad and also hadn't died peacefully. Was this the light she had seen or did monsters live with them in the dark?

His hand curved with thick crooked nails, pale, with a leathery skin reached slightly forward as he kept his head down. His eyes had never seen light and the long fiery hair kept his face covered.

One by one, the group crept out of the tunnel toward the wondrous thing on which a thin beam of light shone that penetrated from a crack.
The unusual palette of colours was hard to process. Besides light, none of them had ever seen colours; for those who live in darkness, colour does not count.

It smells strange, said one as he sniffed the sweet scents. The others sniffed and after an hour everyone agreed that this was the most valuable find of their lives.

It was the first day of the first year and there was light, light colour and smell. As the light slowly disappeared they huddled together in a corner waiting to see if the special phenomenon would return and with it give their lives some more colour and odour.

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Prompt: seasonal fruits
3-6-2024
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