ENTRY 26:
I’ve never really liked the ocean. The vast, empty nothingness that just spans out into an apparent infinity. It’s one of the few concepts that’s really bothered over the years. But I’ve never known how bad it could really be. Until now, that is.
The serenity of the calm sea didn’t last too long. As Desh - the ship pilot, carried us along the black waters, I started feeling a sense of urgency in the air. I couldn’t explain it, but I could tell that everybody else felt the same way. They all looked uneasy for some reason. I soon realized why.
Not too far up ahead, there was an area in the water that was just a bit darker than the rest. It also seemed to be moving. We all just eyed it with caution, not entirely sure of what the hell it was. I don’t think any of us expected what happened next, though. Something started rising out of the water. It was a ship. Almost looked like a submarine of sorts. But it looked old and rusty. Hard to understand how it was still even functional. As it bobbed in our path, Desh started steering away from it. At this point, our weapon selection was dwindling. We had about eight rifles, three pistols, bunch of knives and limited ammo. Smoker still had the armor, but it was damaged to hell. There was a large cannon mounted to the bow of the ship, but there didn’t seem to be any ammo for it. Safe to say, we weren’t very prepared for an assault.
The top of the ship soon opened, with a gloved hand bursting out. We trained the few weapons that we had on it. What I assumed was a man then propped himself up, onto the surface of the ship. He was wearing what appeared to be a military diving suit. It got a bit stranger upon closer inspection, however. The suit looked to be… decaying. It was old and tattered. I could see erratic eyes moving behind the cracked glass of the goggles. More of them started climbing up, until there was nearly no room for them to stand on. That’s when I noticed that they were all carrying weapons. Most had rusty iron bars while others had what looked like axes attached to chains.
None of us flinched as we made our way past them. We weren’t really sure what to do, in all honesty. As we moved parallel to their ship, they dived into the water and started swimming towards us. We shot at them… but the bullets didn’t seem to slow them down, even though I could see them penetrate their suits, releasing bursts of black liquid into the ocean. We soon lost sight of them, as they swam underneath us. It only took me a second to realize what was going to happen next. I cut myself with a shard as I began to hear the sounds of something scaling the sides of the ship. Gunshots and screams soon filled the air. These things had made their way onto the deck. I watched as people threw everything they had at these marine nightmares. They shot, stabbed and kicked at these things to no avail. I turned around upon seeing an axe bounce off of my arm. I took a knife and stabbed my assailant up and through the chin. That’s when I looked into its eyes. They were a deep blue and didn’t look any less human than mine. But I know that they weren’t. At least not anymore.
I pulled the blade out as it kept stumbling forwards, advancing towards me. That’s when I decided to take drastic measures. I tackled it to the ground and plunged the knife into its neck. I felt the revolting texture of soft, decaying flesh as I cut my way around, eventually decapitating it. The body went limp but the head was still twitching. As I picked up the head in preparation to toss it overboard, I saw the eyes blink at me. I would have felt something… if they weren’t so cold, lifeless… devoid of any soul. I turned my attention back to the rest of the action. Even though there were about 7 lifeless human bodies on the ground, the assault had pretty much been quelled. I watched as Kunz took the blunt end of a rifle and smashed it onto one of those creatures’ faces, pummeling it into an unrecognizable pile of glass and black, rotten flesh. Eventually, we’d incapacitated and threw them all overboard. Again, we all just remained silent for a while. That shit was horrifying. The silence was soon broken by Desh letting out an anguished cry. He was holding his forearm, which was cut open. But here’s the bad news:
A bit of the black blood that came from those things had seeped into it. Now, he was the only one that new how to steer this ship, so this was not good. We rushed him inside and quickly located what looked like an aid kit. Kunz took out a bottle of clear liquid and gave it a whiff before dumping it onto the cut. Desh cried out again. That’s when Smoker stepped in. “No. I know what these things are." He vocalized with a horrified expression on his face, "We need to cut if off before it spreads.” We hesitated. Desh’s eyes widened in intense fear. Smoker just looked at him:
“Trust me.”
Desh sighed loudly. “Fuck it.” As we made the amputation, I was starting to get afraid of Desh’s screams attracting other things out in the ocean. We sterilized the severed limb before cauterizing it with a blowtorch. After about an hour, Desh claimed that he was ready to go again. He fished a flask out of his jacket pocket and took several large swigs. “Took it from the warden’s office.” He said. “Was gonna share, but fuck it.”
After that, we sailed for some more hours on end. At one point, a heavy fog started materializing around us. As we got ready for another assault, we started hearing whispers coming from nowhere in particular. Dark, anguished whispers, saying things that I could’ve gone infinite lifetimes without hearing. Luckily, nothing attacked us. There was also an instance where we thought that we could see an island in the distance. As we tried heading for it, it started moving. An ungodly moan echoed towards us as it suddenly submerged itself into the water. Safe to say, this ocean was a peculiar place. Not somewhere you'd want to be... but interesting nonetheless.
About a few more hours pass and we’re getting worried. We only had about 5 of those prison energy bars left for the 13 of us. We also had no drinkable water. To make matter worse, Desh’s veins had started turning black, and they were protruding violently out of his skin. He was also sick, nearly slipping in his own puke every minute or so. From what I could tell, there were small worms writhing around in the vomit. “If I turn into something, shoot me on the spot.” He said to us, in a hoarse voice that was much deeper than his natural tone. “In the meantime, I’ll get us as far as I can.” I felt sorry for him, of course. But there was no time for sympathy. We needed to get onto land.
A few more hours pass and Desh is barely alive. His skin was bulging in and out and he seemed to be having trouble standing up. But just up ahead… we saw land. It sat there, just waiting for us. Then out of nowhere, Desh fell to his knees, projectile vomiting everywhere. I stepped back, away from the squirming creatures now slithering towards us in the revolting liquid.
“Sh…shoot me.” Desh uttered out.
We thanked him before fulfilling his request. One bullet and his suffering was ended. We watched as his body twitched a bit before ultimately going limp. The ship eventually drifted onto the shore, where we hopped off. As we wandered around the sandy surface, we were hit with a metallic tinge lingering in the air. Obviously, this didn’t mean anything good. Other than that, the island seemed pretty typical. Actually... from the all the places that I’ve been while here, this resembled Earth the most. Before hitting land, we’d rationed out the remaining shards amongst us. Everybody got two, except for smoker, who got three. Fair enough, I suppose.
As we headed into the forest, we started seeing animal carcasses everywhere. Even ones the size of elephants. Their guts had been gouged out and left to the flies. The smell was horrific. After seeing that, we were on high alert. At one point, we’d come across a large tiger-looking thing and were prepared for an attack. However, it seemed more scared of us if anything. About a few minutes later, we realized what it was actually scared of. We stumbled into a clearing and I could hear the sounds of something wet near us. It was quiet, but I strained my ears to make it out. It almost resembled somebody pigging out at a buffet. Then a few seconds later, I heard somebody call out behind me and suggest that we take a break. They said it in a rather loud voice. As soon as he did so, all other sounds stopped. I noticed it. So did Smoker. Everybody else seemed oblivious. The foliage around us started rattling. Then all hell broke loose. These… things burst from the woods and lurched themselves towards us. They were about three and a half feet tall and seemed to alternate between crawling on all fours and stumbling upright. Their pale skin had a reddish glow to it and their ear-piercing shrieks made me want to deafen myself. They had a multitude of pure red eyes covering their face and large mouths full of razor-like teeth. But as horrific as they looked… they weren’t so strong.
As one tried to jump on me, I reflexively batted it away with my rifle. Even though I only used about half of my strength, the blow sent it flying into a tree. It let out a shrill cry before trying to limp back towards me. However, they weren’t so easy to deal with in groups. I observed as they overwhelmed the other prisoners, tearing them apart with their teeth and claws. There were too many of them. I looked around and locked eyes with Kunz, Smoker, Laruen as well as a few others. We were getting the hell out of there. In the moment, I'd forgotten about the shards completely and didn't bother using them. We started running, with twigs and branches hitting us in the face every now and then. I took a quick glance back at one point. The creatures were barely keeping pace with us. Looked like they weren’t so fast either. However, that didn’t fix the fact that they kept jumping out from the woods on either side of us. I felt some of their claws dig into my skin as I flung them off.
Eventually, we lost those things and broke out of the forest. However… that didn’t mean we were safe. We found ourselves on another beach, filled with people this time. Or at least, that’s what I thought they were at first. They were walking slowly, seemingly moving without any purpose. And then one of them turned around. There was only one word that I needed to describe them: Zombies. With grayish decaying skin, rotten teeth and sunken eyes, I wouldn’t know what else to call them. It started limping towards us, with the rest following soon after. At this point, we were all already tired as hell. But we had no options. We were surrounded in front and had the forest behind us. We were about to take our chances back in the woods when Lauren pointed something out in the distance. It looked like a cluster of watchtowers.
That seemed like a better option, so we went for it. However, we knew that the shards wouldn't actually close up our already existing wounds inflicted by the forest creatures. That meant we couldn't get too close to the zombies. We all saw what happened to Desh. However, we also knew that we were running low on ammo... so the shots had to be precise. Every missed bullet was an inch closer to a horrible death. Eventually, we ran out and were forced to use the rifles as blunt weapons, which was dangerous as all hell. Nevertheless, we were getting close. I was starting to make out guards sitting on top of the towers, and they seemed to be helping us by shooting at the zombies. Half of them had firearms while the rest were using what looked like crossbows. I saw them throw down some thick ropes that I assumed were for us to climb on. As I got closer and closer to the tower, I could tell that it was fortified with metal. I watched as Smoker and the rest of them jumped onto the various ropes of the surrounding towers, simultaneously climbing while being pulled up by the guards. I did the same.
As I pulled myself up onto the tower platform, the guards instantly pointed their weapons at me. To be honest, nothing surprised me at this point, so I just put my hands up. What I assumed to be their leader quickly told them to back down. I’d later learn that his name was “Brax”.
“We don’t know if he’s one of them or not” another guard argued, still pointing the crossbow right at my forehead. Brax just scoffed. “Is that a joke? Look at him. Look at his weapon.” I asked him what the hell he was talking about. What was I supposedly “one of”?
“Neo-Civitus” was his response. Jackman had also mentioned them while I was in the prison. However, I didn’t really feel like asking questions, so I didn’t pursue it. Still haven't, actually. After that, I looked down at the ground. The zombies were all gathered around at the bottom of the tower, making futile attempts to climb it. As I turned back around, Brax tossed me a padded vest and some forearm guards. “You want to stay here, you gotta work.” He gave me a toothy grin. “Welcome to Dead man’s land.” That was the official name of the island. I looked around the tower that I was in, seeing beds and a water basin set up. And then I looked over at the other towers. Kunz waved at me from one of them. That’s when I really got a sense of the scope of this place. All of them were connected by narrow bridges that the guards used to get around and communicate with each other. And there were a lot more than I’d originally made out. There weren’t only towers, either. I also saw moderate sized buildings and small houses propped upwards by metal support beams as well. Again, they were all connected. It was like a town, elevated away from the horrors on the ground.
But… that’s all I’m going to write for now. Today’s been a shitshow. Brax told me that I’m on guard duty tomorrow and that's in about four hours. I need some rest.
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