Glass Pipes

I still remember my old life as if it was yesterday. Well it was. I never expected it to end that way.

As the planet got hotter and hotter, I thought this has to be the end, but humanity got together and built a new life underground. It was a dream coming true, we could build society from scratch, in a way that benefited everyone.

I still remember walking through the beautiful caves, starring at the brightly illuminated water pipes made from glass, wondering which job I wanted to do today. We were free to choose what to do, as long as we benefited society in some way. Most of the time I did something with water management. The concept fascinated me from day 1. I don’t know who came up with the idea of combining water pipes with street lamps, but they were a genius. Just looking at the water flowing through the pipes, shining reflections all throughout the caves. It’s hard to take your eyes away from them.

With me all the time was my robot dog Bunny. I got him 1 year after moving underground and since then I was the happiest I’ve ever been. As I walked into the office I was greeted by some familiar and some unfamiliar faces. The day continued as every other day, some broken pipes here and there, but nothing unusual. But as the broken pipe alarms got more and more, I got a bit worried. It’s the most I’ve seen in a day, but still manageable. As the jobs were flexible, we just asked some other people to switch for the day and we had enough people to manage the problem. That’s the benefit of a system like ours. If something needs more workers, everyone is there to help. They weren’t as experienced as the people who did it daily, like me, but fixing some broken pipes shouldn’t be that hard.

I thought.

The alarms didn’t become less, no, they got more and more. That was not normal. We rang the alarm for everyone to return home until the problem was resolved. I would really like to tell you we got the problem under control, but we didn’t.

More and more pipes burst, the caves slowly filling up with water. We all evacuated to the upper floors of the office, but it didn’t take long until the water reached us as well. This can’t be the end, I thought. We managed to escape the hot surface world and go down by a few broken pipes? I look at Bunny, who doesn’t seem to know this could be the last time we see each other. The water already reached my neck. It wasn’t long until I would run out of air, drowning because of the pipes I once admired.

Suddenly a few sparks begin to emit from Bunny. No, this can’t be! Bunny, I thought you’re waterproof. Electricity traveled through my body, dead. Killed by my own dog. At least I didn’t have to slowly drown. As for the people who managed to escape to the surface, I don’t think they survived the heat for that long.