Chase listened to the water lapping the side of the sewer and the quiet hum of the haze above. Chase was down in the underground tunnels of New York City running back to his “home”. Ever since the Haze arrived he has been stuck sleeping in the storage room of the sewers. He repeats the same routine every day. Get up at 6 and find food, then find anything he might need and for any source of life. Every day the same thing. He doesn’t find anything new but he has had one worry. He is finding it harder to find food,which leaves him to worry about the fact that he might one day not find food and will die. When he goes off running to look for resources he always carries light things so that if he is Chased by a Haze he can run fast. He only carries a knife (to defend himself),a bottle (in case he is thirsty) and an energy bar (for when he gets hungry).

 When Chase woke up this morning he picked up his pack and got ready to go run when he hears a sound from above in the street. he wasn’t believing his ears so he listened again. This time, it’s not the dead silence but a shout then the sound of… guns.

Chase ran up the ladder that took him to the streets and looked around. Only the sound of guns firing and people shouting. Chase ran down Saint Marks Place. There standing in the centre were two boys with an SG 553 in both their hands. Chase watched as they took down the Haze and ran off. Chase followed them down all the streets all the way to a train station. They jumped onto the train tracks and ran about 15 meters before they reached a manhole. They opened it up and jumped then they were gone. Chase was intrigued as a ton of questions entered his head. Are they nice? Did they do this to me? Will they help me? What’s down there? Should I go in? In the end, he concluded that he will take the risk. As he opened the heavy manhole he saw a ladder and climbed down. Once he reached the bottom he could hear sounds of people talking.  He looked around and saw another big heavy vault door. He twisted the door handle and peered inside. All of a sudden…total silence.

The silence is held for about 15 seconds before one of the boys breaks it. ” Who are you?” as simple as the question was, Chase found it hard to reply. “I-I-I don’t know,” Chase stammered. Another boy in the corner sounding slightly confused by Chase’s answer replied: “What do you mean ‘I don’t know’” “My name is Chase but that’s allI know. I don’t know my parents, how old I am nothing. just my name. ” Another boy, sitting on a chair this time, chimed in and said”  The same thing happened to us Chase,” as soon as the boy had said ‘Chase’  a chill went down his spine.  He had not heard his name for a very long time. A boy wearing a green army jacket stood up and said “ Hi, my name is Lucas, we are all survivors of the disease, well not exactly, we had a liquid injected into our blood when we were younger to survive this disease” Lucas informed Chase. Curios, Chase asked, “ And how would you know this”? “Blood samples”. The boy in the corner of the room stood up and walked to Chase, “ My name is Ethan, sitting on the bed is Jacob, the boy in the chair is Michael, and the boys in that group are: James, William, Ryan, Alex, Caleb, Jack, Matthew, Gabriel, Thomas, Henry, Owen, and Dylan. It may sound like there is a lot of us but in reality, we are only 14 people,15 if we include you”. Chase was amazed because these were the first living things he has seen in months.

That night Chase is given a place to sleep on the top bunk. Caleb had the bottom bunk. He explained to Chase about everything that had happened, from the start.

The next day he is shown around the underground bunker. It was bigger than he expected.

They had a lot of stuff like a shooting range where they practised their accuracy with the guns and a science lab. They had a lot. Alex took Chase to the shooting zone and told him to pick a gun. Chase thought back to when he first saw the two boys shooting with SG 553’s, so he went for that. Chase had never shot a gun before so he wasn’t ready to be thrown backwards. After about an hour he stopped and went to eat lunch.Chase noticed they had a lot of food. “Where did get you all the food?” asked Chase. “We send out a small group of boys three at max to go find food and people,” said Matthew.

That night Chase finds it hard to sleep because he can’t stop thinking about how the rest of his life might be like this. What if there was a way? A way out of this mess. A way to get rid of all the Haze. And for the humans, we can create a cloning gun and then clone each of us and then…he stopped himself. He had gone crazy. “I just need to think straight,” he told himself.

The following morning Lucas had an announcement to make. “Today we will have a change in the plan, we will not send small groups of three to go find food and people.we will go as one big group and see how many Hazes we can take out”. Gabriel questioned this, ”but there are so many and what happens if we die?” Lucas replied with: “we will fight till we have no more in us. We will fight till the end.”

With that, they left. As they rounded the corner of the station they saw a Haze coming fire. ”Alright guys this is it,” whispered Lucas, but before they could open fire Chase jumped in.”WAIT. NO! I have a better idea. How about we follow it and see where it takes us to. It could lead us to something that can help us.” The group of boys murmured between each other before coming up with a conclusion. They agreed with him that it was a good idea, so quietly they followed it from behind. It took them through Chinatown and past the empire state building. It stopped near the central station but when the boys came running round the corner they felt like they were just hit by a wrecking ball. The area was swarmed with Hazes more than they have ever seen. In the center of this was one big Haze. Bigger than the others. Much bigger. Chase noticed it was not moving, but slowly the others did too. There was a rope ladder dangling down from the big central Haze. “Why would there be a ladder if we are the only people on this planet? That means that someone else is here and there’s only one way to find out.” Everyone’s eyes drifted to the ladder. “That’s too dangerous, we don’t know what’s up there,” said Henry. “Well, I’m going up. And if anyone else wants to join me they can.” Chase stared at the group of boys. ”I’m in,” said Ethan. ”count me in,” said Owen. gradually everyone said they would do it.until the last one. “Oh well if everyone is I guess I’ll take the risk too. I’m in” said Henry. ”Great.

So here is how we are going to do this. I’ll go up and when I say it’s all clear I’ll give you a sign to say to come up, but when you up keep your guard up because we don’t know what’s up there and we don’t want to find out the hard way either so watch out and keep your guns up.” When Chase finished saying this he made his way up the ladder as the others watch keeping their guard up.

When Chase got up he looked around and was shocked by what he saw. There was the technology of the future. Things he had never seen before. There were holograms of Hazes and camera videos of areas like a Haze currently on Park Avenue or another on Arthur Avenue. But there was no one inside.Chase called up the others. They all gathered at the top of the ladder. ”Which way do we go,” asked Thomas. ”Let’s go that way,” said Caleb pointing ahead of them. They walked for a while until they came to what seemed like a junction or the center of the Haze. There was hesitation about where to go, but one thing was for sure, they were all going to stick together. They ended up going straight ahead until the path came to an end. There was no more than a small door with the words ‘control room’ encrypted on it. Dylan opened the door and everyone had a good look inside. No one. They walked around the room admiring the technology. As Chase looked on the desk he noticed a big red button with the words ‘END’ on it. ”Guys come take a look at this,” he said. “‘End’. Well, what happens when you click it,” asked Henry. ”How should I know,” said Chase. ”Should we push it?” said Ryan. Ethan looked up and said “yes”. All heads turned and looked at him. “It could be the end to all this. It could end it all,” said Ethan. ”And what if it means the end of the world or end of humans,” said Jack. ”Well we are going to die at one point and it’s worth the try” Ethan replied. ”I agree with Ethan” Chase continued “It is worth the try”. Matthew joined in, ”all right then, but you can hit the button”. ”Agreed,” said Chase. He turned and looked at the button.

His hand hovered over it for about 10 seconds before he smashed it. Nothing happened for a good, tense 30 seconds. ”Maybe the button was created to scare us,” said Caleb. ”I doubt it,“ said Chase then all of a sudden an explosion exploded in front of them.”RUN!” screamed Chase as all they boys poured through the doorway and legged it down the hallways being chased by the explosions behind them. Matthew tripped and screamed as everyone turned and watched him be devoured by the fire from the explosions. An explosion behind them threw Jack into the air and was run over by the flames. When they got to the ladder they jumped through instead of carefully climbing down 50 meters but about halfway down Chase grabbed onto a rung of the ladder, and so did some of the others but Chase was sad to see William and Alex miss the rungs and go flying down 50 meters.

Chase hadn’t taken the time to notice all the other Hazes were all in flames covering the ground. He also hadn’t taken the time to notice that the rope ladder was attached to a big falling Haze which was about to hit the ground. Chase was looking at the ground and noticed a lake of dirty water. Chase let go and jumped. He landed in the lake with a giant splash. When he got his head out he saw the giant Haze hit the ground and blow up. The blow knocked him back into the water. Chase got out and looked around for his friends. After about 2 hours of searching, he had to come to the conclusion that he was the only one left. Alone. In the world. By Himself. Without the 15 boys together he was sad. He was the only one left of 15.