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**Day 1: Approaching the Surface**

The two most common names for us cave dwellers are Glaucon and Socrates. No one has ever accused us of being too on the nose. My name is neither. I'd like to say that we have been preparing for the last 352 years, but we've mostly just been getting by for the vast majority of that time. When you get unequivocal proof that civilization will end, you jump into action. At least until it becomes inconvenient. This wasn't a Mayan Calendar or strained biblical prophecy; this was an explicitly and carefully designed message sent by a scouting ship giving notice of impending alien colonization. This is apparently a requirement for what I can assume is some iteration of an interplanetary Geneva Convention. But in practice, we probably would have been better off if we'd just been surprised. It's not like several hundred years advance notice did us any good. Apparently, the only thing humans are good at is panic and indifference.

The exact date is unknown. Living underground for centuries teaches you the true meaning of indifference. But we generally keep track of the year within a month or so of it happening. Whether it's currently December or January is the hot topic every single year. At first, we had a planned community with highly specialized roles, ultimately leading to a multifaceted plan to save ourselves from invaders. But in practice, people eventually land on the easiest jobs. And that's why we have 632 people keeping the date at any given time. Each of whom are primarily acting on slightly different timekeeping variations that have been skewed ever so slightly year after year. Nearly all of the advanced equipment we began with has wholly rusted out, so we are left with an increasingly large number of timekeepers and other periphery roles.

We like to think of ourselves as those most slighted in this whole arrangement. Our ancestors chose to live underground to survive, to be part of a grand plan that involved both cave dwellers and topsiders, each holding up their end of the same deal. But saving humanity lost fashion above the surface much faster than below. So we were ultimately forgotten about. And as their population skyrocketed, they paved over our exits to build apartment complexes and vacation resorts. On the other hand, we adapted to our new environment and became increasingly unable to live amid the Sun even if we wanted to. But we lived comfortably enough, groundwater and minerals were abundant, skin cancer was nonexistent, and our sense of community kept us from self-immolating - at least when we weren't arguing about the date.

I am part of a small but motivated contingent that has spent the better part of the last century preparing methods and technology to enable us to exist above ground, for at least a little while. To once again - for the first time in a good long while - attempt to find a way to cooperate. Or at least make the topsiders feel guilty about leaving us to rot. I'm not implying that we feel any sense of hope that we will ultimately come together to defeat our alien invaders. The second they arrive, we will once again gloriously crest back into panic. It is simply our goal to make indifference more palatable for us all. Or to die trying. We are Sisyphus, not rolling a boulder up a mountain, but a ball of mud up a small hill.

I'd like to say we've been pushing for some aesthetic in our designs. So that when we arrive in broad daylight and approach regular humans again, we at least look like we have our shit together a little bit. We are, on average, 4 foot 6, and our pupils have almost no ability to dilate on any significant level — just little beady-eyed gnome people. But we don't have any aesthetic. We developed sunglasses that essentially make light impenetrable but still allow enough to make out general shapes. They look like wearing two large rocks tied together with sticks and twine. At this point, I need to thank the 7 Glaucons and 12 Socrates who went blind trying out prototypes.

We also have developed clothing that allows absolutely zero U/V rays to penetrate while still being movable. There are a numerable amount of technologies that are either semi-complete or entirely abandoned after we developed a code of ethics after losing too many Glaucons and Socrates as test monkeys. But it is now my time to shine. The first person to test out the glasses and clothes at the same time. Waiting at the craggy pathway that leads to the best exit we have found. Taking switchbacks that eventually lead to a small opening in a densely shaded forest. And at this time tomorrow, I will hopefully be the first cave dweller to communicate with someone topside in either 132 or 133 years.

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Submitted by SquidCritic on Wed, Apr 26, 2023 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

Humans have centuries of advanced warning about the alien invasion coming at sub light speed. Many people started building bunkers and tunnels, and many mines were dug for resources for a space force, and people started adapting to the subsurfaclife; getting shorter, drinking, growing beards...