A full lunar cycle passed for the refugees. With Mathias and Badru helping, every person on the Surface had their own shelter, no matter how small, and built sturdily. Badru deligated Faelar and Justira as his aids in teaching people how to forage for food and how to cook it, even teaching them how to trap animals for meat. Several more people came to the Surface after finally coming to terms with the fact that the lights would never come back on, but some still refused.
Lynna and Gray led several trips down below to gather everything they could from the abandoned houses, even trying to get anything important someone had left behind. They couldn't get everything, but they tried their best. Even Gray's plants made it up and planted one night. Gray could not take the daylight or even the bright moonlight, but he was very good at slinking around the dark with Lynna and her crew. He was able to collect enough materials from the broken engines and his old communications tower to give to Pepper to make small, rudimentary radios and three tiny generators. They weren't great, but they gave people hope with the small amounts of power they were able to generate.
The people seemed content... mostly. There were still those who whispered, glared resentfully, and questioned. Where exactly did Mathias and his group go every night? Why were they the ones who got to make the decisions? And why did that child of a girl, Lynna, get to decide who got to go down below on scavaging trips? And why did they think they could trust these Top Dwellers?
