The tunnel was collapsing…The guards were closing in…and her friend was wounded. The last thing Lana heard him said was for her to leave him behind and save her own skin…and she did…

“Wall!” Lana gasped as she suddenly snapped away from her nightmare. She was sweating, and her eyes were watery with tears, the blanket she used to keep herself warmth was entangled on the floor below.

Lana lightly slapped her face repeatedly with both hands, trying to get her sense back together ‘Stay calm, it’s just a bad dream.’

She swung herself off the bed and took a deep breath of the morning air, preparing for another day, her hand unconsciously grabbed for Wall’s locket ‘I’m no longer a crybaby that is Lana now.’ She thought, to get herself moving ‘I’m Walia, a dedicated member of the free cavern and the resistance.’

So thus Lana…no…Walia grabbed for her jacket that sat among the pile of things on the other stone bed and swung it on her back. Checking on the reflecting mirror, she determined that it was the break of dawn, near the time where everyone was supposed to wake up.

After grabbing the remainder of her things and stuffing them into her pockets, Walia pulled open a canteen of water and took a large sip to clear her throat. Then after a moment of hesitation, she mustered her courage and exited her room.

‘Am I really doing this?’ Walia asked herself as she was finding the best position to perform her task. It was not her duty, and she had no obligation to do it, but it was what Walia wished to do. After she shook the doubt away, Walia cupped her hands over her mouth, and on the top of her lungs, she shouted…

“Everyone, wake up! It’s time to work!”

One by one, caverners started to pop out from their stone hole along the tunnel, which was so so empty not long ago. Most were slumbering from their wake; one or two gave a curse. But some smiled and greeted her warmly, which bright up Walia’s day by quite a bit.

With that done, Walia skipped her way to the lift, where a few members were there already. After a while of waiting for more people, the contraption started to slowly move upward, stopping from time to time to pick up more caverners as they reached different sections of their base, all readied for their day. And among them was a person Walia was meaning to search for…

Her hand gave one last tab at the canteen hanging from her hip, and after a sudden realization that she did not had not muster her courage to do it, Walia strode forward to the person she was looking for.

“Light” Walia called the girl’s name, putting on her best smile, and hope against hope that she didn’t get the wrong person. The older girl turned to meet her, her beautiful long hair was messy from waking up.

Light smiled when she saw her “Oh hi, Lana, right?”

“I go by Walia now.” She corrected her, hand reaching to her belt “I…have something to give back to you…”

With a hasty snatch, Walia pulled the canteen off her belt and handed it to Light.

“My canteen” Light let out, a small surprise in her voice, taking the item from Walia’s hand “I was actually looking for it the other day. Is it with you this whole time?”

Walia nodded meekly, but then realized her slip-up and nodded again, more enthusiastic this time “Yeah, I…can't find the right time to give it back to you.”

“I see.” Light replied as the lift came into a sudden halt, for they had reached the well hall. The older girl attached her canteen onto her belt and exited the platform, turning back for a one last moment “I will see you later then, Lana.”

“It’s Walia!” She shouted, but when Light was out of sight, she shook her head frustratingly.

‘I stuttered again.’ Walia thought, she was trying her best to cast that sad stupid girl away, but it still managed to linger.

Walia sighed as she followed the crowd out the lift ‘I suppose I can’t become a new girl overnight.’

After telling herself to drop her terrible attitude, she quickly moved forward to the task’s pot, which had been upgraded from a simple cooking pot to the one large enough Walia could fit in, for the task that must be delegated were multiplied so much from the new caverners that came in.

With as gracious movement as possible, Walia tiptoed up the pot and dug her hand into it for the nearest stone her hand could reach. The newly carved text into the stone simply said ‘kitchen work’.

“This is…good” Walia said, finally, she was certain about something. She slid the rock into her pocket and quickly paced away to let’s other have their pick.

As she was walking down through the tunnel deeper into the cavern in search of the kitchen, their old cook passed her by with her two assistants, a pot of yesterday’s leftover in their hands.

“I get cooking work today, heading to the kitchen now,” Walia explained when they ran into each other.

“Great, Free will gives you order until I get back.” The old woman said in her usual low tone “It’s still very early for work though, why don’t you follow us and eat a morning meal? We put in quite a work reseasoning the soup.”

“I’m not hungry.” Walia quickly responded, then made her way to the kitchen where Toad and the other two came from.

What was called the kitchen for the free cavern was, in fact, a mined out cave about one hundredth the size of the well hall, which was pretty large by its own right. With slab and slab of stones stacked together to work as a table, barrels packed with water to use for cooking and off to the side were a section where food gathered the day before were stored.

As Walia entered into the kitchen, only one person was presence, a woman of twenty investigating on the stock.

“Free” Walia called the older woman. Since the numbers of the cavern members had greatly increased, the numbers of permanent cooks had to be increased as well, and Free was one of them. Rumor had it that she actually had been working in the Last Stronghold kitchen itself until her escape, but since Toad was here before her, the old cook continued to be in charge of the kitchen.

“Good, you’re here.” Free said, unlike her superior, she had a very harsh voice “Go grab the wild carrots and chopped them up, Toad said we are making salad today, siting that everyone hasn’t eat vegetables in a while or something.”

Hesitatingly, Walia glanced at the set of knives on the table “I’m…not good with sharp object.”

Free gave out a sigh when hearing that “Then just wash the damn things, I can have other folks do it later anyway.”

She nodded, but inside Walia felt like she wanted to pull her hair out. A part of Lana was still in her, after all. She had to work harder to become Walia, or else that part would be stuck with her forever.

“I still don’t get that Toad lady” Free complaint as both of them work, helping Walia to reach for the basket of carrots “You suppose to cook what the eater wanted, not what you think the eater need. And what kind of name is Toad anyway.”

“I heard that when she was young, she had a lot of pimples, and people mockingly called her that” Walia remembered, trying her best to engage in conversation “But she embraced it as her name.”

“It’s still stupid.” Free responded “But she is older, so what can I do? Here’s the carrot, when you finish, come back to me.”

Walia nodded, as energetic as possible “As you say”

Walia went to the barrel and opened its cog, letting the water in it slowly washed over the carrots one by one and set it aside for cooking. As she did that, more and more caverners arrived at the kitchen to do their work, the first few of which was the head cook herself. From there Toad took charge of the cooking operation, delegating tasks and working here and there. Normally Lana would be very self-conscious around so many people, but now Walia simply felt excited to be a part of something, even if that something is such a simple thing as cooking.

“Oh, Walia, you got the kitchen work too?” A voice called her from above, and coming to crouch next to her was one of the brown hair twins, a basket of cabbages in hands.

Walia hesitated for a moment “…Ark, right?”

The boy shook his head, his face had a thin smile on it “Hos, actually”

“Oh” Walia shifted her gaze away “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, most people can’t tell the two of us apart at first.” He responded and started washing the vegetables in his own basket.

“I will try my best to remember next time, I promise,” Walia told him

“My twin brother has a bit bigger built than me.” Hos explained “That’s might help.”

“What task did he get today?” Walia asked after a moment of silence, trying to be as talkative as possible.

“Combat training” Hos answered, standing up with his washed cabbages, so Walia did the same with her carrots “He’s pretty excited for it.”

“Oh, I see” She replied, among many things that had changed in this cavern of the free were a lot of new tasks that were given out, most of which were not necessary work that helped maintain the cavern. One of them was combat training, led by Jacob, who was now known as the right hand of their leader Robin. The task consisted of practicing usage of weapons, not only solar guns but also knife and staff, and increasing endurance by running around the mountain and carrying weight. Walia remembered the one time she received the task, at the end of the day, she returned to her room battered and bruised, with no strength left in her body. She did not like it, but Walia knew Robin put it in for a reason.

“Have you heard the news?” Hos asked as they walked “The group Robin sent into the city to steal medicines are all dead.”

Upon hearing that, Walia nearly lost grip of her basket “…really?”

He nodded grimly “Robin tells us just this morning. They did not come back for two days, but she still lives in hope. But last night one of our other thieves heard the news that they were all killed during the raid…”

“That’s horrible.”

“Yeah, even though their dead bodies were thrown into the execution pit by now, Robin said we are making a gravesite in their memory this afternoon” Hos explained, “Jackson, upon hearing it, swear a bloody vengeance upon the supreme leader in their name in front of everyone.”

“That’s brave of him” Walia replied, though, at the very back of her mind, she wondered what the supreme leader got anything to do with it.

“Yeah, the very soul of bravery, our general,” Hos responded, though his voice had some strange tone to it.

With that, Walia and her friend set their basket on the table, and while Hos continued his work on the vegetable, chopping and splitting them apart to be suitable for cooking. Walia was handed a large salted trout and a brush, with the task to scrape away its scale.

This work was tedious, going back and forth with the brush and pulling away from the hard but slimy scale of the fish, so it could be chopped apart and added to the salad. Not to mention with no one to talk to, Walia felt like it was going on forever.

After who know how long, Walia was finally finished with the fish, so she handed it to one of the cook and was given a short break as a reward, for it was near lunchtime for the kitchen crew.

Being responsible, Walia went back to her sitting spot to gather up the fish’s scale and dumped it into the designated trash, returning the brush back in its place and gathered up the rope which tied up the fish beforehand.

As she tried her best to untie the knot so it could be kept for later use, she found a short length of detached rope that seemed to have fallen off from the main length. As she picked it up, she saw that it was not thick enough to tie anything heavy, nor was it longs enough to be used for any proper purpose.

As she sat, she saw Free passed by, a set of bowl in hand “What should I do with this?” Walia asked her and showed her the rope.

“Just throw it away” She replied, as Walia assumed she would.

But as she stared at this short length of rope, she became somehow attached to it. ‘It is small and useless, just like my old self. But perhaps it still might have its use.’

With that, Walia dipped it into the washed water, dry it a little, and stuffed the rope into her pocket.

Not long after the lunch break come, since the kitchen crew needed to distribute the food, their rest came much faster than the other. One by one Toad handed out the food some of the caverners were making beforehand, a chunk of bread stuffed with berries. With a short hesitation, Walia took a big bite into hers.

‘I still can’t taste it.’ Walia thought and gave out a sigh. Doc had said that her inability to taste anything was because of the traumatic event happening to her recently. But now that she was Walia, she was happiest she ever had been, she was connecting with the people who cared for her and whom she cared for, but she still couldn’t taste anything.

‘It might never come back, and I don’t know if I can live like that.’ She thought, but Walia shook the thought away. She shouldn’t think about such sad things, it would only make her feel terrible, so it is best to push it into the back of her mind and don’t pay attention to it.

“Walia” Hos called and sat next to her, his hand extended “You can have one of these.”

She shifted her gaze to see. In his hand were two apples, picked freshly from yesterday.

“Thank you, Wal…I mean, Hos.” She said, stuttered for a moment. Even though she knew she couldn’t taste it, it was still a kind gesture.

“Don’t make a fuss about it.” He said and handed her the ripper one “Like really, I sneaked them out from the storeroom, so it is best to keep it as our little secret.”

Walia nodded and bit into its surface, and even though she could not taste its sweetness, she still could sense its juice flowing into her mouth, and that alone warmed her heart. She took several more small bites all around the apple, up until she noticed a small worm peeking out from its surface, trying to wriggle its way out from the fruit. Calmly, she pulled the creature out with the tip of her finger.

“Hos, catch” In a sudden movement, Walia chucked the worm onto the boy.

“Ahhh!” As soon as he saw what it was, Hos leaped out of his seat in a sudden panic, dropping his half-eaten apple “Waliaaaa!”

She gave a happy giggle, and after another bite into her apple, she stood up and ran away, with Hos running up behind her, laughter in both their mouth.

“You two! Stop running around in the kitchen!” Toad shouted and gave Hos and Walia a clout in the ear, making her gave out a yelp before apologizing.

“That was fun,” She said to herself, and she decided that moment like this is what Walia needed to live for.