A small inked smiley face stares back at me with crooked eyes from the table beside my bed. Jeremy, the man who raised me as a father, always leaves a card like this on the morning of my birthday.

Scrawled across the top of the folded piece of white paper are the words “Happy Birthday Aly.” He drew the smiley face directly under the top line. I pull my pillow tightly against my chest as I read down the rest of the paper.

“I’m thinking about you today. I’ll be in the Eastern part of the Colony for the morning, so I’ll see you in Instruction. I love you.” A few lines are blank before the bottom of the page reads: “Remember, those that we love and lose are not truly lost at all.”

I hadn’t planned on crying this morning, but it seems only fitting that another birthday morning arrives accompanied by salty tears dripping down my face. I nestle my cheeks and chin into the soggy pillow.

Jeremy visits the Eastern section of the Colony frequently, helping in the kitchens, the canning facilities, and the classrooms. We’ve both lived in this underground bomb shelter, the Colony, for the past eighteen years. I was two when my parents brought me here, right before the doors locked shut.

Those that we love and lose are not truly lost at all.

A knock reverberates off of my metal door, ringing through my room. Startled, I try to suck my tears back into my eyes.

“Aly, let’s go!” one voice shouts.

“Good morning birthday girl!” chimes another. I toss back the covers after hearing the familiar voices and brush the tears from each side of my fat cheeks. The girls standing outside rattle the doorknob and pound on the frame, comically rousing me from my room. After taking a moment to steady myself I unlock the door. Naia and Elyse barge into the room.

“Were you still sleeping?” Naia asks with a grin. She closes the distance quickly and hugs me first. Over her shoulder, I can see the small clock sitting on the nightstand. It reads 6:15.

“Sleeping, no, but still in bed. The heaters aren’t even on yet!” The goosebumps dotting my flesh prove that. Being awake before 7:30 in the Colony is a feat only the cold-tolerant residents accomplish. The heaters don’t normally kick on until then, and I’m not fond of the chilly hallways.

“It’s your birthday! I can’t imagine wanting to stay in bed on your birthday,” Elyse says as she takes her turn giving me a hug. I fake a smile.

Naia and Elyse each take one of my arms and drag me towards the door. I want to tell them to stop, tell them I’m not interested in celebrating today. But instead, I grab my thick sweater and let them pull me out into the hallway.

The hallways are always freezing this early. The corridors are all made of thick metal grates that run seamlessly into the plated metal walls. My feet shuffle across the floor as we walk towards the North Kitchen.

We’ve gained newborn members, like Rupert the boulder-baby, and lost older members, but we’ve grown together as a family. We have jobs here in the underground sanctuary, and the kids and teenagers attend Instruction on a regular basis. I’ve learned more than I ever thought possible about the outside world, the surface, and the history surrounding why we’re here. About plants, animals, ancient cultures and foreign lands. Stars and space, the moon and the sun, it’s all exciting to me. I just wish I could experience what the sun beating on my face feels like.

I scrunch my feet together in an effort to conserve a bit of warmth. The booths in the kitchen are wooden and send a fresh wave of goose-bumps across my thighs as I sit. The overhead lights are dim this morning, and the kitchen is relatively empty. Darren, this kitchen’s cook, makes his way towards our table.

“Normally I don’t play delivery boy, but I figured I could bring you your birthday breakfast personally,” he says with a grin. The meals we eat two times a day are bland and colorless, calorie-packed but relatively tasteless. According to some unwritten code of Colony rules, serving in the Med Wing grants you larger portions of the super-mush at each meal to ensure you’re well fed and able to perform. Today’s plate is filled with bright reds and deep greens and a single pink candle sits tucked between the fresh vegetables. I can tell this isn’t the first time the candle has been lit. The vitamin-packed, brown mush is significantly smaller and shoved off to one side of the plate, replaced by large slices of green and red peppers fresh from the garden. Sprinkled atop the mush are a handful of peas I probably helped plant months ago. Vegetables are normally restricted to small portions once every few days, but Darren went all-out for my birthday.

“Everything looks amazing. Thank you for breakfast,” I call with a smile.

“No problem, birthday girl. Happy 20th birthday,” he answers with a smile of his own. “Elyse, don’t forget you start in about twenty-five. Lots of fresh veggies need to be washed before we can start canning.” Darren starts back towards the kitchen. Elyse rolls her eyes, fiddling with a green bracelet on her arm. Four years ago we all swapped bracelets, cheap tokens of friendship tying us together through colored yarn. We made Elyse a green one, and Naia a yellow one. We made Rylan a red one, but he told us that guys don’t wear stuff like that. I haven’t taken my blue string bracelet off since.

The fresh, crisp peppers taunt me while I wait patiently for the cook to bring Naia and Elyse their food. I wasn’t hungry when we arrived, but the rolling rumbles inside my stomach prove otherwise. Once the three of us have our food, Naia demands that I blow out my candle. The flame is already burning low towards the strips of red pepper so I make a quick wish and empty my lungs towards the small flame. It puffs into smoke, floating up, high above our heads.

Elyse squeals as I blow out the candle. “I hope you made a good wish! Give us a hint, does it have anything to do with any boys from the South wing? I know you think I hog them sometimes, but I’m sure one of them likes you!” I shake my head, content to let Elyse tucker herself out guessing. Boys, it’s always boys with her. So caught up in the now, she fails to see how anything in anyone else’s life up to this point might influence their thought process.

We spend a good chunk of time raking through the gray mush before eating it, and by the time I look towards the digital clock again, it’s 7:15. Instruction for the younger students doesn’t start for a while, but the three of us finished our final session of Instruction a year and a half ago. After completing Instruction, I was assigned to the Medical Ward to shadow and assist with the family medicine and the emergency medicine departments. Naia was also placed in the Med Ward, assisting in the infectious diseases and internal medicine department. She tells me it sounds complicated, but it’s hard to combat the same germs over and over again down here.

Elyse was assigned to the kitchen and canning departments after “failing to progress” in both the engineering and maintenance departments. She didn’t speak to us for days after she found out she wasn’t placed in the Med Ward. I’m not sure how much longer she’ll last with the vegetables either.

Naia and I leave the kitchen after thanking Darren for a second time. He takes our plates from the table, leaving Elyse to clear her own as we begin down the steel hallways towards the maze of spiderweb corridors which will eventually lead us to the Med Ward. Along the way, we stop to pick up Rylan, a friend that works in Nutrition. I couldn’t stand crunching calorie counts and tallying food supplies all day. His parents wish me a happy birthday as they send their son off with a pair of girls. I just smile and thank them for their kind words. I’m running out of ways to accept compliments and I’ve only been up for an hour.

All of the older students I used to attend Instruction with seem to complain about it, but I enjoyed the classroom time. At times I felt I was the only one. I found it interesting learning about the world before the attacks. I also loved spending time with Jeremy. We call him a teacher but he’s told me that in during his time on the surface he never worked in education. I still find it fascinating that he lived on the surface when the attacks took place and remember what it was like. He’s an amazing storyteller.

Our route to the Medical Ward takes us by the Instruction rooms, and Jeremy Cruthers is normally found outside of his personally greeting each of his seventeen students as they enter. Jeremy smiles as Naia and Rylan pass. They wait down the hall for me as I stop short, standing in the doorway.

“Morning, beautiful.” Without hesitation, he extends his arms and squeezes me tightly. “You doing alright?” I nod, trying to find the words to continue with.

All of my earliest memories in the Colony are centered around Jeremy. He took the initiative to ensure I was eating enough, to wash my clothes, and to keep me company. I’ve been told that the first few years I didn’t really have a home here. After my parents passed everyone watched out for me, but I stayed where ever there was an open bed. When it became clear no one was going to adopt me, Jeremy stepped up and claimed me as his “daughter.” I will never regret calling him my father.

He came here alone too, no significant other or children, and I think he decided I needed someone like him. Deep down I think he needed someone like me too.

“How are you holding up?” he asks.

“You know how it goes. Just another day. I appreciate the card this morning. The eyes were crooked though.” I smile weakly.

“You know I’ll keep drawing those smiley faces until there’s no ink left in this place. I love you very much,” he says, kissing my forehead.

Jeremy told me he wasn’t sure how my parents died once they arrived here. He guesses it had something to do with some sort of extreme radiation poisoning or a powerful chemical weapon. Regardless, it remains a mystery as to how I escaped without catching whatever killed them. Only my parents knew the answer to that question.

“I love you too,” I say. “You know how lost I’d be without you. I’ll always be grateful for what you’ve done for me.”

He shakes his head. “I think the feeling’s mutual. You’ve shown everyone here how strong your heart and mind are. Everyone adores you, Aly. So much so that I think deep down a few of the other parents wish they could trade with me for you” he says with a wink. I move in, embracing him tightly again.

“Now get moving,” he says to me as two more students round the corner towards his Instruction room. “I didn’t raise a tardy doctor,” he smiles.