Since our enclave was small-and dwindling-I recognized each face shadowed by the half-light. We lost so many when they were young that we just called all the brats Boy or Girl, along with a number. The enclave assembled on naming day, everyone who had survived to be named. I wasn’t sure what that was, but by her expression, it must have been very good. But the words in bright red, HEAVENLY HAM, looked wonderful to me. I couldn’t make out what she was holding that part had worn away. My favorite item was a picture of a girl on a white cloud. I followed Twist through the maze, my gaze touching on familiar objects. Splashes of brightness came from items we scavenged from deeper in the warren. Once they had borne color but the years had worn them gray. The walls were old, built of rectangular blocks. This space comprised the only world I’d ever known, cast in darkness and curling smoke. I had never been outside the enclave, of course. If a hunting party was attacked before it reached sanctuary, a heavy metal wall between them and hungry enemies made the difference between life and death. We used them for emergency shelters sometimes. We had found remnants of what might’ve been transportation, but they lay on their sides like great, dead beasts.

The tunnels were wide and laid with metal bars. I studied the pallor of my forearms and then nodded. Twist was small and frail by any standards privation had cut runnels into his cheeks, aging him. He already wore his marks he was two years older than me, and if he’d survived the ritual, I could. “Are you ready?” Twist stood waiting for me in the darkness. Some whispered it would be a kindness to kill him, but they meant they didn’t want to see their futures written in his skin.

His face was withered, and his fingers shook when he attempted the smallest tasks. I lived in an enclave in which our oldest had seen twenty-five years. Each one added a layer of fear, and this year, it was worse. Nobody even lived to see forty in my world. People had told us legends of a time when human beings lived longer.

Enclave by ann aguirre