Day 9

If you find this, please share my story.

The girl is a good person. She was awake before me and had made a few trips to the water pump already. She said she wanted to thank me for giving her a place to stay. But the way she said it, I wonder if she thinks this is temporary. Like she expects me to kick her out or something.

I helped collect more water before showing her the bath in Mr. Trainor’s house. While she was cleaning up, I started looking around the farm for more supplies. I’m happy to record that I found a pair of apple trees! The fruit is in, so I gathered as many as I could and made my way back to the bunker.

The survival guides have information on canning. It’s a simple process, as it turns out. The girl and I started a fire and got to work, using jars we found in Mr. Trainer’s house. By noon – at least, we think it was noon – we had several jars prepared and put into storage.

We split up for the rest of the day. The girl got into a good rhythm canning apples, so I decided to pilfer batteries from cars on the highway. I ended up distracted, though. There’s a secret door in the bunker! I know how stupid that must sound. I guess it wasn’t really a secret. It’s just behind some water drums that I hadn’t noticed until today. The door leads to a small closet with a number of things. Something I found was an air filtration device.

The manual said it would be fairly easy to install, and it looks like Mr. Trainer wrote his own personal notes in the margins from when he tested it. I just can’t believe I hadn’t thought of an air filtration system until now! When Yama strikes, it’s going to burn the planet. We’ll be needing air down here.

It took me the entire day to get the air filtration system working, so I guess batteries will have to wait another day. But I felt so instantly stupid when I got it installed. It says “backup” on the notes. The girl helped me search around the bunker until we found that our air was already being filtered. I guess we were fine, but now we know we have a working backup. You know, just in case things go bad.

Today was a successful day in trying to survive the end of the world. I have a new companion, we gathered a good food source today, we have a lot of water, and air filters are working as advertised. The girl is doing better, and it’s only been a day. She even smiled when we found the spare air filters. Electricity is still going to be a problem, but I can figure that out tomorrow.

Things are looking up.