The Novella Life of Illuscia Nester Himawari

    Hey NoSleep. You ready for the end? I am. Shit, it’s hard to talk about. Even fucking months later. I sit down to type and can’t make my fingers stop shaking. Trauma, you know how that goes. Or maybe you don’t, but you can guess. Anyway, I should probably just start, right? Just jump in. I don’t remember everything, but you oughta know what happened as well as I can piece it together. I feel like I owe it to you and all that. I'll get to Clayton soon. But given that I spent months with her, and I felt we were close in a way, I want to say a few things about Elizabeth Hadwell. Liz and I talked a lot during our time together. Well, she talked. I mostly listened. She would actually spill her guts to me more often than to her other guys, maybe because she actually felt like I was a friend. I was never a cultist. I didn't grow up in the town. I hadn't started out indebted to or worshipping her. When we'd first met, before I knew what...

    Hello, NoSleep. Clayton again, with the promised update. I thought I’d start by addressing some issues brought up in the comments. 1.) A lot of people have been asking for the “best guess” reports I mentioned last time. I should tell you, these are not official police reports. They were written by a scientist during the outbreak, and they seem to be part of his personal notes on the infection. There’s not much there you haven’t heard before. I believe someone posted my PM in the comments of part 16, but I will continue to try to respond to your messages. If I miss you, I apologize, and don’t hesitate to try again. 2.) My family. My parents met in college in Montana, which is where I was born and lived for a decade. My mother did grow up in the infected town, but my father has never been there. My parents divorced when I was ten. My father lives in New York. We are not particularly close, but I speak to him on holidays and other special o...

    Hello NoSleep. Clayton again. Let’s get straight into it this time. The Haven is a two-story converted mansion built, according to the plaque by the front doors, in 1890 by town founder Charles M Hadwell III for his wife Olivia. It’s a classic Victorian, gray slats and white trim, high peaked roofs and brick chimneys. One round tower juts out from the back corner like an afterthought; for a while, in 2001, Elizabeth’s father tried to convert it into a belfry, but the idea turned out to be injudiciously expensive. Now it’s a used as a storeroom, full of dust and half-empty boxes, as I found out when I climbed the trellis to get inside. The double doors leading out of the building, predictably, were locked that morning. The trellis was full of brown vines and the roof of the first story was slippery with ice, but it wasn’t a particularly hard climb. It wasn’t until I’d pushed through the unlocked window, into the musty silence and warmth...