The trio left the house at sunrise. Tyrone checked the solar collectors one last time to ensure that when they come back, they’d at least have warm water. It wasn’t too odd now to see various odds and ends attached to rooftops and walls these days, since the remaining civilians had to live of what they had. For the past two years, Trevin and Tyrone would rotate houses, allowing resources at one house to recharge while they lived off the other house’s available resources.
Trevin had been off at his own house earlier to tend the greenhouse, when he had been called by Tyrone. Originally, upon hearing what his friend had to say, Trevin thought that Tyrone had finally snapped from the pressures of warfare. But… once he saw Twilight for himself, it became much harder for him to doubt his friend again.
And yet, doubt he did.
“Are you sure that it’s safe to be out in the open right now?” Trevin asked, blinking in the scorching sunlight of the day.
Tyrone continued walking, Twilight by his side.
“Wait up!”
Trevin scampered up besides Tyrone, his thick glasses already coated with dust from the endless stretches of war-torn landscape.
Continuing from what he said earlier, Trevin said, “I mean, with how we’re just blatantly presenting ourselves out in the open, we could make easy targets for whatever might be watching.”
Tyrone continued on without a word, with only Twilight glancing back for a quick second.
“C’mon, Twilight, don’t you understand? Tyrone? We need to stay protected!”
Tyrone froze.
“Protection is only an illusion,” he muttered under his breath, “if we’re to stay protected, I’d recommend that you stick by my side.”
Nodding weakly, Trevin did as he was told.
The musty scent of books hit Twilight with a strong sense of familiarity.
A library! She thought, trotting happily beside her escorts.
Tyrone’s eyes darted about, checking for any signs of being watched. Once he confirmed that the area was secure, he knocked on the side of an old bookshelf.
Two short knocks, four seconds pause, followed by sixteen quick raps with his fingertips.
The bookshelf shifted, its shelves creaking under the strain of the sudden movement, threatening to lose its contents at any second.
Once the shelf had moved aside, Tyrone stepped in, followed by Trevin and Twilight, whose jaws were agape in astonishment.
“Tyrone… you… you took us… here?” Trevin asked, eyeing the rows upon rows of empty shelves.
Tyrone nodded.
“Yes.” he replied, “Before the war began, I regularly came into this area of the library. With how often I volunteered here, I was allowed full access to pretty much any part of the building, so I figured that this storage room would serve us nicely.”
Treving rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, I know that.” he said, his eyes still darting about in astonishment that the room still existed. “I mean, I’ve known you since third grade. Of course this place would serve us nicely… if we wanted a quiet place to study.”
Twilight wiped her hoof across the dusty shelves.
“It doesn’t seem like anyone’s been here for ages.” she said, blowing the dust off her hoof.
Tyrone chuckled lightly.
“You can blame the war for that.”
Trevin moved in between the two.
“Seriously though,” he began, “what are we here for?”
Tyrone smirked.
“Remember that knock code I used to get in here?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah?”
“With the power out, you’d need a person to open that door. Someone who’d be crazy enough to live in a freakin’ library, of all things.”
Trevin made a face, followed by Twilight with a scowl of her own.
“Kevin?” He asked flatly, thinking back to the times when the burly-haired teen sat in the corner for hours with his face in manga novels. He never really like the boy, considering how the two of them were often confused for one another in class.
Tyrone nodded.
“In fact, besides coordinating with you, the only other use my phone’s been getting is to set this place up in case something like this happened.”
“Something like what?” Trevin asked.
Tyrone turned a corner, revealing a fully-fledged greenhouse, complete with automatic watering, temperature control, and solar lighting.
Beaming with pride, Tyrone finally answered.
“Well, I convinced Kevin here to help me build a bunker in this old room. It’s not very secure, but in terms of supplies, it’ll gonna last us at least a year.” Tyrone said.
Kevin nodded as he emerged from the greenhouse, sweat beading on his forehead.
“He’s right,” Kevin replied as he leaned on a creaky shelf. “He’ll call me every once in a while and tell me what to set up here while he’s gone. In a few weeks, this place should be ready to take in survivors like you.”
He tapped on the plexiglass panels that made the low-hanging roof of the greenhouse.
“But for now, the greenhouse isn’t entirely ready yet. I still have to punch a hole through the library’s roof to let some light in.”
Tyrone glanced towards Kevin in agreement.
“Yeah, it’s pretty hard to grow things when the light’s only coming from side windows.”
Trevin raised a brow.
“Well, why didn’t you tell me?” He asked, shooting an accusing glare at his rival.
Tyrone shrugged.
“We figured that if you helped out, it would probably be with the more technical things. Y’know? Like electrical stuff.”
Sounds reasonable… Trevin thought as he began exploring the area.
Quickly returning after pacing through the cobweb-coated shelves, Trevin sat down on a small stool.
“For starters,” he began, “I could probably salvage some solar panels from some of the abandoned houses along the street… and then set up an alternator and a transformer for using everyday appliances… and--”
Trevin was cut off by Tyrone, who held up a hand, signaling for him to stop his rambling.
“We get it, Trevin. You do electric stuff.”
Twilight piped up from behind a large textbook she had picked up earlier in the library.
“Or I can just scavenge some things laying around and build some makeshift gadgets.”
The group continued their chatter, not noticing the door as it slowly creaked open, allowing for a green-hooded figure to slip inside.