When morning light filtered through the cracked windows, it painted soft gold across the classroom floor, catching on scattered plushies and the quiet rise and fall of sleeping bodies. Anna was the first to stir, nestled deep in a navy-blue beanbag, her arms loosely wrapped around a sleepy plush dragon. For a few seconds, she just lay there, listening to the gentle breathing around her.
No alarms.
No monsters.
No distant screams.
Just peace—fleeting, fragile, but real.
One by one, the others woke. Annabelle blinked sleepily, half-smothered in her vine-covered pillow fort. Penelope groaned as she wrestled out of her blanket cocoon. Arthur cracked his back with a theatrical grunt while Gwen had managed to flip herself upside down in her beanbag sometime in the night.
Breakfast was granola bars and bottled water eaten while still half-draped in blankets. But after the comfort, duty called.
"We need to clean the cafeteria," Penelope said, glancing toward the hallway with a wrinkle of her nose. "I passed by yesterday. It smells like expired cheese and forgotten regrets."
"Sanitize everything," Arthur agreed, stretching. "We've been lucky with the monsters, but if we're gonna stay long-term, hygiene matters."
Anna nodded. "Let's scrub it clean. If we're going to live through this, we're not doing it surrounded by mold and mystery meat."
Two hours later, the cafeteria echoed with the sounds of teamwork—brooms scraping, water sloshing, and Gwen muttering darkly about cafeteria spaghetti being its own form of biohazard.
Annabelle used her vines to push tables aside while Penelope froze over crusted spills so they could be chipped away more easily. Arthur managed to restore two industrial sinks to working order with a salvaged toolkit. Gwen—grudgingly—handled mop duty.
But it was Anna who found the door.
Half hidden behind a peeling poster of food pyramid guidelines and an overturned cart, the metal door was sealed with a keypad and an old-fashioned chain lock. Gwen stepped up, cracked her knuckles, and broke the chain in two tugs.
"Vault vibes," she muttered. "Watch for traps."
Inside was… treasure.
Boxes stacked from floor to ceiling, dust-covered but intact. A single emergency solar light still blinked faintly on a far wall, casting a dull glow over shelf after shelf of non-perishable food. Not survival rations either—real food.
Inventory (stored by Anna in space):
15 cases of canned meats (chicken, tuna, corned beef)
10 boxes of vacuum-sealed rice and pasta
8 crates of dehydrated soup packets
12 cases of bottled water and powdered electrolyte drinks
6 tubs of protein powder
4 cases of long-life milk and condensed cream
9 boxes of vacuum-packed snack cakes
5 large tins of cocoa powder
1 broken vending machine, salvaged for candy and chips
A stash of expired chocolate bars (melted and fused together)
Anna instinctively reached into the air beside her, pulling open a shimmering spatial rift. One by one, the supplies lifted and disappeared into her dimensional storage, vanishing with soft flickers of light. Everything was catalogued neatly in her mental index, organized by type and expiration date.
She hesitated over the fused chocolate. It was ruined—misshapen and sticky.
But when she pulled it back out into her hand to examine it…
It was whole.
Neatly wrapped. Still cold.
Anna stared. Then reached in for an old sandwich she'd tossed into her space days ago as a test—moldy and forgotten. It returned to her palm, freshly made, the bread soft and unspoiled.
Her eyes widened. "My space… it repairs what I store?"
She tried again—summoning a broken table leg she'd taken from the mall's food court. It reappeared, whole and polished, not a crack in sight.
She felt her heart speed up.
Not just storage.
Restoration.
She looked at her friends—all still cleaning, still sweating over broken chairs and rusted fixtures.
She could give them more than just shelter.
She could give them repaired beds.
Restored furniture. Fresh food. Heaters that worked. Even spoiled goods saved from waste.
Later that afternoon, Anna returned to the classroom, carrying a reformed metal bench and a table that no longer creaked. She restored a mini-fridge they'd salvaged, and it hummed to life the second she plugged it into the solar battery. Her friends watched in awe as she pulled out now-fresh desserts and soda cans.
Gwen immediately burst into a sugar-fueled dance. Arthur hugged the fridge like it was a long-lost brother. Penelope whispered a reverent, "Holy space magic…"
Anna leaned against the wall, still clutching her notebook of inventory and restoration logs, and smiled.
They weren't just surviving scavengers anymore.
They were rebuilding.
And she was going to make sure they didn't just endure the apocalypse.
They were going to live through it with comfort, dignity, and full bellies.