Chapter 1

Chapter 1:

Entry 1:

I sincerely hope someone finds this journal, so that all of this isn’t in vain. Today, I woke up inside this bizarre room, one that I’m completely locked in. I have no recollection of how I got here, or anything leading up to me waking up this morning on a filth incrusted mattress laying on a heavily stained carpeted floor. When I sit and try to recall something, anything before this morning, I get a really bad nose bleed. This room is about the size of a small apartment, but it’s stripped bare, the only things in here are a few television sets stacked on top of one another and an old fashioned radio. There is a light bulb screwed into the ceiling, but it is pretty dim. The walls are covered in papers, some with crude handwriting all over them, others are news paper articles, photos of horrible atrocities, and pages from books, all overlapping each other in a giant cluster of a collage that serves as wall paper. There are boards covering the window, and the door had two large metal beams planted beside it with chains braided around to create a web, making sure I am unable to leave. When I touched the chains, I felt a slight surge of electricity shoot through me and saw headlights flooding into the cabin of a car, followed by loud screams and sirens. I tried the door to the bathroom (or what I assume is the bathroom, seeing as there are no closets) and found it to be locked. My mouth is dry, and my skin is very itchy. I paced around for a while, my mind going into autopilot mode, and then decided to lie down. When I looked at the mattress, I saw all kinds of stains, some dark red (virtually black), some light brown ones, and a bunch of tears. I looked at the pathetic excuse for a pillow and saw three pills laying on them. I walked over and picked them up. One was a 2mg Xanax, the other was a 40mg Oxycontin, and the last one was a solid red pill with the letters DMNTA stamped on it. I swallowed all three dry, the lingering taste of the Xanax making me yearn for a drink to wash the taste out of my mouth. I laid on the bed for a while, and just as the pills began to kick in, the radio sprang to life and started filling the room with bizarre noises, radio transmissions, Morse Code, strange computer glitches, and radio static all rolled into one string of insanity. The volume grew louder as my eyelids grew heavier, and I heard a faint voice try to penetrate the bedlam of noise coming from the radio, I think it said “Looks like we are all done here then, we may now proceed to Phase One.” I fell asleep but was woken up abruptly by another voice coming in over the radio. “Don’t be afraid, you’re not alone anymore” spoke a female voice amidst the static. After that, I fell back into a deep sleep.

Loose Journal Page, Unknown Author [Part 1]

“I’m not going to be here one day, I will eventually leave you.” Her words resonated through my head as I searched this apartment building for anything of use. I could still smell her hair as those words spilled into my mind. Vanilla Lavender shampoo, my favorite. The flashlight I was using began to flicker, batteries shot to the top of my list. Most of the doors on the second floor were locked or boarded up, and I just didn’t have the will or strength to kick them in. I stopped on the pitch black stair well, sat down and lit one of the dozen scented candles I had found in the house by the gas station a few days prior, before I came into this labyrinth of hotel sized apartments. I dropped my book bag on the stair between my feet, reached in and pulled out a pack of expired menthol cigarettes, pulled one from the box and lit it off the candle’s flame. As I sat there, thinking back to the time when I was actually happy, I could hear her words penetrate my thoughts once again. “I can’t imagine a life worth living without you in it, baby. But I can feel the end growing closer each day. This sickness will take me away from you. The only thing I can do is fight, but I’m just not strong enough. If only our love could be the cure, we could grow old together.” While she spoke I closed my eyes and just absorbed the moment. I would hold onto those last days for the rest of my life. She was dead when I came from work two days later, in the bathtub filled with her blood, two large vertical lacerations on each wrist. I pulled her out of the tub, held her as close as I could, knowing I’d never hear that beautiful voice again.
On that dark stairwell, solemnly lit by a flickering hazelnut candle, I began to hear the building come to life, filling it’s lungs with air before it’s triumphant scream announcing it’s awakening. The pipes began to rattle, transformers started humming loudly outside, pumping what blood was left back into the central electrical system. Doors creaked open and slammed shut. Footsteps could be heard both above and below me. Voices talked from inside television screens and through living people, muffled by the barriers that separated us. Electricity began to flicker to life as my candle was snuffed out by the newly welcomed blast of industrial sized furnaces powering up and soaking the interior with sweltering heat. I sat in fear on the stairwell as all this chaos emerged all around me. Minutes or hours passed as I sat frozen, pouring sweat, crippled with confusion. The sound of a metallic door opening on rusty hinges several floors above me snapped me out of my hypnotic trance, as several sets of footsteps ascended towards me. Unknown voices, a man and a woman, echoed off the concrete walls as they grew closer. “Well, if you had just gone to the store like I asked, we wouldn’t be in the mess!” the woman’s voice shouted. “For the hundredth time, honey, I am sorry!” the man responded with a hint of frustration in his voice. Suddenly they were stopped in their tracks, looking down at me from several steps above me. Without thinking the man drew his side arm, a revolver, and demanded I place my hands in the air. The candle burst to life, flames roaring, emanating a skin crawling heat. The girl ducks behind the man quickly, then jumps to my side with a machete to my neck. “Speak!” She screams, my eyes staying focused on the barrel of the gun currently pointed at my right eye. “Who the fuck are you assholes?” I ask cockily. I quickly grab the blade pressed against my neck and push it hard into my skin and drag it lightly, a warm river of liquid flows from beneath the blade, beads of sweat fall into the fresh laceration, stinging immensely. “Either pull that fucking trigger, faggot, or put it away. Guns are for pussies who don’t know the proper way to take a life.” The man just stares at me in disbelief, this isn’t what he had in mind. The girl meanwhile panics at the sight of my blood and steps back, dropping her machete which lands on my leg before I catch it. I lay it on my side away opposite the girl.
“Are you fucking crazy man? Seriously, we just wanted to make sure you weren’t one of those bio-geeks or, god forbid, a Defect.” the man said, holstering his gun, never letting his hand away from the handle. I raise my hand to him at the word “Defect”, revealing a serial number tattooed into my wrist. 4700302. He studied the numbers carefully, then looked to the girl who was now standing with her back firmly pressed against the wall, distancing herself as much as she could from me. “We don’t mean you any harm bro, we are just passing through. We can’t afford to lose what we have scavenged from this place, we have to keep an eye out for the Bio-Geeks so we can stay out of Quarantine. Are you looking to get killed? With that shitty attitude?” As he spoke he drew his gun and released the clip, tossing it at me as he finished talking. I looked at it: empty. “What’s your name bro? You think you can scare us off with that insanity angle, bro, it’s not fooling me. We could probably use your help, and if you are alone, I know you could use ours. Fearless, boldness, that’s what I can respect in a person. Anyways, I’m Eric, that mess of a woman over there is Rachael, my sister.” He said as I threw his empty clip back to him. I told him my name, and Rachael stepped closer slowly, finally sitting by my side. She picked up my journal in front of me. “Don’t touch that please.” I said, the act completely dropped. She blushed and apologized and placed the journal in my lap. She was beautiful.
“Not much of a talker, huh? That’s fine, bro. Look, we have a place about two blocks from here. I think it was a law firm or something before this city was wiped out. Lots of expensive art and comfy furniture. We have tons of food. You are welcome to come with us. How long have you been alone here, bro?” Eric asked. “I can’t remember anything except being alone.” I replied. He took note of my book bag, picked it up and began pawing through it. The act sent me into a blind rage, I reached for the machete. Before my fingers clasped onto the handle, without looking up, Eric spoke into my backpack. “Calm down, bro. No disrespect, but you really could use some help.” He dropped my bag and held four cans of SPAM in his hands, tossing each one down the opening in the hand rails, clanking as they hit corners on their eight story fall. “Look, I’d love to sit here and hear your life story, bro, but we are burning daylight here. We gotta move before nightfall, not trying to run into any Defects tonight, not until after dinner at least.” He chuckled at his own stupid joke, Rachael smiled. “I have a place just outside the city, never saw another living creature within a three mile radius of the place. Some apartment village called “Brookside”. I told him. “I have some very import things there, so why don’t we swing by your place and grab some food, we can eat at mine. Trust me, you’ll feel a hundred times safer.” There was a look of registration in his eyes when I mentioned “Brookside”, a trace of confusion and fear that passed just as quickly as it came. “I’m with him, Eric. I can’t take another night in this nightmarish city.” Rachael spoke up, her voice timid but stern, final. I wasn’t sure if I would take them to my actual “apartment” or one in the next building over I had raided before I came into the city. For all I know, these two could take me for everything, and I wasn’t letting that happen. Eric took a knee, exhaustion setting in. “What was the name of that place again, bro?” Eric asked, his breath shortening with each word. “Brookside. It’s huge, and about a three hour walk from here.” I told him. He exchanged a look with Rachael briefly, some kind of silent language they shared. “Okay, but if it gets too dark, we are staying put at our place, bro, I’ll be goddamned if a Bio-Geek tries to feed me to those animals in Quarantine.” We spoke as we descended the very long staircase, getting to know each other. Eric and I did most of the talking, Rachael agreed with Eric on occasion, but mainly just stayed quite, drinking in the new information as I so often did. Just as we reached the exit, we heard several pairs of brakes screeching outside, gunfire, screams and pleas from unknown sources outside the darkness. Eric looked me in the eyes, the stone solid confidence drained from him so quickly it took me a moment to recognize the boy drenched in fear standing before me. “Look, we have to get out of here, NOW! There are a series of underground tunnels just a few floors down, but we have quite a bit of space to clear before we can get to them. Rachel, stay beside me at all times.” Eric’s words poured out of him in a frenzy of whispers and doubt, something very discomforting to me, and from the look on Rachael’s face. “On the count of three, we go back up to the fourth floor, then follow my lead. We have to move fas…” The door burst open and three men in riot gear, gas masks, and automatic rifles stood, guns pointed at our heads, but three feet from us.

Entry 3:

Today I kicked the door to the bathroom in, damn near ripping the hinges off the wall. I walked inside, weak from dehydration and hunger, and collapsed on the floor. I don’t know how long I was out, but when I awoke I found myself face down in a small puddle of blood. I got up, stumbled and fell against the sink, using it as support. The sink was surrounded by a wide counter top and had two large doors under it. They were padlocked shut. I looked over into the bathtub and found fourteen one gallon jugs of water. I weakly approached the tub and greedily grabbed a plastic gallon and began guzzling down water until I felt sick, and then I realized the mistake I had just made. I needed to make this last. There was a mirror/medicine cabinet above the sink, inside it I found a series of old fashioned shaving strait-razors, each a different colored handle (Red, Black, Green, Grey, and Purple) with odd insignias imprinted on the base of each handle, it looked like 3 circles intertwining (what I remember as the Wicca symbol for time) but with an odd series of lines running through them almost creating an inverted star. I left them alone, but there was something really off about them. Something strange. After inspecting the black one I felt a surge of pain shoot through my arm and dropped it into the sink. On the shelf above it I found a folded piece of paper. I unfolded it, it read: 

“Don’t give into to the impulses they force upon you. If this is anything, it’s a test of   endurance, a test of sheer will, a question of one’s worth and value of one’s own life, a retrospective as to what defines living, and the restraint to find what lies behind the mirror’s sinister reflection. I am worn down to the bone at this point, so this note, my final breath of life to this earth and the newest inhabitant to this sick realm, consider it a warning. All the supplies are in place, set here for a purpose, each piece of this galactic puzzle is carefully laid bare before you, but don’t stare at it too long, lest you succumb to the realm of shadow. I was weak from the beginning, so my demise came at no surprise to all involved. I would think it grandiose of myself to think maybe somebody was rooting me on, thinking I had what it took to beat them at their own game, but instead, I gave up at the half and simply let what lied ahead envelop me whole. But not you, you may still have a chance to see beyond these hellish walls. I found that goddamn key, I opened those doors, and I let what awaited me within them to swallow me whole without a single care of the repercussions. Oh, how clever I felt at the moment I opened Pandora’s Box, believing the contents to be the escape I so dearly desired. For the contents had always been my escape from my own dreaded reality, brief moments of a false bliss, and I wouldn’t quit until the illusion was all that I felt. You may still have a chance, but in order to proceed you must open the box, you mustn’t give in or give up. To find the key, search your heart’s darkest crevice and reach deep within and it will be as clear as day. Just don’t wind up like me, decaying in the bathtub, a lifeless husk of narcissism, greed, and self pity. I bid you all the luck in this dark world.

P.S. - Don’t trust the shadows, they will betray you the first opportunity they get.”

I felt sick to my stomach while reading the note, who was this person? Where were they now? I had a million questions swarming through my mind at that moment I felt a tight constricting motion on my lungs, finding it harder and harder to breathe with each breath. I felt Death’s eyes ravenously watching me at that moment, and again I fell into darkness. 

Entry 35:

For the past three days I have been in the throws of withdraws. I woke up on the bathroom floor, face down in a pile of vomit. My pants were soaked in urine, my hands covered in dried blood and stomach bile. I weakly go up to the sink to try to wash some of this off. This water flowing from the sink, it’s apparently contaminated with all kinds of nuclear run off, biological experiments that failed leaking into the cities water supply. I read this in one of the news paper pages I tore from the wall. Eriatarka Power Source was under heavy government investigation until this entire place became a ghost town, a skeleton of a once thriving city full of life. And here I am, a pathetic junkie, trapped in this forsaken place, left to rot. After splashing my face with some water from the sink (a little got in my eyes, and the burning sensation I felt was virtually indescribable) and washed my hands off, careful not to let any water get into any of the open wounds that dressed my wrists and forearms. I looked at myself in the cracked mirror, seeing different angles of my decomposing body, my skin tightly strapped to my bones, my eyes sunken in, my jaw bone popping out. My hair is thin and most of it has fallen out by this point. I start to feel a little bit better, my stomach settle, and I’m ready to resume laying in a temple of my own filth that is this motel room, when I catch a shadow moving out of the corner of my eye. I turned towards the open door and saw a series of shadows flowing from out of the bathroom, leading towards the bedroom. There was a sudden coldness that fell over this entire room, I was very hesitant to leave the bathroom when out of nowhere I heard a loud crashing sound coming from the other room. I ran out into the bedroom and saw the TV was upside down and the radio was floating two feet above it, glowing a neon green, and then it switched on, playing an odd series of noises that almost resembled a song, then it started blaring loud bass and drum combos, followed by it’s signature static. I walked towards the radio, hypnotized by it’s cry, and extended a hand out to grasp it and slam the fucking thing against the wall. As soon as my skin came into contact with it a large surge of electricity shot through my body, flinging me back and slamming into the wall, falling face first on the mattress. As I lifted my self up, my hand landed on something plastic. I sat up and grabbed the plastic bag, the words “PAIN PILLS” scrawled across it in thick, black marker. I opened it and grabbed a handful of the pills and threw them in my mouth, chocking them down dry, before chocking literally and reaching for the jug of water. I ripped the cap of it and tilted my head back and started chugging the water, some of it dripping down the side of my face. When I pulled it away from my face my heart skipped a beat. This gallon was a clear blue, unlike the clear ones that had been left here. This blue gallon had a sticker on it, and it read: Eriatarka Power Source Purified Water

Entry 20:

I’m on a bus, I don’t know where it is heading. All the passengers are asleep. I am awake, sitting in the back, watching the city pass me by. Everything is illuminated, the city, it’s beautiful. I am hypnotized by the sights laid before me outside this window, and absorb as much of it as I can. It’s one of those metro busses, and soon we leave the city heading north, and before long we are in old-historic type neighborhood, there are people laying on the sidewalks, face down, their dogs attached to leashes are all on their side, and I can’t seem to make out the driver. I try to get up to go speak to the driver, but it seems I am unable to move. I sit and watch as the houses outside the window each burst into flames, one by one as we pass by them. The streets are abandoned, there are no other cars driving, and the few cars that are parked along the street are either turned over or on fire, the trees are all ablaze, and I try to scream out, but it feels like someone has their hand around my throat and gripping it with brute force. My neck snaps towards the window and I watch as people in biohazard suits walk up to groups of people on street corners and bathes them in fire with a flamethrower. One of the men in the biohazard suits looks back at the bus, as we’ve stopped at a red light, looking me dead in the eyes, winks, and then starts spreading more flames on those group of people before him. Other men in gasmasks walk around caring assault rifles and start randomly firing them into the house that are not on fire before the men with the flamethrowers walk to the residence and go full on, burning it to the ground. The speakers on the bus start to crackle with an oddly familiar static,  my head begins to throb. The bus is in motion again, and this time I see people trying to outrun the men in gasmasks as they gun them down. It is pure bedlam outside this bus, and I’m the only passenger awake. Finally we are on a side street, and everything is calm, all the houses are fine and nobody is outside. We drive down this street for about 15 minutes before the bus stops and the driver announces over the intercom over the static: “End of the line, all passengers must get off the bus, thank you and have a nice day”, like it was prerecorded. I stood up, surprised to find that I could move, and walked to the back door of the bus. As I walked down the isles, I noticed the bus was completely empty, all those sleeping passengers were gone, vanished, and I was alone. I stepped off the bus and into this chaotic world, no clue where I was or where I would be going. I heard gun shots ring off somewhere in the distance as the bus sped away. I kept walking until finally I reached something, a motel by a freeway exit. It was called “Toluca Inn”, and I walked faster to ask the clerk what was going on. I got no response from the man when I entered the office, and instead he looked at me very carefully and handed me a key to a room, Room 302, and then in a flat, monotone voice he said “Enjoy your stay.”