There came a beacon of light, shining down through the fractured dusty air, reflecting upon a great structure amidst the wreckage below. This shining hope, this phenomena, was a scribbler moon. The earthdwellers deep in the ground stared at their screens in awe, watching as the single ray of light descended upon the broken earth, the first in a year, the last in a year. It was pitiful, a scribble against the darkness covering the earth. A scribbler, an insignificant ray that meant so much for those below.

As it vanished from sight, the natural order of darkness restored to the world, and those below watched in fascination as something mysterious happened. This object, the one that had remained not only stagnant for a century but was one of the few remaining artefacts left on the surface of the earth, was shining. A great commotion occurred below as children looked up from their tedious studies in excited curiosity, and adults turned away from their work to watch the large holoscreens light up with this cylinder, blinking and blipping on the otherwise void surface.

It was a mysterious sight, for sure. Deep in the bowels of the earth, several scientists buzzed around excitedly, working feverously as this new revelation, this first symbol of life above in a century, was revealed. Not a single person below had been to the surface. All of them had been born and bred in the Lennut, this catacomb, this maze of tunnels and elevators that branched out like that of a working hive. Everyone had their job to do, and no one knew any better.

As the scientists clicked anxiously on their computers, images popping up from their pads, a young girl scurried underneath their arms, plowing into her father's caring yet tensed arms. He, going by the name of Sylas McCornan, was a very busy man, with a very important job, and though he didn't want to admit it, the appearance of his youngest daughter Ella was not the best surprise he could've gotten today. After this newest revelation, papers had been shoved into his hands, his glasses knocked askew off of his hooked nose, and his desk filled with more invoices than he could handle, much less with a rambunctious seven year old on his hands.

Above the din of the hubbub, he bent down to his daughter, looked her straight in the eye, and told her to go back to the upper levels, where the children could frolick and pester much less important people than he. She, however, had already gained her father's stubbornness, and with her grip unrelenting on his arm, was dragged to his office and subsequently shut in, with several thick stacks of paperwork to keep her company. The bottom level, he muttered to himself, shouldn't even be open to the other dwellers. It was much too important work, he reasoned, to let anyone just amble in and wander around. His department, the Department of Civilisation, worked tirelessly recovering artefacts and sending up robotics from the Department of Scientific Discoveries Past and Present to retrieve them. They didn't know what all of them meant; there were piles of broken screens and small devices that were shoved off in a dusty office for a Worker Level 3 to manage.

There had been, over the course of the hundred years, one item that had remained on the surface of the earth, among the ruins of dust and plants, of bones and rot, and that was this cylinder, this contraption. There had been a letter, written when the war had broken out. It had been sealed in the newest chambers built, in what many called a revolutionary feat in surviving the impossible. It had been sealed away, ready to be presented when the time came-and such a time was inevitable. For, you see, this chamber, the Lennut, had been built directly under this contraption, and said container was undoubtedly indestructible. When the time had come for those to go underground, when war had devastated millions and the air was thick with sulfur and radiation, the letter had been waiting.

Dear People of the Earth, it had read, It is due to unfortunate circumstances that you should be dwelling in Lennut, but I urge you to please keep this letter safe, and keep it in your memories until the time when the cylinder shines. At that time, I request you open it. Perhaps you will see what we were, and what we've become, and how you must never go down our path again. It ended there, no explanation of what its contents were, but no one was prepared to ask.

Until today. Children had grown up with this letter engrained in their minds. Their education had revolved around the Great War, the only war to destroy humanity's spirit so much that it destroyed the world. The children sat in their desks eating artificially produced, healthy, grapes. Anything they could ever want, they reasoned, was down here. There was no such thing as war, no such thing as danger. There were overseers and their leader to prevent that. Everything was good, everything was in order. Until today.

Long before the current Worker Level One's were doing their very important jobs (Mr McCornan being one of them), the workers before them had created an excavator for this pod of mystery, and Mr McCornan grinned gleefully, his daughter gone from his mind, as he stood in subdued awe with his colleagues, watching a claw grip the container and slowly rose it in the air. An announcement had come on over the facility, and now everyone from Worker Level Seven's to the very top leader (whose name was only muttered in secret), was watching in hushed anticipation, the years of waiting for this mysterious thing to come down now over.

The claw disappeared from view, and those on the very top level of the facility 250 meters below the ground were startled by a sudden rattling, creaking cogs grinding and whirring as this object came shuddering down into the ground. It stopped on the bottom level, underneath the giant holoscreen documenting the outside. A door swung open, never used, never touched in all these years, and out popped the cylinder, rolling on the ground as the scientists rushed over to see it.

There came a sudden hush from the crowd, who had begun twittering about, as a booming voice made its way over the crowd. All at once, the group of scientists turned, stunned by the face they saw. The voice was familiar, yet the face was not. The leader, the one whose family had long ago built this chamber. Rumors were he knew what the outside looked like.

"I have heard the capsule is ready to open." He strode across the room, people parting as they stared in awe, alternating between this aging man and the capsule. "Back before the days of war, before we made our way down here, a group of people set out to collect memoirs and stories, from the age before we destroyed our homes, our environment, and our humanity. I've been overseeing this, as well as my past associates. From the beginning to the end, I've been monitoring and continuing said tradition until the day when we should be ready as a civilisation to open such a box. Today is that day.

"Humanity has rebuilt, we've sustained ourselves and learned to be harmonious. A feat once thought impossible is now here: we've regained what we've lost. I am to step down soon, I'm sure rumors have swirled around your hubs. However as we," he had walked over to the capsule now, gently picking it up and setting it on a table that had been hastily cleared, "as a people have made steps to betterment, we've a long way to go."

He turned then, broad shoulders causing people to scurry away from where they stood, hanging on his every word. Not one knew his name, yet none seemed to care. This news, this man who knew about the above, about the impossible, was telling them things not one had heard before. His eyes wandered over the crowd, of the prominent scientists and inventors. Cameras buzzed above them as they broadcasted it across the levels, from the youngest to the oldest eyes. His eyes landed on one, a short girl with haunting blue eyes that was peeking out of a door.

She was the new generation, the one that would use this capsule, that would rebuild humanity. She stepped out, aware that something very curious was going on. Though her mind knew not what had happened, she hurriedly ran to the edge of the crowd, standing on her tiptoes to try and peer where everyone was looking. She pulled down on her blue uniform, tugging as though to try and make herself taller. For a moment she hopped on foot to foot, until the crowd suddenly parted and a man stood in front of her, beckoning her forward.

Though she didn't know who the man was, nor where her father had went, her incessant curiosity drove her to wander over to him, eyeing the great chunk of metal that stick had bits of soil and dust on it from the years of solitude. Her fingers reached out to touch it, her tiny hands brushing off some dust so that a single number was revealed. She didn't look up as she read it in her head. 2014.

A man's voice spoke over her thoughts, and she looked up at him then, and he down to her, and he knew that this child was humanity in itself. "Our next generation, our Human Generation, stands before us. I bestow such an honour as to opening this box to her, to remind every single one of us that it is not us who lives, it is our children, and their future, that is in our hands"

She pressed her hand on the cool metal, not knowing she was feeling something so extraordinary that it would be spoken about for years to come. Not knowing that she was touching history, that humanity had been regained, that the earth was finally beginning to grow again, slowly. Yes, slowly those few scribbler moons would turn into three, and ten, and within the young girl's lifetime she would see the rise and fall of the sun, feel the air still laden with dust fill her lungs as grass began to grow again.

And she would grow up, this knowledge in her head, and she would tell her children as they frolicked in the open air, free from war and disaster. But today was not that day. Today was the day that new beginnings were forming.