In the deathly silence of his underground office, the only sounds to be heard were the grating of ventilation fans.

Forty minutes. Forty minutes was all it took for communications from the capital to be completely lost.

And, the mayor imagined, was probably how long it took for the bombs to lay waste to all the coastal cities.

Yet, as the minutes ticked by, he didn’t hear or feel a single explosion.

“Mayor!” His secretary shouted as he bursted through the door. “It’s been an hour since the last confirmed explosion, we should move to the primary shelter point now.”

An hour ago, the last nuclear bomb had exploded high up in the air, over a far away city. Since then, there had been nothing but silence.

As soon as the early warning radar stations reported the contacts speeding towards them high above the atmosphere, he had been shepherded into the air raid shelter some fifty meters below the town hall.

There was nothing he could do, besides wait for the bombs to fall.

Yet they never did.

Maybe his city was of small enough importance that whoever launched those missiles decided it was unnecessary to hit it. But whatever the reason, it seems that his little city has escaped the destruction.

“Mayor!” His secretary shouted again.

Slowly the mayor looked up from his desk. “What’s the situation up there?” He asked his secretary.

“Well…”

“I need to address my people.”

“No, mayor, we need to bring you somewhere safe.” His secretary argued.

“For what?” He snapped. “Somewhere safe to do what? Wait for orders from the capital?”

“Well…”

“That capital’s gone, boy. You know how nuclear wars work. There’s probably nothing left out there.”

His secretary dropped his head in apology. “I’ll take you up there now, if you do wish to address your people.”

The elevator ride up to the ground took a minute using the slow, old cargo elevator. And as soon as he stepped through the door, an unexplainable eeriness hit him. The usually bustling town hall was now completely empty, void of any people.

“Is electricity still working?” He asked his secretary as they walked towards his office.

“Should be. The national grid is down, but local power stations produce enough power to keep the city running properly.”

“Water?”

“Don't know, many stations are currently shut down due to everyone seeking shelter.”

They made their way to the mayor’s office, where the documents and files were still spread over the desk, the same way they were when the warning came.

He walked over to the mic sitting at the corner of his desk, and was about to depress the button which would connect it to the PA system throughout the city.

“What are you going to say? Mayor.” His secretary asked.

The mayor thought for a moment, shrugged, and keyed up the mic anyway.

At first there was a sharp screech, but the automatic gain control kicked in, and the broadcast returned to normal.

“This is your mayor speaking.” He said calmly into the mic. “Please do not panic, and remain calm.”

His voice echoed through the empty streets and the crammed air raid shelters.

“It would appear, that we are at war. With whom, I do not know. In fact, the war might already be over as I speak. An hour ago, we lost all contact with other population centers. Phone lines appear to be severed, and communication satellites appear to have been destroyed.”

Outside the windows, in the square in front of the town hall, people began to gather. They ventured out of their air raid shelters at the sound of their mayor’s voice, and came to seek answers.

“If you want answers, I cannot give you any. I don’t know whether a land invasion will come, and I don’t know if any aid will come. But right now, we seem to have survived the disaster that has befallen the others. If communications are not established for more than 12 hours, and no further signs of conflict persist, the lockdown will be lifted.”

His secretary gestured for him to come to the window, where he can see the crowd of people below. They are breaking laws, but it didn’t really matter.

When they saw their mayor standing at the window, microphone in hand, they stared at him solemnly.

“We have enough food stores to last everyone at least a week, so do not panic. Public kitchens will be established for those in need. Vital workers will be called to continue working at the soonest possible opportunity, without you this city cannot function. For now, make sure you stay safe in the shelters, and listen out for news.”

Then he let go of the mic button, and stepped away from the window.

He placed the microphone back onto his desk, and turned to look at his secretary.

“Get everyone back up here. We have work to do. I have a feeling that no invasion is going to come. The war is already over.”

Within an hour, the governing body of the city was back up and running at full capacity.

First, they went out to every shelter, and scouted out the skilled men and women whom might be able to help with the relief effort.

Then an emergency absolute-control policy was established, giving the government total control over anything and everything if the need arises.

The mayor then dedicated an elite team of specialists to attempt to reestablish contact with other cities, but so far the effort hasn’t yielded much.

Another team was ordered to install hundreds of radiation monitors around the city, and distribute iodine pills to the survivors. While they were spared by the bombs, fallout could still pose a pretty major concern.

A team of climatologists scrutinized possible weather patterns, trying to figure out how much of a threat fallout might pose to them. Luckily, it seemed that most of the fallout would be carried away from them, with a relatively minor increase in background radiation.

Throughout the entire day, not a single explosion was heard. Not a single warplane was seen. And not a single gunshot was heard.

The mayor himself personally went to every water pumping station, every sewage treatment plant, every power station, and urged the workers taking cover in the on-site shelters to get back to work.

Soon the lockdown was lifted, and the streets were once again filled with noise.

Store shelves were instantly wiped clean, and minor conflicts rose up throughout the city, but those were quickly quelled by the police. They advised the public to prioritize eating perishable foods first, before eating into their non-perishable reserves. They also told people to not worry about running out of toilet paper, since the factories made more than enough of that.

Rations were quickly put in place, and the surrounding farms were ordered to give everything they produce to the city. They were lucky to be surrounded by lush farmland, enough to support the entire population without any imports.

They prioritized the workers, making sure that they received enough food to keep working at full capacity. Of course, the governing body received a healthy amount of food supplies daily, but much of those got distributed to the public kitchens, as per the mayor’s orders.

The mayor currently lived almost solely on a diet of chicken, potatoes, lettuce, and rice.

However, unlike food, oil was a major concern. Without the tankers coming in and out everyday, they no longer had a steady supply of oil. In fact, they had no supply of oil at all.

And so oil was rationed too. Motor vehicles were outright banned, and only the electric public transport buses and metros were allowed to run. The only nuclear power station in the area was pushed to the limit, in an effort to reduce their oil consumption as much as possible.

With these precautions in place, their remaining oil reserves should last them at least a year.

By the third day, the situation began to seem far less bleak.

Of course, many had family and friends living elsewhere, whom they have not been able to contact, so naturally many demanded to be allowed to travel.

But with major transport links broken, by road was the only way to travel. And without knowledge of whether the outside world was even survivable, those requests were denied.

A lockdown of the city perimeters was established, forcing those who arrive to go through radiation screening before being allowed to enter the city.

Then, after their own problems had been mostly solved, they turned to helping others.

“We still have not managed to establish solid communications links with other cities. While we have picked up occasional radio broadcasts, our inquiries were met with silence. It is likely most cities have either been destroyed by the initial bombings, or have suffered a total collapse of society as a result of resource shortages.” The man concluded his report to the mayor.

The mayor nodded. “So what do you think we should do now?” He asked.

“Well…” the man smiled. “Instead of waiting for others to reach out to us, why don’t we be the ones to reach out instead.”

And so it was decided, that their city would become a center for survivors from all across Asia.

The tallest tower in the city; a spiraling TV tower in the town center, was commandeered by the government.

Instead of music and news reports, advertisements and movies, the tower began broadcasting powerful radio messages. Enough to wrap almost halfway around the globe.

It called out to survivors across the land, informing them of their location, and urging them to come.

For the first day or two, there was no response. But then, a week after the first missiles hit, a convoy of a dozen or so trucks and cars showed up at their eastern border. A team was sent out to greet them, and the convoy was taken to an empty parking lot after radiation screening.

It turns out that they were a small group of survivors who happened to be at a highway rest station when the war began. Knowing the dangers of fallout and radiation, they lined the cabin of their vehicles with as much material as they could find, stuffed their trucks with all the supplies in the rest station, and began driving south-west, away from where most of the bombs fell.

They wanted to make it to the Himalayans, hoping that the remote location and the mountain range might provide them with shelter. Five days through their journey, they picked up the radio broadcast. But without broadcasting equipment of their own, they simply had to drive to the origin, and hope there would be help there.

The mayor asked them whether or not they knew any more survivors out there, and whether they were going to stay.

For the first question, their answer was no. For the second, it was obviously a yes. Anything with a solid roof over their heads and a bed would do.

And so they were taken to a hotel, now owned and run by the government, where they were allowed to stay for free.

Their arrival filled the headlines for many days. News of a group of survivors, finding their way to their city through the wastelands, gave the citizens hope and purpose. They were no longer survivors struggling to survive, they were now guardian angels for those who needed saving.

Their arrival also prompted an even larger search and rescue effort to be undertaken. Trucks and semis previously used for transporting goods to other cities were retrofitted to shield the interior from radiation. Fitted with broadcasting and receiving equipment, filled with supplies, clothes and medicine, they were sent out along major roadways to scout out nearby population centers.

Each unit consisted of three vehicles: one truck for carrying equipment and a decontamination station, one truck for carrying cargo, and a lorry for carrying any survivors.

These units drove in and out day and night, stopping at gas stations to pump oil from the storage tanks, driving through ruined cities slowly with their loudspeakers blaring, hauling survivors back to their city day after day.

The group of travelers who arrived first volunteered too, racing ahead to the more heavily contaminated areas to search for signs of life. Their heavily modified vehicles earned them the nickname “Road Warriors”. And their leader, Matt, became colloquially known as “Mad Matt”.

Planes were put to use too. Filled with pamphlets, they were sent out from the local airport every day to survey cities and drop the pamphlets to survivors.

By the first week they had rescued at least a thousand, and the hotels in the little city was beginning to get filled up.

Many construction projects were commissioned, and the entire city came together at the construction sites. Even people who did not work in construction came to help too, since they had nothing else to do.

In a way, toiling away gave them a sense of responsibility, like they were the parents to the rest of humanity. The only ones still out there, working away to save people.

A community garden act was put in place too, and soon, most rooftops were green with vegetables and fruit gardens, warm within transparent greenhouses.

Five weeks and two days after the war began, huge news came from one of the flying scouts.

They had spotted a massive container ship sailing to the east, the Ever Given. Though piled much less high with containers than it normally would be, it definitely seemed to carry people onboard.

Colorful tents and blankets had been laid out on the exposed areas of deck, with hundreds of survivors huddled together and moving about.

So they flew low over it, trying to gesture to the crew on the bridge. The crew waved back with flags, ecstatic to see other people out there. They unloaded an entire bundle of pamphlets onto the wide deck, just to make sure the crew got one.

After that, the same scout plane was sent out everyday to track the ship, and guide it towards their city. Within days, the ship had made it to the closest port, and safely docked exactly six weeks after the war began.

Turns out the ship came from Japan, and carried onboard the remains of the governing body, and as many survivors as they were able to find before they got overwhelmed by radiation.

A massive convoy of dozens of vehicles stood waiting at the port, ready to transport any people and resources to their city. But it was soon realized that the convoy wasn’t even remotely big enough to transport everything.

It took them three back and forth trips before the ship was completely emptied. In total, some twenty-thousand survivors and officials were aboard the ship, all of whom were given housing in the city.

Thousands of tonnes of raw resources, goods, and equipment were offloaded from the ship too. Including fuel, steel, heavy machinery, fabrics, and plastics. And importantly, it carried many skilled workers, who were quickly put to work building the city.

The ship was retrofitted too, and was sent out to search the oceans with the remainder of its fuel oil, which had little use elsewhere.

By this point, many tens of thousands of people had flooded in, and the city had grown past its original boundary. The switch to renewable resources was already well underway, in order to compensate for the lack of oil supplies.

The story of a safe-haven had already spread far and wide, and the entire half of the globe had begun to migrate towards their city.

Day after day the number of people who arrived grew exponentially, and so did the progress of their city’s expansion.

Message came from the north too, from the remnants of the Russian government, whom they worked together with to get oil and minerals, in exchange for a safe place for their people.

The south-east asian countries arrived too, hauling tens of thousands of people aboard ships and planes.

Other Chinese cities came too. A hundred-vehicle convoy from Shanghai, dozens of planes from Beijing, and kilometer-long trains from Chengdu.

Concrete and steel from destroyed cities were recycled and reused in new buildings. Abandoned machines and equipment were salvaged, and taken back to bolster their industrial output.

By the end of the third month, the city had grown to almost twice its original size. All seemed good, and humanity seemed to be on its path of revitalization. Before the guns of those nations that never stopped fighting turned upon the city now named New Asia, they had time to rebuild and expand.

Though mostly unbeknownst, and unseen by New Asia, the war was not over yet. However, with the global nuclear arsenal depleted, warfare now held much less destructive potential. With a few more years to go before the first bombs would fall on New Asia, the people had time to live in peace and to recover.

Soon, a year had passed. The mayor, now the chairman of the New Asian government, walked out on to the balcony of the town hall to give a speech to his new city.

The town hall had been completely rebuilt. Instead of a boring, old, square-ish building, it is now a spiraling, multi-tiered tower.

The town square far below, and the roofs of the surrounding newly built skyscrapers were filled to the brim with citizens, eagerly waiting for their chairman’s speech.

The chairman walked up to the mic, his loyal secretary besides him.

“Mr. Chairman, it’s difficult to believe that it’s only been a year, huh?” His secretary muttered to him above the noise of the crowds below.

The chairman nodded. “I feel like it was just yesterday when I told you to take me above ground, so I could address my people.”

“It sure does…”

Then the chairman cleared his throat, and leaned in to the mic.

“Good afternoon, citizens of New Asia.” He spoke.

The crowd applauded and cheered.

“The last time I addressed you like this, was a year ago, when everyone was still hiding inside the air raid shelters. And in the blink of an eye, an entire year has passed. Our city now has a population of over a million, and is still rapidly growing day after day.”

More applause, and more cheering.

“New buildings are being completed every day, and the construction of the perimeter wall, which will shield us from the horrors outside, is also nearing completion. Unlike those before us, New Asia is united, no matter where any person might originally come from. One year ago, we opened our arms to the outside world, no matter how horrifying the outside world may have seemed. And now, we must learn to never close those open arms of ours, and look at everything with optimism. This city was not built upon pessimism and hostility, it is built upon hope.”

The chairman paused for a moment.

“Others out there may not be as friendly, nor as hopeful, so we must be ready to defend ourselves against threats to this paradise that we have built up. Day after day the threat from the outside grows, and day by day our city is growing more and more vulnerable. From today, we would start rebuilding a military, making sure that we have the power to keep ourselves safe.”

The crowd got quieter.

“But, before the drums of war start beating again, and the rattle of guns echo across the skies, let us live in peace and happiness. Leave the worry for the future to the government, while you can focus on the happiness of today. Even if this happiness might only last a decade, a year, or maybe even a month, let us cherish it while it lasts. Together, we can build another paradise, with minerals and oil from the north, concrete and steel from the east, food and delicacies from the south, and fabric and silk from the west. From the ashes of our ancestors, we shall rise again, and build the promised neverland which our ancestors dreamed about.”

The chairman finished his speech, and stepped back from the mic. Applause and cheering exploded from below. Flowers were throw into the air, slowly drifting down in the breeze.

“That was a great speech, Mr. Chairman.” His secretary told him as they left the balcony.

The chairman smiled, and turned to his secretary. “Thank you, Mr. Secretary.”