Skip to content 5300 words, short story AUDIO VERSION Verity crawled through the endless dark of the tunnel, the false safety of her Colony home now half a mile behind her. All she could see in the dim light of her headlamp, strapped to her sweaty forehead, were the low dirt walls, the worthless trash she’d already combed through on her other scavenging trips to the outskirts of the Colony. Looking for anything—food, scrap metal, heirlooms—that she could use to make a buck.