Cassidy's eyes opened as slits, the smell of Thursday breakfast drawing her out of her sleep. She yawned and rolled out of bed, scratching her armpit and sliding her feet into well worn bunny slippers.

"Good morning Cassidy." Anne's generated voice issued from a speaker by the door.

"Morning Anne." Cassidy replied, stifling another yawn.

"Today is Thursday, seventeenth of August, year twenty-seventy-one. The temperature today will be a cool 75 degrees fahrenheit, or 24 degrees celcius. The forecast is overcast with a chance of rain. For breakfast today we are preparing you bacon and eggs. Your lessons for the day will be a continuation of your agricultural studies unit."

Cassidy rolled her eyes. "Ugh, I hate agriculture, can't we switch it up?"

"For effective information retention, consecutive immersion in the subject for a period of approximately eleven days is recommended."

The young woman groaned and made her way to the door. When she tried to pull the handle, she found it locked.

"Cassidy, it appears your bed is unmade. Please note that a clean and tidy living environment is important for mental health and wellbeing."

"Override lock." Cassidy said, not even bothering to argue. It was fifty-fifty whether she bothered to make her bed in the morning nowadays, ever since she had discovered that she could simply tell the pseudo-AI to ignore non-essential programming whenever she felt like it.

Her bedroom was a relatively small space about six strides long and four strides wide. It contained a large bed, a closet for clothes and some drawers and shelving for various knickknacks and small belongings. It opened out into the kitchen, where bacon and eggs had been carefully placed by machine hands onto the large grill, and were being periodically flipped. Once they had been plated and the grill had begun the self cleaning process, Cassidy took the food and sat at the dining table to eat.

She had been very young when her parents had taken her into the bunker. She had very vague memories of what her life had been like before, but one thing that had never faded in her memory was the taste of real bacon, or rather how the artificial tinned product that was being passed off as bacon tasted nothing like the real thing.

Still, she had gotten used to it over the years. Now, nearly thirty-five years later, it was as normal to her as everything else about living in the bunker.

She finished eating and left her plate and cutlery on the table. Once again overriding Anne's requests for her to clean up after herself, she went to the bathroom. She'd get around to cleaning up later, the computer wouldn't let her forget anyway.

After seeing to her morning ablutions she looked in the mirror. Her huge mass of hair was out of control, having formed a giant mohawk of tight black curls from laying on her sides while she slept. She spent some time trying to tame it down with water, a brush and some sparsely applied oils. She gave up after about ten minutes, shrugging and saying, "eh, good enough."

She brushed her teeth, Anne noting that she was using too much toothpaste and what should be a seventy years supply was in fact only going to make it fifty years before she ran out. Cassidy brushed the warning off. Those numbers meant very little to her.

With prompting, she decided to handle her dishes and make up the bed, if for no reason other than to get the blasted machine to leave her alone about it. Then she went into the living room area. It was the largest room in the house area of the bunker, with enough seating for eight or more people, and a large screen to watch or play media on. Cassidy planted herself on the couch and flicked through the available shows and movies until she found the sitcom she had been working through.

After half an hour, Anne interrupted, like she was programmed to do. "Cassidy, please note that you are required to attend your daily class and get some exercise before you will be allowed to have more than an hour of screen time."

"Yeah yeah Anne, I know the deal." Cassidy waved a hand, dismissing the disembodied voice. She had considered going into the server room and trying to play around with Anne's settings to get rid of the annoying restrictions imposed on her, but apart from regular maintenance she felt uncomfortable messing with any of the hardware or software that kept Anne operational. Even just the once-every-decade change of cords made her nervous, after all, so much of the bunker's operations relied on the blasted computer.

Eventually the screen was switched off for her and Cassidy sighed and got up off the couch. She went into yet another room, pausing a moment before she did to look at the two other, empty rooms that attached to the kitchen. One contained the double bed and generally untouched possessions of her parents, and the other was a room just like hers, that had been meant for her baby brother. That bed had never been used.

The classroom was the smallest room in the house, and consisted of two desks with a computer at each. There was also a large screen on the wall that switched on as Cassidy entered.

"Hello Cassidy, how are you today?"

"Hi professor." Cassidy knew Professor Stevens was the same database, servers and general programming as Anne with a different personality filter over the top, but the distinction helped her maintain the illusion that she wasn't completely alone down there. Joseph Stevens at least made the odd joke here and there, which Cassidy appreciated by comparison to Anne's very dry personality.

The class was dull, mostly revision of things that had already been covered over the last few days. How to test for soil quality, efficient irrigation methods, how to determine the needs of a plant and so on. After satisfying the professor's questions and proving at least some of the knowledge had been successfully implanted, Cassidy left and went outside.

The outdoors area of the bunker was by far the largest space available to Cassidy. Two hundred metres of open space in every direction and a ceiling high enough that as long as she didn't look too closely, Cassidy couldn't see the panels that made up the sky. Of course she had to ignore the one malfunctioning panel, but with instructions from Anne she had taken that panel and switched it for one in the corner of the ceiling.

Cassidy stretched and did a number of sprints from one end of the field to the other, then did a handful of laps of jogging around the outer edge of the space.

It was as she was winding down and finishing her last lap that an alarm sounded.

"WARNING. BREACH DETECTED. WARNING. BREACH DETECTED. ACTIVATING DEFENSIVE MEASURES, BUNKER CITIZENS PLEASE REPORT TO DESIGNATED SAFETY AREAS."

Cassidy looked around frantically, trying to understand what was happening. The panels were switching off and a flashing red light had taken over illuminating the area. She ran for the house and slammed the door shut behind her. Once inside, Anne's voice greeted her.

"Cassidy, please go to the weaponry locker in the server room. It has been unlocked and a rifle and ammunition made available for you."

Cassidy ran to the server room and sure enough, the normally heavily locked down gun cabinet had been opened, and inside she found a single bolt action rifle. It wasn't her first time handling the weapon, Anne had walked her through standard maintenance of the weapon and Professor Stevens had taught her to shoot. She had even been allowed to fire a small number of blanks.

In spite of the meagre training, Cassidy felt her heart pounding and her hands grow clammy as she picked up the rifle. Her fingers slipped but she caught it before it hit the ground. With shaky fingers she took the bullets and loaded a magazine.

"Anne, what's happening?" Cassidy whispered, just barely audible over the sirens.

"An unidentified intruder has been detected within the bunker entrance tunnel. Currently it is attempting to break into the false entrance."

"What do I do?" Her voice cracked and her eyes were wide.

"Remain hidden inside the server room. Keep your weapon pointed towards the door and stay quiet and ready to fire. If the intruder locates the true entrance, the bunker will go silent and you will attempt to wait the intruder out in the hopes it will become bored and leave."

Cassidy squeaked. "But what if they don't leave?"

"That is why you are armed."

She went to the corner of the server room and slid to the floor. After a few deep breaths she loaded the weapon and performed the checks she recalled from her lessons. She dared not fire a test shot, hoping nothing would go wrong.

A few minutes later the sirens ceased and the remaining lights in the bunker went off. Cassidy was plunged into complete darkness with only the soft whirring of the server and her own heavy breathing filling her ears.

A heavy thud echoed through the bunker, followed by another, and then a terrible screeching like metal on metal. Cassidy's breath caught in her throat.

The horrible high pitched noise stopped and there was a brief moment of silence before an enormous thud and bang so loud that Cassidy felt the walls reverberate.

Please don't come for me. Please don't come for me. Please don't come for me. Please don't come for me.

She couldn't tell what was happening out there, but surely whatever it was had now entered the outside section of the bunker. She only hoped it wouldn't enter the house.

The door connecting outside and inside was not intended to prevent incursion. Two great slams of a giant body was all it took before Cassidy heard the door cave in.

Huge stomping footsteps filled the house, and Cassidy heard dining room chairs shoved aside unceremoniously.

Not the server room. Not the server room. Not the server room. Not the server room.

WHAM.

She lifted her weapon, unable to still the shaking of her hands. Her finger finding the trigger.

WHAM-CRASH.

In the near complete darkness, a couple tiny portals of light from the servers illuminated an enormous humanoid frame in the doorway. The skin was oily and grey-brown, but Cassidy could make out nothing else about the creature in the darkness. It took one massive step and she pulled the trigger, filling the room with a bright flash, briefly showing her the whole form of the monster. Tall, hunched and with arms that hung nearly to the floor. The bullet punctured and the creature shrieked, grabbing at its chest and falling backwards out the doorway.

Adrenaline coursing through her, Cassidy leapt to her feet and past the creature. She felt the wet touch of its fingertips as it weakly tried to swipe her as she ran past. Even in the dark she knew the steps it took to navigate the house and she was out of the door into the outside room in moments. A soft yellow light was issuing from the shattered remains of the bunker main entrance door. She saw massive rips in the thick metal and the inches thick hinges had been bent and torn apart from sheer force.

Cassidy heard the monster hauling itself after her, its shrill angry cries following her. She hurriedly loaded the next round into the chamber, spent casing falling to the ground with a clatter.

She turned and raised the rifle again, barely able to steady her aim enough to send a bullet into the creature's shoulder. It staggered backwards from the force, howling in pain again. In the yellow light she could now make out the low, wide, dome-like head and furious red eyes glaring out at her from where a human's neck would have been.

She loaded another round. The creature was trying to get to its feet, now more cautious as it approached her, but not yet wise enough to attempt to escape the source of its pain. Cassidy felt the pounding of her heart slow. She took a deep breath and aimed right between the creature's eyes.

BANG.

Her aim was true. The bullet hit the creature just to the left of its right eye and it fell backwards without a sound besides its body hitting the ground.

Cassidy dropped to her hands and knees, the shock of what had just happened washing over her.

The reinforced door that had protected Cassidy her whole life was busted beyond any hope she could ever repair it herself. She got to her feet and stumbled towards a switch on the wall. As the lights flickered back on, her eyes settled on the giant creature she had felled. Exposed to the light it seemed less imposing, smaller somehow.

"Anne?" Cassidy asked, waiting for the program to come back online and give her guidance. But there was no answer.

A flash of panic overcame the woman and she ran into the house, to the server room.

The server was destroyed. The creature had fallen onto it and smashed various components to pieces.

Cassidy began hyperventilating, unable to process the enormity of her new reality. She tried to reset the shattered server, unwilling to accept it.

"Anne?! Anne!! ANNE!!" She fell to the ground and curled her arms around her knees, rocking back and forth, tears streaming from her eyes.

"Please, don't leave me."