Chapter 2: In the ground

They were shown around the building, if you could call it that, by the younger boy's aunt who introduced herself as Maryam. She also told them to choose fake names, so when they go to the surface no one would suspect anything. Her daughter was 4 years old and was called Humerah and her fake name was Sophie. They had evacuated underground a week ago. The oldest boy, who was called Hudhayfah chose the fake name Arthur. His sister was 2 weeks old and had been named Asma: he gave her the fake name Vivian. When he had gone to put the bread away, he had found a room connected to the kitchen filled with shelves of long lasting supplies such as tins of food, powdered milk and so on.

The younger boy was called Salih and he chose the fake name Tyler as he thought it sounded 'cool'. He gave his little sister, who was just 2 days old, the fake name Hana, as he wanted her to have a muslim name which could also pass off as non-muslim. Just the other day, their parents had named her Aisha, meaning knowledgeable, though Salih did not wish for her to ever know of the horrors he had faced that day. A couple of hours later, the evacuees were seated in the living room getting to know each other when another man joined them. He left a baby on an armchair and immediately went back up to the surface. Maryam had recognised him as the caretaker so she took a hold of the crying baby and rocked him to sleep. About an hour later the man returned and his eyes were red from crying. He sat down and introduced himself to the children as Suleyman, the caretaker of InfernoOaisis Academy, although the children there knew him as Jim. He then took his son off of Maryam and took him to his cot. He then named his son Zaki as his wife had wanted. He also allocated him the fake name Seth.

They soon got settled into their new way of life. They would all wake up before sunrise, leaving the babies to sleep in their cots. They would pray Fajr and then the children would have reading lessons. They would read both Arabic and English till they had it perfect. After their first lesson, they would all head to the gym and use the treadmills until their legs got tired, whilst Maryam would start preparing their breakfast. After running, they would spend a bit longer in the gym, before heading to the dining room to eat the first meal of their day. After breakfast, Sulayman would give Hudhayfah private lessons on how to run the school so he would be ready to start helping to run it after the summer holidays ended. Meanwhile, Asma and Salih would get to play in the living room and Maryam would give the babies their milk and watch over them.

After this, they would go back to the gym to strengthen their arms a little and then train parkour/free-running. They would then eat lunch. After lunch, they would send Hudhayfah up to the surface to go to the shops. He would only use self service to minimise people asking questions. In the evenings they would just sit together in the living room and talk about their day or what they planned for the future.

Life went on like this for the next few years, and before they knew it, it was time for Hudhayfah to take over fully as head teacher...