I walk through a deserted matrix of shops and store fronts while the skyline of a dark metropolis looms in the distance. The city is familiar, and I know that I've visit it before in a dream long past.

The cobblestone paved roads are grey, and faded neon signs blink nearby. The streets feels like an area of Japan, or perhaps Hong Kong; having an aged quality about them, but lacking the grime and gum-stained sideways of most western cities. A small number of Asian shoppers wander about in the distance, too far away to make out. I meet an elderly version of an 80's/90's action movie star as he waits on the side walk. We walk quietly through an open air mall area build into the side of a building. The squared hallways are deserted, with many of the shops closed. The old man's knees hurt, so we stop for a time and sit on a bench. The air is cool, like an air conditioner; lacking any hint of moisture. The old man coughs, and tells me anecdotes of his life. I listen, but can't remember any details of what he says. Focusing so intently on what is said, I forget what came before.

As we exit the empty shopping alleyways, I see a large black freight truck parked beside the curb which we both get inside. As we both get in, I'm still uncertain of why he's walking around with me, or why we're now flying in a helicopter.

We ascend, leave the grey streets below. There are hills between this small shopping district and the sky scrapers that line the western horizon. No one is flying the helicopter, as both the old man and myself sit as passengers. Together, we watch the horizon.

I'm in a car driving down a heavily wooded highway. Cars are abandoned by the roadside every so often, and there are people with backpacks walking in both directions ahead. 

We exit into a clearing next to the forest to avoid the scattered wrecks of abandoned cars that clog the road . My driver is a woman who speaks very little. She gestures that I get out of the car with my belongings in front of an old wooden house. There are two others, but she gestures to this one in particular. 

I exit the vehicle, and she pulls away. I go inside, and other people notice this. A man starts running across the lightly gravelled front yard toward me. I run inside, and down a small set of stairs. At the midway point on the stairs is a sealed hatch-door. I get inside, and press it closed. The man throws his whole weight against the door, while another behind him hit it with a sledgehammer. They're desperate to get in. 

I tumble backwards down the remaining set of stairs as other people flood in. Men, woman, children. There's a few infants too, carried by their mothers. As the last of them enter, the door is hastily sealed with the inside valve. It reminds me of doors on a submarine, or fallout shelter. I look around, and realize it's the latter: a single long room, stretching back 300 meters is lined with tables and lockers. Canned and preserved food lines the shelves. To the right is a small hallway with two public wash-rooms. There's an argument among some of the people - I was going to let them die by sealing that door early. I didn't know what was going on. The room shakes, and light flicker. I know what's going on now. 

I open my small carry on suitcase to see a few dress shirts and pants and an old notebook. Inside the notebook are torn pieces of pink and beige silk laid between blank pages. The people around me busy themselves settling in while creating a feast from the provisions available. Soon, everyone is sitting around a long fold out table eating mashed potatoes, meat, and apple pie. I sit beside an attractive brown haired girl as she chats about where she grew up. My grandmother sits in a comfortable chair knitting as Stan Lee sits at the end of the table, serving himself more potatoes. "Aren't you glad you let other people in?" he comments. "It would be a terrible thing to be locked down here alone". 

*   *   *

The scene snaps in an instant. I'm alone in this bunker, standing in my underwear, wearing a plastic Halloween mask. There's no overhead electric light, but through the dimness of the emergency light bulb, I see a table mockingly set for 12 people. From the time I entered the wooden building, I experienced a hallucination powered by the madness of being sealed in a bunker alone during the apocalypse. 
I stand at the table, and gaze back into the room's receding darkness; listening to the silence above.