Diary Of Elliot

February 16th,

I don't know how I got here. I remember falling; falling and feeling this cold chill halt up my spine, like I couldn't move. I woke up after a long time in this deep deep sleep. Sleep so heavy, I couldn't remember where I'd been or where I was. When I came to I was locked in some seat inside this big metal pod. The walls were freezing. I felt like I was in an icebox. The surface in front of me had a door-looking handle on it, so I kicked my feet forward and, sure enough, it swung open. The heat hit me quick, like jumping into a fire after standing naked in a blizzard.

My skin burned for a second or so before going straight, but it was my eyes that were really killing me. The light from outside brushed in and nearly blinded me. I figured I hadn't used my eyes for a time. So, I grew a pair and took another look. My eyes were blurry, but I figured they'd adapt. At first I couldn't tell that I was on earth. When I left my icy pod I had also noticed that a heavy array of vines and leaves had nearly covered the whole damned thing. Any longer in there and I'm sure the vines would have coated the pod shut. I was out though, and peering back at the pod which seemed to have crashed into this cobblestone wall, near this broken bridge, on a river. The pod was just barely tilted up and the wall, along with the elevated walkway behind it, was devastated. As my eyes finally adjusted to the light, I took a moment to take in the fresh air. It was like I hadn't taken a breath in years.

I drop down to my knees as this sudden drop of exhaustion caught up with me. I took another breath and started off, away from my pod. I looked out to see a bunch of highways, overgrown plant life, buildings having been half rotted away, but blue cloudless skies as far as I could see. It felt like summer. If this was earth, well then, it was really nothing like the earth I'd heard about in school, back on Mars. I remember the old lessons and the legendary history of the first planet humankind inhabited. We were taught that the human race decimated the earth with nuclear warfare. It became so bad that the world governments believed the planet would never be habitable again. So the humans left and colonized deep space. It just so happened that the world governments had conveniently mastered space travel by the time it was time for everyone to book it.

What never made sense to me is how a whole planet, bent on bombing one another into the Stone Age, all decided to play nice when it came to the matter of colonizing off-planet worlds. But then again, our history has always been kinda spotty. Even in the days before all the wars. There was no doubt in my mind. This was earth, and that big beautiful ball of light in the sky was our sun. But, where there was day, there would be night and I knew I had to find some place to settle. A planet like this, sitting in silence for hundreds of years, with the festering after effects of a nuclear sweep was bound to have some undesirables running around. Especially at night! 

So, I found this nice building, in back of my pod, that sat just on the end of where the road from the nearby city, connected with the highway out of town. I climbed up this rusted ladder, on the fire escape, praying that the escape didn't dissolve beneath my feet. I made it to the roof and watched the sun go down for the first time. Around eight o'clock the air got chilly and the sky when purple, then black and starry. I'm laying down for the night. Hopefully tomorrow I can start gaining traction on finding some real shelter.

February 17th,

Last night I was restless. I woke to this weird bulky feeling feeling near my heel. I switched on this little flashlight I had on my belt and found a knife, tucked right into this little sleeve on the right side of my right boot. I was almost sure I was gonna have to use it last night. See, around the time the knife woke m up, I heard this eerie screaming coming down from the streets of the inner city. It was like a bunch of people all screaming in unison; like in the same tone of voice. It shook me deep. I peeked over the top of the building and looked down the street that went deeper into the city. I couldn’t live it. There were three people, well, at least they were shaped like people, all running down the roads, like they were chasing something. They were making the noise! But… it wasn’t like some kind of tribal hunt or something like that. These three were completely nude, glowing a bright blue color! 

They were so bright, this light that was coming off of them left a sort of trail behind them. And they were fast. God almighty, they were fast. And they were the ones screaming! All three of them, in the same pitch, at the same time, echoing into the night and shattering any hopes I had of sleeping. They were faster than deer, running on two legs which their arms just flopped at the side. Perhaps it was they way they moved that made me so uneasy. That and the way these glowing blue men seemed to cry in agony, all the while appearing just barely humanoid-looking in nature. They were headed away from me, and I couldn’t be happier. That was about three o’clock this morning. Either way I knew that by morning I was moving far from that city. Cause god nows what the hell else could be lurking in there.

I climbed down the fire escape once the sun was nice and high. Wouldn’t you guess, the damned thing broke when I was just barely about to touch the floor. I fell right on my back. One hell of a way to start the day. You know, I hadn’t noticed this yesterday… but I can’t feel my left arm. I can move it with no problem, so I don’t think it’s a circulation issue. The muscles in my arms seem as tight as a tick. It doesn’t hurt me any, just strange is all. I noticed it first when I came across this tent, covered in blood. It was this big yellow tent with a giant round tear in it’s side. There was blood trickled around the tear and a couple pools of the red stuff on the inside. I found a cooler that had been emptied, but no supplies I could scavenge. When I leaned down and caught my weight with my arms, that was when I noticed the stiffness in my arm. I figured I needed some medicine, quick, or else fear losing the arms to some bizarre muscle sickness.

I figured my arms was under some kind of muscle abnormality from being in that frozen pod for so long. I couldn’t be sure. Before I could think about it anymore I heard weeping. Like an idiot I followed the sound. It was coming from this small wooden house that’d collapsed in on itself. I took out my knife and crept in. I noticed this trail of blood leading from the door to some open room. I looked around the corner to find this girl sitting on the far side of the room. She was holding her stomach tightly and bleeding so bad, the whole area around her arm looked black. She looked to be about a decade younger than me. She had a gun on her and tossed it over to me, saying that if I was a scavenger I should just shoot her in the head and get it over with. From the state of her… she was dead already. She looked about twenty or so.

I picked up the gun and asked the usual s**t anyone in my position would ask. What was her name? Where was she from? What did this to her? Pointless to her, but valuable to me. Luckily she wasn’t one of those stubborn people who who’d rather die with the feeling of knowing others will suffer the same way she did, just cause life was unkind to her. No, this girl had a kindness. Not much that could be seen through a torn up stomach and a pool of blood, but… I digress. She told me her name was Samantha and that her and her two little sisters were camping by the house. They were coming down from the north and decided to spend a night here. We both knew she didn’t have much time left, so I got right down to brass tax. I asked her what did this to her. It was a bear. But, not like a regular bear, she said. The bear that ate her little sisters and carved up her stomach was mutated, green and blue with pulpy s**t growing all over. Hideous. I leaned back and sighed at the thought of having to fight something like that. I decided to stay with her till she died. I told her I’d stay with her till she died. I guess the exhaustion from the other night caught up with me, cause within an hour I had passed out.

February 18th,

I woke up that very night. Samantha had passed. The blood ran all along the floor. There was nothing I coulda done anyways. There was no medicine, no numbing agents, no nothing. All I could do was sit there and doze off as she slipped further and further away. I left her body there. No sense in building a big grave and holding a burial at a time like that. It isn't cause I’m heartless. There was just no sense in wasting all that time when I should have been getting out of there. I ran around the house for a little while, looking for goods. I did come across a whole box of guns and ammunition upstairs. I wonder why Samantha didn’t tell me about it. The again, it wasn’t like she had that much time to.

I loaded up on guns and prepared to leave. That was until I found a crate of food down in the cupboards of the kitchen. I made up a fire outside the front door and set up a sleeping area upstairs. It was ten o’clock at night by the time I had everything set up. By the time night came I figured it was no use traveling out in the cold and dark, so I camped out on the second floor of the house. The roof was gone and two walls were missing. Still, I got enough rest. I stayed low and could have sworn I heard a group of people pass by somewhere in the night. I was too tired to get up and check, so I went back to sleep and just prayed that they weren’t cannibals passing through. 

When I woke up the next morning Samantha’s body was gone from downstairs. When I got all my supplies together and stepped out the front door I saw a grave. Those other folks from last night must have came across her and built a grave. A nice gesture, considering they never though to check upstairs where they would have found me. Then I wouldn’t have had to be wandering around alone, like I am now. I guess it was my own fault. I was the one who ignored them when I first heard them. I must admit, I hid myself pretty well, up in the room’s corner. I had even killed the fire early so no one would catch the fire in the evening and come snooping over to see who’d made it. I placed some flowers on the girls grave and went on walking toward the empty road again. That was when my world fell apart. Sure enough, that god damned bear was sitting there in the street, looking straight at me. I knew it was gonna lunge at me. I just knew it! So, I unloaded on it. I shot every gun I had and wasted every bullet I could.

The son-of-a-b***h still wouldn’t go down! Finally it was so close it started taking swings! It was able to pin me down as it went into a frenzy, trying to rip me apart! I put my left arms out to block his teeth. I figured the damned thing must have been infected anyways, so losing it woulda been a good thing. But, wouldn’t you know it… I finally found out why I couldn’t feel it. As the bear bit into my arm, I felt no pain. I felt no teeth, no rush of blood; no nothing. The bear had bitten into hard metal and shattered it’s rotted teeth. My arm was made of metal! Coated by this fleshy skin-like substance. I don’t know how I’d gotten it, but it saved my life! After breaking it’s teeth on my wrist, the bear flew backward in pain. I jumped for it and punched it in the snout.

I guess it was in too much pain to fight, cause by the time I was winding up my left arm for another swing, the beast ran off. I took a deep breath and looked down at the hunk of metal having from my shoulder. It was pretty damn amazing. Now, if I only knew what happened to my other arm, then I could truly rest easy. I recollected my supplies, put the empty guns in a sack and headed out towards the road again, bear free. It’s about noon now. I’ll keep walking till I find shelter. As I look out all I can see are the barren remains of where forests used to stand, and where highways used to tower. Now it’s all one flat plane of hills and rotted trees. A damn shame.

February 19th,

I saw some metal crafts fly overhead this morning. I was ducked behind some big green metal sign, so I’m sure they didn’t see me. I know there are two, and they were both black. They looked kinda like jets, but their wings were odd. Like, put on backwards, so the sharp ends faced forwards. I don’t know. The only thing that really bothered me was that they were heading in the same direction I was going. I guess it’s up north. Once I heard those things screaming across the sky, you bet your a*s I ran for cover. The last thing I wanted was to get sought out and scooped up by some giant killer mutant vultures, or some s**t like that. For a planet that was supposed to have no life, there sure were a lot of freaky things running around here.

I eventually walked until coming upon another city. I was hesitant about even going near it at first. But, I eventually gained the nerve to attempt to venture in. All of a sudden I hear these bizarre computer noises. I look to my right and what do I see? Damned men in big plastic suits and gas masks! They were holding these long sticks with electricity bouncing around on the end of em’. I immediately darted in the other direction. Of course, the two of them chased on after me. I ran a while till this kid, I’d say about… in his mid-twenties, popped his head up from this sewer opening, just a few yards in front of me. He called out and told me to head towards him. As I ran the kid threw out explosives. I know they were meant to hit the biohazard goons behind me, but god d****t, a few of them almost hit me!

He crawled back into the sewer and I dived for the opening. The guys in the plastic suits had disappeared in the bomb smoke. Before the dust had settled we were a while aways down that tunnel. The kid hand me by the wrist and was pulling me deeper and deeper. I looked back to see the dust still coming down from the tunnel’s opening, all the while feeling the ceiling shake. We eventually came to complete darkness, and that was when the kids struck up a lighter and introduced himself. I was ready to ring him by the neck for the stunt he’d just pulled, but I was too shaken from the whole escape to start a fight; and with the guy who saved me, of all things. He said his name was Albert and that, for the better part of the past two years, he’d been living in the sewers just outside the city.

He offered me a place to stay and I agreed. He said that if I wanted to leave I should use the south tunnel. As the one we had just come from was patrolled by some old government operatives and the other two tunnel ways were flooded with all sorts of mutated horrors. We got into a whole talk about the world that night. Albert made up a stew, he said, from a cat he said he’d caught earlier that day. I wasn’t hungry. Maybe it was the stress. Albert sucked down dinner and was quick to go to sleep. I asked him about what he meant before, when talking about the old government goons. I wanted to know exactly just what the old government was. Albert explained that ever since the human race had moved off planet, fractions of the government had stayed behind and set up bases in the north. He told me some legends, and about how the remaining government would send “sweep teams” out to kidnap anyone who was still on planet. He said they’d bring those people up north for experimentation.

He also noted that they were free to create whatever the hell they wanted, including mutants and spewer, then unleash it into the wasteland. Albert especially despised this assumption because he felt as if he was always being watched. He was a very nervous person. And he kept glaring at my metal left arm the whole night, which made me kind of uneasy. He made up a bed for me in this tunnel he had closed off. There were curtains toward the back. He told me not to go over there. That some toxic liquid had spilt, but he managed to mask it up with sheets and chemicals. Though it seemed strange at first, I did admit, there was a strange smell coming from back tunnel, behind those curtains. I just tried to keep the smell off my mind. Later that evening Albert made up a stew. He said it was made up from a cat he’d caught earlier that day. I declined his offer. It’s not that I was opposed to eating cat. I just wasn’t hungry. Maybe it was the stress. Albert sucked down dinner and was quick to go to sleep. I soon followed after. 

February 20th,

I woke up the other night to some heavy breathing, followed by some gargling. Albert was fast asleep. I heard the noise coming from behind the curtains. Of course I had to check it. And Albert, that sick f**k… I pulled back the sheet to find this poor b*****d with all his limbs cut off, hooked up to some machine that was pumping his blood in and out of his open wounds. I finally realized where the stew had come from. I was ready to puke. I looked up at the sunken face of the limbless man. He had a needle jammed into his neck and some light green fluid was dripping from it. I could see his eyes had gone blind and his mouth was wording the words “kill me”. I didn’t give it another moment’s thought, walking across the room in tears. I picked up this small revolver that was next to Albert, on his dresser, and pointed it right down at his filthy head.

I cocked the gun and saw his eyes open at the sound of it, but it was too late. I unloaded five bullets into his skull. I saved the last for the poor b*****d behind the curtain. I walked straight over and put one between his eyes. I loaded up on medicines and other odds, making absolutely sure not to take any meat. God. It still makes me sick to think about. I took the south tunnel back to the surface. Albert hadn’t been lying about that. I shutter to think about what he had planned for me. Maybe to gain my trust and kill me in my sleep? If I hadn’t of snooped, maybe it would have been me behind that sheet at some point. Damn it all.

This season must be summer. The sun is at it’s highest point. Least, as high as it’s been since I got here. Sometimes the heat is too much. I do most especially fear for the winter, if one should ever come. I’ll attempt to find underground shelter somewhere. After leaving the sewer I traveled up north, to a section of the city that sat across this docking river. I found a place by the water and some walls where I was able to pitch a small tent. I hadn’t eaten in days, but luckily I had a series of syringes with me, all containing a liquid drug called COMPLEX. It’s an injection which, pretty much, gives your body the nutrients of three square meals a day, all at the benefit of not having to eat or drink anything. Only thing was, you can only take about a week’s worth of them before you get stuck from it. I was on my fifth. If I can’t find food in two days I’ll have to risk the sickness and put myself in danger of being weaker. Easier to pick off. Either that or… commence slowly starving and wasting away.

I took up a curled position inside my little tent and drifted off to sleep about eleven-ish. As soon as my eyes shut… the night terrors set in. It was like some fifth sense, like a vision transporting me to a derange place in time and space. My body was adrift along this sea of slumber. Next thing I knew, I found myself in this place resembling some kind of laboratory. It was a deranged place. At first I noticed a metallic floor and plated surroundings with a table or two of glass beakers and burners. Then my eyes shot up to a ghastly scene. My attention was pulled from the details of the lab, and unto these… “things” hanging before me. It was people. They were half machine, with their craniums replaced with round metal containers. Inside the containers were heir brains, with tubes and wires all hooked up to them. Their bodies were half flesh, half of a dim colored plastic-like substance. Like prosthetics, but slightly metallic. Their eyes were a light milky green, completely blank and looking outward at nothing. Their whole makeup was that of puppets, or mannequins of some kind.

They were all hooked up on slabs that stood up, in this long row that stretched on and on. in the dream I was walking down a row of them, waiting for one to spring to life. It was as if they were truly alive; listening to my heartbeat, watching me with those void eyes. Everything else was mist and the walls behind the people were a series of shadows that fell backward onto even more shadows. I began to run. As fast as I could go, the rows never ended. Nothing but mechanical, cybernetic bodies filled this endless line. Finally I stopped before one that looked a little like me. I looked up at it, and with the passing of a second it breathed, extending it’s arms and crying out! I remember falling backwards as the slab fell on top of me. As did my lookalike. After feeling crushed I woke up in a cold sweat. I looked over to the radio beside me to see that a transition was coming in. It was some guy warning listeners to stay out of the cities. The broadcast ran on about some things getting loose in the streets, and how sweep teams were being deployed. I knew I had to pack my stuff up and move. Just to avoid a run in with those bio-goons.