"Wake up Tim, wake up...", I hear lying with the face in the sand. Nausea and severe headaches
along with pressure in my entire body. Trying to get back on my feet I feel blood dripping onto the
sand.

"The Sanctum-Steemio II, our seaport in Mariana Trench...the pressure level slowly destroyed the
underwater base and we had to resurface." says Aden with such a grave voice that she wanted to cry.

"We were lucky, the submarine broke down, not too far from the shore and both of you got knocked unconscious. So I had to drag you both with me." I hear from the left. MistOwed helps me get up and gives me a stick to lean on.

"Thanks." I express my appreciation and take the stick.

"We are the only survivors. I was searching for other survivors but it looks quite poor. The
radiation is too high to survive, we were lucky. This place is safe", explains MistOwed while taking something from his bag.

I slowly start to remember. Our society had been alone for generations after the great war. The rulers of the former world destroyed life as we know from books. Our grandparents parents had foreseen it, and they had built a sanctuary deep in the ocean, in the Mariana Trench.
Where they took refuge. "Sanctum-Steemio II" as they had named it inspired by the fact, that they had all met on something called Steemit, on something called the internet. Which didn't exist anymore. But it was something similar to our own information sharing network.

"The land is free from radiation indicates the Geiger Counter. We need to seek shelter and search for food..." suggests MistOwed as Aden cuts his words off.

"We need to search for survivors, maybe there are some you didn't see! We don't even know what danger awaits us", says Aden hysterical while waving her arms widely at me.

I try to keep a cool head in this stressful situation as I see dark black smoke rising behind a mountain. "Look!" I yell while pointing the finger at the smoke.

We are afilled with a host of emotions: joy, discovery, fascination, fear. We where overwhelmed. “Survivors!” screams Aden running towards the smoke.

“Stop! It’s too dangerous to blindly follow the dark fume. We need a plan.” shouts MistOwed running after her.
I agree and help him to catch her up.
He was right, to not have the slightest idea what actually happens there and what danger awaits us is too risky. Aden came back to senses and we take a seat to forge a united plan. “Stay well clear of the woods and watch out for any potential threat. This is not Sanctum-Steemio II and we never saw land before.” I make clear to the group just to be safe.

After only 20 minutes walk north along the coast we stop as we couldn’t believe our eyes. A human being we never saw before. How could that be? We were told that Sanctum-Steemio II was inhabited by the only remaining humans. We were told that the great war destroyed the world. There we stand, puzzled, in front of a survivor. He saw us coming and is not afraid, I guess, because he seems calm and relaxed as if he expected us.

“Wh-who are you” I hesitantly ask him.

“My name is yogi.artist and I am citizen of Sanctum-Steemio XI”

to be continued...

Thank you for reading dear Steemians.

This is episode one of your Steem Survivors Series. What will happen in Episode 2? You can influence the story! Write a comment with what should happen next and we will put it into the story. Everything is possible. Become part of the Steem Survivors.

This is a community project. Every idea is welcome. The next episode will consider every single possible idea we collect. I will mention you in the next post of course.

Thank you for your time. You give me inspiration and motivation.

Written by @timsaid with the best help of @aden, @mistowed and @yogi.artist