ENTRY 40:
Fuck, I need to get out of here. But where am I gonna go? Damn it…
I woke up about twenty minutes ago. Not sure how long I've been out, but it’s dark outside right now. And I can hear something outside. It sounds like… laughter. Not human, though. It’s so strange. It seems to come in bursts and the voice is so guttural. It knows I’m in here. Why else would it have stopped right in front of the cabin? God… fuck this place. It’s been hard to admit but… I’ve been deluding myself this whole time. This desire for adventure… it’s all bullshit. It wasn’t at the beginning, but… things have changed. I want to go home. But if this really is Earth in the future… maybe home doesn’t exist at all.
I just heard something else. It sounds like… gunshots? And yelling. The laughing’s only getting louder now.
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ENTRY 41:
So uh… a lot’s happened. I don’t know if I could call myself “safe” or not, but it’s sure as hell better than being stuck in that cabin. The commotion outside went on for another few minutes before some guys burst in, rifles aimed right at me. They must have been in their late teens. I didn’t know how to react at first. I thought I was dead. However, they seemed as surprised as I was. After asking me some questions that I didn’t know how to answer, they destroyed some floorboards and fished out what I assumed were cartons of ammunition from underneath. They told me to come with them and we hopped into an extremely run-down dune buggy before driving off. Before we left, I got a glimpse of what had been making those laughing noises. God, I really wish I hadn’t. It looked like a giant spider with too many legs… but with a human face.
As we drove through the desolate, hellish landscape, I asked one of them what the hell this place was. I expected him to be surprised at me asking such a seemingly ridiculous question. However, he didn’t even hesitate.
“Heaven’s curse. That's what they call it, anyways.” He told me. “In other words, this is hell."
I didn’t get any of their names. They never bothered telling me. Right now I’m inside some kind of walled outpost. I don’t know how many people are here… must be thousands, though. The weird thing is most of them are children. And nobody looks past forty. I didn’t get much of an introduction. Everything’s moving so fast right now… I keep asking everybody what this place is, but nobody seems to want to talk to me. Heaven’s curse, "station 26"… I only ever get vague names. At this point, I’ve come to the conclusion that I must have been teleported. That… device the soldiers threw, it must have taken me somewhere else. But where? Probably just another island. But it doesn’t look like I’m getting a straight answer anytime soon. Right as I entered through the gates, I was gestured up to a guard tower and told that I was to be a lookout from now on.
“What am I supposed to be looking for?” I asked them.
“Anything that gets too close. Use this radio to contact somebody on the ground.”
Well, shit. I thought.
Let me describe the place a bit better. You know how before there was fog so thick, I couldn’t see shit in front of me? Well, most of it seems to have dissipated around here. It’s still present, but not enough to cause a considerable nuisance. The unexplainable part stems from the fact that there seems to be a barrier in which the fog is either heavy or light. In other words, there’s literally a massive wall of fog that stretches up into the clouds, sitting just a few hundred meters away from the barrier walls. Speaking of the walls, they look like they’ve gone through absolute hell. They seem to be made out of hardened mud, and it stretches upwards around thirty meters. From where we’re positioned in the towers, we can see just over it. Enough to make out the vast, expansive desert in front of us. The outpost itself gives off a post-nuclear apocalypse steampunk vibe. What I assume are the soldiers/guards here wear really archaic looking scrap metal armor and use these firearms that appear to be powered by steam. The buildings here are mostly in shambles. There’s a multitude of extremely run down factories and buildings that are just dismantled for resources. Almost everybody sleeps underground, in these crudely dug out bunkers.
Safe to say, it isn’t exactly paradise here. In addition to all of this, the food situation is horrific. But I guess that’s been a constant, so I can’t be too surprised. It’s not even that I’m starving, but my diet has turned into one consisting solely of tree bark and cooked insects. I never thought I’d ever miss energy bars.
I’m currently doing fourteen hour shifts. There’s a few guys up here with me, but like everybody else, they don’t seem to be the talkative type. I’d like to say that it’s mostly uneventful, but it really isn’t. Almost every two hours, I see… things. Now, I’ve encountered a lot of creatures throughout the past years, but the shit I’ve seen from just a few days of being here… it’s something else entirely. Most of the time, they’re quite far away. But every once in a while, they get a little close for comfort. That’s when we have to use the radio.
Just yesterday, we witnessed something in the distance, past the wall of fog. At first, I thought it was some sort of aircraft. How wrong I was. The two other guys here with me seemed to know exactly what was going on, because they freaked out and started screaming into the radios.
“Harbingers… harbingers coming!”
Confused beyond belief, I asked them what the hell they were talking about. However, they didn’t even need to answer for me. As soon as the question came out of my mouth, they broke through the fog. I guess the best way I can describe them are… small dragons? But as it got closer and closer, I realized that it was a lot worse than I had initially thought. It had these sharp spikes sticking out from all over its body. And I mean all over. None of them were the same size either. I barely had time to process this before it flew right into our tower and shredded the two guys I was working with. It set its gaze towards me before it was bombarded by a medley of firepower below. It flew down, barely sparing me from death. It took a while, but they finally killed the thing. It must have taken out at least fifteen people before it finally went down, however.
I expected everybody to be relieved after that. However, they just remained more on guard than ever. I soon realized why. I looked back out into the sandy plain. Another familiar shape had materialized just beyond the fog. But this time… it was followed by more. I radioed them and started scrambling down the ladder. Staying there would’ve been a death sentence. I’m not so proud of what I did next. As I hit the ground, one of the guards tossed me a rifle. I guess he was expecting me to help out in quelling the oncoming attack.
I stayed for a while… I really did. But after witnessing the winged monstrosities tear apart human flesh like it was nothing and the subsequent bullets of my low-powered firearm chipping away, slowly and slowly at the creature’s horrendous spikes, I’d had enough. I ran for shelter. I found a locker in one of the factories and hid there until the sounds of carnage stopped. When I finally came out, I was inundated with the sight of mangled limbs - both human and not, strewn everywhere. I feared dirty looks as I came out, but nobody seemed to glance my way. I guess they didn’t notice my act of cowardice during the action. I watched as several guards dragged the Harbinger corpses away, tossing them down what looked to be a large well.
Even after that grisly event, nothing changed. I just got my new watchtower partners, and everything went back to normal. Nobody's even talking about it. This kind of shit must happen often. Well, shit.
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ENTRY 42:
Well... things just keep getting more and more fucking interesting.
The day right after the harbingers incident, there was another attack. However, this time I was right in the thick of it. I was sleeping when it happened. A guard shook me awake sometime in the middle of the night and shoved a rifle into my arms.
“We need every person out there”, was what I think he said. Seeing no way out of it this time, I simply obliged. As I stepped out of my small bunker, I was blasted with the sound of combat. I surveyed everything, searching for the invaders. Now, I know that I really shouldn’t be surprised at anything I see anymore but… I still flinched at the sight of them. They looked like… knights? That’s the best way I can describe them. But not regular ones. Their armor was pitch black, as if it completely absorbed any light that managed to hit it. They were also extremely large. I caught the full scale of their size when one nearly snuck up beside me. It jabbed its pike towards me, barely missing my head. I looked up at the towering monstrosity in front of me. While it was completely covered in the armor, there were cracks and holes everywhere. I could see its skin through them. It looked to be a rotting light grey. And the mouth… oh god.
Its helmet covered the entire face, but the mouth was left exposed. The teeth were long and jagged, in addition to being dark red. There was also no skin around its lips. I was transfixed for a second before coming to my senses. I aimed the rifle directly at the creature and blew its jaw off. However, that didn’t even slow it down. It kept advancing, thrusting the rusty pike at me every chance it got. I got another shot off at its helmet, which seemed to disorient it enough for me to escape. As I ran, I looked around and realized that this was a losing battle. The humans were dropping like flies, getting torn apart before being eaten by these abominations. But that wasn’t even the worst part. The walls were breaking apart, the knights pouring in at a torrid rate. I don’t even know how many there were. Too many to handle, for sure. I even saw some Harbingers flying around, as well as what looked like fiery skeletons on horses. I knew this wasn’t going to end well. I decided to take refuge in a random bunker.
I snuck my way down there, expecting a bunch of others to have already have been hiding. However… there were only a few guys there. They looked surprised as they saw me, but eventually gestured for me to come towards them. Hesitantly, I did.
“We gotta get out of here.” One of them said.
The other one broke apart a section of the wall, revealing a narrow tunnel.
“Emergency escape. Let’s go.”
I asked them where it was supposed to take us.
They just shook their heads and responded in unison. “I don’t know”
They disappeared into the tunnel soon after. I thought about it for a while before hearing the bunker door crash down above me. There were no other options here. I grabbed a small bag containing my belongings and I rushed after them.
The problem with the tunnel was that it remained pitch black the entire way. I couldn’t see where I was going. Luckily for me, it didn’t seem to branch off and I was able to follow the footsteps in front of me. After maybe ten minutes of running, I finally spotted the exit up ahead. I burst out, looking for the two guys that I had been following. However… that’s when I realized something. I was back out into the fog. Again, I could barely see in front of me. I heard some footsteps in the distance, but knew that it would be impossible to locate them.
I was back to square one. This time however… at least I had a rifle. I counted four more shots. I started walking aimlessly, looking for something. At one point, I stumbled upon and almost fell into what appeared to be a boiling river. However, as I got closer I realized that wasn’t the case. There were small creatures erratically moving around in the water, kind of like piranhas do when you drop meat near them. However, these were a lot worse than piranhas. When I peered over to see what was going on, a few lunged at me. I moved out of the way just in time and they landed in the dry sand. I got a good look at them while they flopped around. They were hard to describe. Like a lobster-squid mutation with too many mouths.
Safe to say, I found another way around. I don’t know how long I walked. Probably only around half a day, but it felt like weeks. Luckily, I’d packed a jug of water beforehand. I saw a lot of shit out there. I think that if I was transported here directly from Earth, I probably would’ve died in the first few minutes. But... I seem to have adapted to hostile landscapes rather well. I managed to avoid any confrontations. The fog made it easier. A few times, I inadvertently caught the attention of the entities that roamed this place. However… I’d learned that if I buried myself in the sand well enough, they wouldn’t find me. These things were dumb as shit. It was when the fog finally dissipated where problems arose.
At one point, I’d stumbled upon what seemed to be railroad tracks. Thinking they’d have to lead somewhere, I followed them. As I kept walking, I noticed that the fog was starting to thin out around me. However, that also came with the revelation that the desert wasn’t as sparse as I thought it was. When the fog disappeared completely, I was suddenly thrust into the center of attention of every creature in my vicinity. And there were a lot of them. The good news was that I also saw something else in the distance. A wall. This time, it looked like stone. There were also armed guards on top of them. For a brief second, I made eye contact with one of them. At first, I wasn’t sure if they were hostile or not. I got my answer when they shot what looked like a large scorpion that started charging towards me.
I started running like hell towards the barricade, nearly slipping in the sand a few times. If the guards weren’t helping me out every step of the way, I would’ve been a goner in the first few seconds. As I got closer, I saw a small opening begin to materialize in the wall. I just ran even harder. I barely escaped, stumbling in as the entrance closed behind me. Unfortunately, one of the creatures also leaked in. It looked like a ghoulish, feral woman with giant, empty eye sockets. It started choking me, but was shot down by something behind me. I turned around, coming face-to-face with a large, burly man in tactical gear.
He introduced himself as “Crane”, a soldier living at this settlement. As he showed me around the place, I realized that it must have been an old military base. There were tanks, hangars, warehouses, weapon depots, all of that shit. There also aren't that many people here. And even stranger… barely any women. Crane sighed as I pointed it out.
“I don’t know what’s going on” he said. “There used to be a lot of them, but… they’ve all been dying. Must be something in the water here. Or the air. Who the fuck knows with this place.”
He didn’t elaborate any further. Almost like he didn’t want to think about the grim implications of what that may mean for this place. In fact, they were ecstatic whenever they encountered a new person out in the desert. They weren’t lacking resources… they were lacking a population. It sure as hell seems a lot more secure than the settlement I was just in, though. They even have explosives here.
Unsurprisingly, I was immediately assigned to be a soldier as well. I have guard duty tomorrow. Back to that shit. At least my bed here is relatively comfortable. The food isn’t terrible either. They’ve actually managed to farm livestock here. They look rather unsightly though - like mutated boars. But I really can’t complain at this point.
Overall, the place is decent. Well… as decent as decent gets I suppose. A strange thing to note here was what looked like a large pit in the middle of a pathway. It was barricaded somewhat haphazardly. I walked up to get a better look at it. I peered down, expecting to see a bottomless void. However, I was met with something else… almost like a thick, grey mist of sorts. It looked ominous as hell. I asked Crane about it, but he said he didn’t know. That it’s been there ever since he was.
“I’d stay away from it, though. If that wasn’t obvious. We hear noises coming out of it every so often. A lot of guys are scared something's gonna burst out of it one day."
I mean… I’ll take his advice.
However… as I lie here, I ask myself if this life is even worth living anymore. The people around me probably don’t have these feelings, I mean this is all they know. But… I’ve experienced the past. The old mundane existence that I hated so much suddenly comes into perspective. We clawed ourselves out of the dark ages for a reason.
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ENTRY 43:
Holy shit, I just discovered something big.
The guys around here tend to crumple up old papers and throw them around for fun. As I was walking around, I noticed one on the ground. I picked it up, trying to get a closer look at it. That’s when I realized that it was… a newspaper? I opened it up, hoping to get a glimpse back into the old world. Maybe start piecing together what the hell happened. What I read shocked me to my core.
I couldn’t make out many words, but I got the important ones. It was New York Times, dated June 2003. This was the headline:
“Cold war escalating to dangerous heights. Latest peace talks end in disaster, felt by all fronts.”
…The cold war? I must have stared at that headline for about an hour. The article itself was unreadable, but I still couldn’t believe this. Was this a parody newspaper? It looked real to me. If it wasn’t… well what the hell did that mean? After asking around, I found out that this place actually had a library of sorts. A place where old books records are stored. They said that if I wanted to find out more to go there and talk to the guy running the place. That’s where I’m heading right after I finish this.
Holy shit.
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