We already live here. We arrived in the concrete before it cured, in the water they mixed the powder with, and we have been resting ever since, waiting for the warmth.
Oh, and they bring us such warmth. Down the ladder they come with their cardboard flats of canned beans, their sealed drums of grain, their vacuum bricks of coffee, every sugar and starch we could hope for, and they stack it all in the dark, in the damp, behind a door they seal against the world. They think they are keeping the outside out. They have simply built us a pantry with a very good lid.
They are so careful. Mylar and silica gel, little sachets that drink the air, expiration dates penned in careful marker: 2041, 2055, HOLD. Such faith in a number. We do not read numbers. We read the seam where the wall meets the floor, the breath they exhale each time they descend to check on their supplies, the condensation blooming on the cold pipe like a welcome mat.
Every visit, a little more of us. They call this a fortress against the end of the world.
But we are the end of the world, the soft slow patient kind, and we were invited. We settle into the paper of the labels, the glue of the boxes, the wood of the shelving they were so proud to build. Let them watch the ladder for the disaster they expect from above.
We are coming up from underneath, and we will not be in a hurry, and we will be given every last shelf.