Affliction - A “The Long Dark” Story

July 27, 2018

Foreword
This story depicts actual game play, enriched with artistic flavour and fictional elements to spice it up. I am writing this alongside play, trying to read into what I do and what I see what a person confronted with these impossible odds could possibly experience. After much deliberation I intentionally decided against taking screenshots to give this more the character of a novel than a written down “let’s play”, and also to allow for a few details on the side that are not in the game.

I started the game in the Hushed River Valley, without having any foreknowledge of the map, and with these custom settings: 8m1V-I4VQ-LZV/-mKx9-7gAA. This is a fairly easy "Harder-Than-Voyageur" setting I use for my everyday games, mostly including parasites and cabin fever, and an emphasis on making struggles harder and more punishing. No feats were active.

Since I planned to spin some mystery about the aurora into the story, it is set to appear more often than normal. Other than that I had a vague idea where I wanted the story to go - as will become apparent later on - but no set direction how to get there, and with the game the story is basically emerging on its own.

I know the rest of the maps pretty well and have played several 200+ days games on stalker, but I'm far away from being as hardcore as playing 500+ days games on interloper. Since I am trying to "roleplay" this game, not every decision I make is the best from a gameplay perspective, and I try to act as if I would not know the areas.

Be aware that some of the depictions of violence and death are quit graphic, and that there is a great deal of emotional distress discussed in this story. Please do not continue to read if such topics trouble you.

Chapter 1: Arrival
Before

I'm not really sure if anyone is ever going to read this. I'm not really sure if it matters since I'm actually not even sure why I am writing this. Probably to keep my mind busy and myself the illusion of conversation. Somehow, jokingly, I hope that this will serve as the raw draft for my bestseller novel, but deep down inside I fear with a grim hint of certainty that I am the author of my own obituary. I remember that my father once told me, in times almost as dire as these: Even if there is no hope left, a person can go miles and miles on desperation alone.

I’m afraid I will have to put this to the test.

Who I am doesn't really matter. If I make it through this and you have the opportunity, you can ask me all about it. If I don't you probably found this with whatever is left of me, and then it won't matter a whole lot anyways. At least not to me. Excuse me for taking the liberty of being a bit selfish right now, but I think - considering the set of circumstances I am facing - I deserve a tiny bit of leeway here. Ah right, my circumstances.

Everything started last night when I was making a courier run to Great Bear Island. I was under the impression the island was practically deserted by now. Nothing going in, nothing going out, as far as I knew anyways, but that evening I got a bag of mail to drop up there, so someone must have stuck around after all. These delivery runs to remote and otherwise hard to reach destinations usually take a few hours, quick money, and since you nowadays thank the divines for every single dime, albeit losing half its worth by the next month, it didn't even matter that it barely covered fuel costs. They probably factor in that you must be stealing your kerosene somewhere anyways - which I did, of course. Being the only person in a hundred miles having a "working" airplane put me in a somewhat unique position, and allowed me to make as much as a living off of it as anyone could have hoped. Old Mariposa was little more than a two seated cardboard box with a propeller and hardly suited for a job as a cargo plane, but she managed a few bags and boxes of this and that now and then.

May she rest in peace.

Weather was unusually sketchy when I took off, even for this rough patch of the world, but my handler at the post office told me to get the bag delivered by morning. Some express mail he said - as much as express as it got these days - high priority stuff, apparently from Argentina, “Tierra del Fuego”, wherever that might be. He paid premium, so I got going despite better judgement. People do that often: act against better judgement. Everyone does, it is part of the essence that makes us human, and more often than not you get away with it. But if you don't…. you get to learn the sweetest stings of regret. Not that I could have expected what was coming for me. Nobody could have, I guess.

Since I am sure this was a global event, or at least was noticed in the greater North American region, you'll know what I mean when I speak of "The Aurora". And it hit me right after I had first land under my wings. It was beautiful, actually. Seeing the sky around me set ablaze in all those colors and more. Up here seeing the Aurora Borealis is not so uncommon that you get to worry over it. But having it wash over you like a silent thunderstorm freezes the blood in your veins. I don't know why, and I have trouble describing what I felt, but it brought tears to my eyes. Not because I was afraid but because I felt.... small. Nature has her own poetry of reminding you of your glaring insignificance once every so often.

In any case I didn't have much time to feel a whole lot else. I am no scientist, but I know enough to understand the aurora basically consists of charged particles of solar wind hitting the atmosphere. And I knew that those had the potential of interfering with broadcast, frying satellites and, in rare cases, even disrupting electronic equipment. Still: I have never heard of it blowing fuses and light bulbs - but that's what happened to Old Mariposa mere seconds after the sky lit up. No power and no instruments the only way she would be going was down, and fast at that. You are required by regulation to keep an emergency backpack and a parachute with you at all times when operating a plane. But seriously: nobody cared for regulations anymore. Truth be told I didn't even know if the chute would open when I strapped it on my back because it was probably sitting there behind my seat since the day I bought Old Mariposa. And that's some days ago. But the prospect of crashing a mountain face at 200 miles an hour wasn't much of an alternative. So I took the jump.

To be honest there wasn't much going through my head. Thinking back at it a thousand things could have happened. The parachute could have gotten wound up in the propeller, which would have ended me as some sort of raspberry swirl with occasional splinters of bone. I could have gotten impaled on a tree like a shashlik. The parachute could have outright failed to open, making my landing on Great Bear more of an "impact". Spin your imagination for more things, I'm sure you can come up with something. I thought of none of that - and none of it happened. I took the jump, counted to three, pulled so hard I ripped the handle off the string and enjoyed the ride ... for a few seconds at least, after which I wound up in a tree, which probably was for the best since I would have had a rather hard landing otherwise. I flung half around it and then must have gotten knocked out crashing into another tree. I probably had hung there for hours and hours in the freezing cold, meandering between sleep and being unconscious.

At some point the chute gave weight which sent me down at least ten more feet, luckily crashing into a snowbank which caught most of my fall. Dizzy and exhausted I rolled myself into the chute and must have passed out again. Apparently it had kept me relatively warm, since I actually managed to wake up freezing - but not frozen. To my surprise I felt strangely awake and clear, blood rushing in my ears, and it took me only a few moments realize that I was still very much alive, mostly unharmed except a few bruises and a stinging headache, and, despite my predicament of being stuck in the frozen middle of literally nowhere ... that I must be one of the luckiest persons alive. At least still alive.

This marks the beginning of ...

Day 1

I couldn't tell where north was, or any other direction for that matter, and since my watch died in the aurora along with everything else electronic I could only determine that it was either halfway to noon, or halfway past that. I decided to take inventory first, and then try to tell if the sun was actually moving towards the zenith or the horizon. I wrapped myself into the parachute which had kept me warm so far and opened my backpack which survived the crash mostly unscathed. A crude map of Great Bear I had stuffed in there last night, this notebook and the pencil I am writing with, a pack of matches, an empty can that once must have contained some beans at some point (I actually don't remember eating them which raises the question: who did?), some tinder, an emergency flare, a few pills of antibiotics and an old bedroll on top, which had seen better days. In short: A whole lot of nothing to go on. Great. Needless to say my clothing was nowhere near adequate wearing a sweatshirt, a pair of jeans and some rather stylish leather shoes that were sadly utterly unsuited for the task ahead: Surviving impossible odds. I hadn’t worn my flight jacket when Old Mariposa got hit, because it usually got terribly warm inside the cabin, and I neither would have had time to grab it nor had I even thought of it.

Since the chute was still mostly wound up in the tree without any way for me the get it down there I decided to come back later for it. Maybe I would find something to cut it down and reuse some of it as clothing. But for now I had to find some shelter since the wind was brushing up and I felt colder by the minute. By now I made out that it was indeed halfway past noon, which meant that night wasn't infinitely far away. While I could now roughly make out north, I decided that every direction I took would be as good as any for now and started meandering into the forest, picking up sticks on the way since at some point I would need to make a campfire if I didn't plan on freezing.

To further my already grim situation what was rough weather just a moment ago developed into a full blown snow storm in a matter of minutes, leaving me heading for the mountainside in hope for a cave or any shelter, really, but soon losing all sense of direction.

I must have wandered for about two hours, and just when panic and hypothermia were starting to take hold I eventually stumbled into a rather spacious cave in the wall I was hugging in the desperate attempt to evade some of the storm. And I wasn't alone. A poor fellow was cowering in a corner, frozen solid, for weeks or even months by the looks of it. How he got here and who he was... I couldn't tell, and frankly, I was too busy not freezing myself to care. All I knew was that he had no further need for either his toque, his parka or his boots. His other clothing was ruined due to the onset of decomposition of his body. At that point I didn't care much for the rifle lying beside him, but soon realized that out here such a weapon would prove invaluable, and if it is just to hunt. I had no idea what dangers Great Bear would throw at me. Later I would find out that the Rifle was still loaded with three rounds. Well spent those three rounds would mean half as many weeks of food.

It took me a few tries, but I actually managed to get a fire going. Starting a fire is harder than it sounds, frankly, especially if all you got are half-wet sticks and branches. Matches would become a scarce resource rather quickly at this rate. I granted myself an hour at the fire, which was very much needed unless I wanted to develop serious hypothermia, but knew I would have to head out later for more firewood if I wanted to survive the night in this cave. Cowering there I thought about my dead companion, how I didn't even know who he was, and how likely it was that I was going to share his fate sooner rather than later. That's when I pulled this notebook from my backpack and started scribbling.

After an hour or so sitting cuddled up in my bedroll I headed back out in search for more firewood. I didn't find a lot until I was starting to freeze again, which I then carried back to my new home, only to warm myself back up. I kept repeating this for a few times, and looking back I'm probably lucky I didn't lose any fingers or toes to the cold. Come nightfall the wind died down, which improved my situation from arctic blizzard snow storm of doom to arctic winter of death - which is a huge step up, trust me. I headed out again, and frankly got a bit too brave trying to find firewood with daylight dying on me by the minute. That I found my way back hugging the wall was probably again more luck than anything else, but unless the sky would clear and reveal some moonlight to me I wouldn't leave the cave again until morning. I decided to sleep an hour or two and see if my winning streak would continue.

When I woke up at first I wasn't sure if it was morning already, but then quickly realized that the sky had indeed cleared revealing the brightest of stars. And my friend the aurora. I stumbled to the entrance of the cave and spend minutes just gazing up at the sky. What had happened? What did the aurora cause to appear with such intensity the second night in a row? Something must be horribly wrong with either the earth or the sun - or probably both. In any case it couldn't hurt me any more than it already did, so I decided to use my unexpected extension of useable light for a few more firewood runs. Retracing my own footsteps over and over kept me from losing direction and led me back to the cave every time. Would I have lost my way this night, I don't think any luck would have sufficed to come and rescue me this time.

One of the lesser problems of my situation was water. Since, as scientists found out lately, snow consists of about one hundred percent of frozen water, and I had a fire going hot and strong at "home" it was easy to use the empty can I had found in my backpack as a makeshift cooking pot. I would have to be careful to thoroughly boil the water to avoid dysentery, but other than that water wouldn't be an issue as long as I had things to burn. Food however would be the greater issue, and I really had no idea how to solve that one, yet.

After a few more runs I realized I wouldn't be able to keep this up forever, for several reasons. There's only so much firewood you can gather, and only so much falling from the trees in the first place. My trips became longer and longer and yielded less and less. Unless I found some sort of axe or hatchet keeping a fire going all night every night was a hardly a sustainable strategy. And even then exhaustion would eventually kill me if the cold didn't. Plus: I planned on getting out of here at some point. For that I had to be able to stockpile supplies, not live off of every bit I collected. I needed some sort of warmer place somewhere to make that happen, and I needed it soon. Tomorrow.

I wouldn't get much sleep this night. I was tired, but always worried the fire would die on me before morning. So I spend half the night dozing off, and the other half tending the fire and stockpiling water.

Day 2

Weather looked favorable. Cold, but with good visibility and only a mild breeze. I had decided to give my dead companion a snowy burial, because I had neither the tools nor the spare calories to dig him a proper grave, and truth be told up here I wasn't sure if the snow fully melted even in summer. While trying to find a few comforting words I realized how odd it is to hear your own voice after over a day of having had no need to talk at all. I apologized for having disrespected him by taking his clothes, but also thanked him for them since without them chances are I would have joined him this night. I left it at that not knowing if he used to pray to any god, and even if I had not known to which one. I picked up my bedroll and other belongings, made a few makeshift torches from the still burning fire, and then waited for it to die down. My pencil wouldn't last forever, and having some charcoal would prove valuable as a means of writing and making a crude map of my surroundings.

My first attempt to escape this hell hole proved utterly futile. I managed to cover very little ground before the weather returned to a nasty snow storm forcing me all the way back the way I came. My situation mildly improved, however, as I managed to strike down a rabbit with a stone on the way. Did I think about taking this animal’s life? Not for a second. Only after I realized what I had done I felt a few moments of remorse, but that quickly dissipated knowing this animal would probably sustain me another day. Spending another one of my few matches I got a fire going again with the firewood I managed to pick up along the way. But overall nothing really changed: If I wanted to survive I would need to relocate soon. Today. It was past midday when I headed back out. Certainty that this time I would have to have more luck started creeping up. My condition wasn't improving. Actually it was deteriorating at an alarming rate, and I gave myself until the next morning before my body would start to give in to exhaustion, sleep deprivation and the constant exposure to the cold.

The next few hours can only be described as the most desperate moments of my life to this day.

Heading straight out of the cave to what I believed must have been south I suddenly heard a growl not 10 meters from me that made me jump almost the same distance. A wolf must have tracked me and in this instant I realized my mistake. The remains of the rabbit I still carried around with me must have attracted him. I knew wolves usually kept away from man, but this one actually didn't seem scared at all, but made an aggressive posture towards me, ready to charge. I pulled the emergency flare from my parka and lit it up, hoping to scare away the wolf, and slowly backing away myself. I didn’t want to bet on hitting a charging wolf with the rifle. The moment I realized the wolf was still inching towards me .... I started to move away from him, the flare facing the animal, first slowly, then walking - and eventually running.

I didn't know what direction I was going, and probably wasn't even heading straight anywhere anymore. I came at a frozen creek, and headed up the slope, out of breath, my flare in hand, and still feeling hunted like prey. I wouldn't stop. I couldn't stop, stumbling over my own feet only to get back up. My heart was pounding in my throat making me feel sick and I was halfway ready to pass out when I saw the opening of another cave. Thinking back at it: If it would have been a cave like the one I found before, and the wolf would have still tracked me, I would have had myself cornered. But it wasn't, and the wolf had given up on me probably half a mile ago. Catching my breath at the entrance and having my only flare lit up in my hand I decided to use it while it was still good and explore the cave.

The cave was a maze, but a breath of fresh air kept coming towards me, revealing that it must have had another exit somewhere, so I pushed forward. Crawling further into the darkness I found another body, in much worse shape than the one I found before. Man or woman I couldn't tell, and frankly I didn't have time for more than a quick look that didn't reveal anything useful to me except the oddity of a frozen cup of coffee that was god knows how old. It probably took me another hour until I reached the other exit of the cave.

The wind was calm when I broke into daylight again, standing on a slope. My flare died almost the moment I stepped out, as if it was saying "I got you this far, but now you are on your own - good luck". I took a quick look at my surroundings and scribbled a few landmarks on a new sheet of paper. I couldn't put this into relation to anything I've noted before, but maybe I would be able to later. I decided to explore the area quickly, and that’s when I saw it: A road, just ahead. A road. A freaking road. Civilization! Coming up on it every direction was as good as any, so I started walking.

Soon I found another body on the roadside. An elderly woman, frozen to death, quite some time ago. What was going on here? What had happened on this island that people where stumbling out into the wild, only to freeze to death? She had an emergency flare on her she must have planned on lighting up. But she never got to it as she must have sat down to rest ... never to get back up again. I decided to push on, and behind the next rock I saw I parked car. You probably cannot understand the relief and excitement I felt, especially upon realizing it was unlocked. And I hope you cannot relate to the desperation that befell me after I got in and realized the car was dead, it’s electronics probably fried in the same way that killed Old Mariposa. I wept in despair, hammering the steering wheel, and it didn't take long for exhaustion of my past adventure to catch up with me and for me to finally pass out.

It was way into the night when I woke up again. And it was freezing cold. I couldn't stay here, as much as I might have wanted to. I quickly surveyed the car for things I could use, and came up with a can of soda and a dusty granola bar that must have been stuck between the seats for years. Close to starvation I flung it down instantly, washing it down with the soda, which was rich with ice crystals. I gathered my things, and for reasons I cannot explain I turned back on the road and followed the screeches of a murder of crows that must have found something of interest. What was I hoping to find? I don't know anymore. But I found it, and it was a ravaged deer carcass that must have died some time ago, lying on a frozen pond next to the road. But approaching it I saw something else not far from here, down a cliff from which someone had left a climbing rope dangling: A house. The cliff was at least 15 feet high, but what did I really have to lose? I was exhausted, hungry, cold, banged up and ready to lie down for good. I took the rope, left what I wouldn't be able to carry down with me, and began my descent.

Upon reaching the ground I started stumbling towards the house, only to realize that the house was a lot of houses. Fueled on hope and excitement I fell over my own feet, tumbling down the slope and spraining my ankle. But that didn't stop me now. When I reached the house I started banging the door, calling out if anyone was home, only to find the door unlocked. Not caring too much about trespassing I entered. Inside I found the house dark and cold, but still so much warmer than the weather outside. I called out a couple of times, my throat sore and my voice sounding strange to myself. When I got no answer I started to find my way through the darkness, only lit by the bit of moonlight shining through the mostly barred windows. Upstairs I found a bed, big, comfortable, warm. I fell asleep before my head touched the pillow. When I woke up it was still dark outside, the wind battering against the windows, me dying of thirst and hunger. I flushed down some cat stalk with the last water I had and passed back into sleep, this time for good.

Day 3

I awoke hungry, but rested and thoroughly refreshed. Before I would survey the house I decided to go downstairs and warm up my frozen cup of coffee at the fireplace. Inside the house the temperature was still slightly below freezing, but nowhere as harsh as outside, and in the bed upstairs it had been actually comfortably warm. My situation had improved tenfold, literally overnight, even if how I got here was but a blur to me. Spending another one of my few matches I got a fire going easily. Books are an incredible tinder, did you know that? I decided to boil half a gallon of water (that’s about 2 liters, my metricated friends) in the cooking pot I found at the fireplace, sat my aching bones down in the rocking chair, and started to write up the events of the last day.

With these lines I have finally caught up with the past three days. Looking back at them what I went through feels surreal and I can hardly grasp how many fortunate circumstances had to align for me to now sit in a fairly warm house, with a stale and bitter but hot cup of coffee in my hand and no immediate threat to my life. I still have to survey the house for supplies and anything useful, but I am sure that who ever lived here left some time ago. The cabinets are dusty, and nothing gives the impression of having been used recently. The place "smells" empty, abandoned. It’s a mouldy nip in air you cannot really describe but have to experience yourself to know what I mean.

Now that my head has time and opportunity to care for something else than the next hour of bleak survival, my mind keeps wandering back to "The Event", as I came to think of The Aurora. There really are only two explanations I can think of for what happened, and either spills disaster on a global scale.

The first, severe, but infinitely better scenario would imply some sort of shift in the planets magnetic field, leaving the planet much more exposed to solar winds. This could have several reasons. Maybe something in Earth’s core shifted, destabilizing the magnetic field, or at least changing it fundamentally. If that is the case, chances are things will return to some sort of normal over time. How much time - days, years, millennia - who knows. The other, much worse, scenario would mean that Earth was hit bit a sudden solar flare. There is evidence that such events have taken place in Earth’s history, and in that case the side of the planet facing the sun could be burned to a crisp for all I know. What I witnessed would have been but a first aftershock of that, with more and worse to come

For certain, in either case, whatever electronics we had would be mostly broken. Fried, much like they would be after an EMP. Also... both scenarios would imply that The Event was globally felt and that civilization and mankind as a whole must be in terrible disarray. I wonder if I am so unlucky to be stuck on this island with probably not many people around. I bet what's left of the world is on the brink of anarchy, facing all sorts of horrors the sudden breakdown of society entails. I do not envy those people. But I have to worry about more immediate things right now. And more personal. Let me finish this cup of coffee (who knows when and if ever I get to have another one), and then let's see what treasures this wonderous manor might hold for me.

---

Treasures indeed. While I found a lot of things I wouldn't have any immediate use for, the useful things I did find will prove invaluable in my struggle to survive. I found an almost complete set of clothes, including a pair of worn down but wearable snow pants, two warm sweaters, another pair of socks and another warm toque. I still have yet to find some gloves or anything, really, to protect my hands against the cold, but again things have improved beyond measure. I also found some canned food in the kitchen, and even more important: matches in the cabinet next to the stove, which appears to be an old model you actually run on firewood. This is a huge step up from cooking things on stones around campfires. What made my heart jump is a fairly well preserved hunting knife I found in the kitchen as well. I even found another one - in rough shape, but good enough as a backup - in the shack next to the house, along with a fairly sharp hatchet. I also found another rifle, leaning in a dark corner next to the fireplace and which I had totally missed before. It is the same .303 caliber as the one I already have, loaded with a lonely bullet. While having half as many rifles as bullets sounds a bit funny to me, it's always good to have a spare around. I just wonder what the previous owner of the rifle intended to do with it. Being loaded with just one bullet there are few things that spring to mind. I guess you can figure it out yourself.

Finally I found a lump of meat in the freezer. Probably rabbit, but it could be almost anything, really, and it doesn’t matter a whole lot right now. I'm not sure how good it'll be, but I'm fairly certain it'll be edible if it's cooked well enough - what is what I am doing right now. Since temperatures have been below freezing in the house there is little way to tell how long it's been there and how long the freezer has been without power. It didn't smell more mouldy than the rest of the house, which might indicate that it's been powered fairly recently... or that it's been really cold in the house for quite some time.

All things considered I am suddenly surprisingly well set up. I have enough food to last me at least two days, probably three, I don't have to worry about freezing to death, and I actually have tools to further improve my situation. Eventually I will have to hunt game for food, but for now scavenging the other houses seems like the best strategy. Maybe I'll even find someone else left living in this godforsaken wasteland. Although ... I don't know if I want to. After all: I am the intruder here.

---

I'm back at the manor after surveying a few houses in the immediate neighborhood. My hope for supplies was mostly disappointed, sadly. One house was barred so tightly there was no way for me to get in there, two others were basically stripped down to the naked walls inside. I tried my luck at the bank across the street, only to find it thoroughly ransacked, but at least I found some candy left back in a storage locker, a nice pack of crackers sitting on a shelf and a pack of herbal tea in a corner of the office. Ironically even the safe I spent my good time of unlocking only held a few bushels of money, worth little more than their value as tinder even if I wasn’t stranded here.

Maybe the most valuable discovery was a prybar still stuck in the frozen fingers of another poor soul that wasn't as lucky as I am, cowering in a corner of the bank. I'm pretty sure it was ransacked long before the recent events, since there was literally not a single dime left outside the safe, and hard currency lost its worth a long time ago. The poor fellow must have been in the same desperate search of anything to get him by another day as I was. I doubt he was from here, and judging by the state of decomposition he was in - or more precisely the lack thereof - I don't think he died too long ago. Maybe a week. Two? Unlikely. How he died I couldn't tell. Possibly from fatigue or starvation, or something in between. But I thanked him kindly for his ear wraps.

Thinking about it, Milton, as I found out this little hamlet is called (at least that's what it says in big letters on the water tower), was probably mostly abandoned years ago, following The Great Collapse. Judging by the fact that the Milton Manor, as I had named my new luxurious home, is in relatively good shape compared to the other houses I've seen, the owner must have stuck around longer than most other folks, possibly even until a few weeks ago. This house is abandoned, yes, but the rest of the place is literally a ghost town. That folks still came looking here meant that someone must be around Great Bear somewhere. But it also meant that they were in trouble if they turned to Milton for supplies.

I've also discovered something else equally worrisome. There are several tracks of animals roaming the streets, maybe a day or two old, and while some are from deer, some are definitely from wolves or similar animals, maybe stray, wild dogs roaming the surroundings. In any case, remembering my last encounter with a wolf I'm not too thrilled to meet more of them. In any case it's time for me to take inventory and get something to eat.

---

I'll try to continue this log tomorrow. Some of the canned food, namely the can of dog food (yes, I ate that) must have gone bad, and I'll have to suffer through the consequences of eating it against better judgement. It smelled funny, but then again: Dog food always does. I took some antibiotics to prevent any further damage to my health, whatever they may be good for, but other than spending the rest of the day in bed and occupying the bathroom, I really can't be asked of anything. I’ll spare you any more details, but suffice it to say I am grateful beyond measure that while there is no running water, at least the sewage still seems to go somewhere. I don’t care where as long as it is just gone.

Good lord, have mercy on my stomach.

---

I woke up in the middle of the night. Still felt awful, but a lot better than before. But that's not why I woke up. The aurora was back, and was lighting up the sky as usual. But not only that: Power was back to the house, if only sketchy and clearly not as it's supposed to be, but lights were flickering and I even heard the compressor of the fridge in the kitchen making strange noises, much like it tried to work, but just lacked the right amount of voltage to do so. I peeked out of the door to even see a car's headlights lit - and forgetting all care and caution rushed out in the delusion that I might be able to start a car. Not only was this hope quickly quenched when the starter made some noise, but was nowhere near powerful enough to start the car (which was, as I found out later, out of fuel anyways), but when I looked up from behind the steering wheel a wolf, standing on the engine hood, looking me straight into the eyes, flashing his teeth, sent a shock down my spine. And there was something odd about him. He was crazed, like... he was suffering from rabies.

There was no way I was getting out of this car with this monstrosity waiting for me out there. I cuddled myself into the seat, thinking about my options or the lack thereof, and again thought strayed towards the mysterious events I was witnessing. Electronics coming to life due to the aurora was, still is and probably will remain forever beyond my understanding of physics. That they would break, yes, but that they would actually work again? And the wolves. Wolves hardly ever dare coming near humans. Now this was the second incident of a wolf actively hunting me. Not even in a pack, but alone, unprovoked, as if the aurora or whatever was causing it would alter their behaviour to desperately aggressive predators. Whatever happened was still going on, to some extend at least, and it was beyond me to explain it. I must have fallen asleep at some point, and when I woke up the aurora was gone - and so was the wolf. I quietly snuck back into the house, still shook by the nightly scare.

Right now I'm sitting in the kitchen hugging a cup of tea and nibbling on a stale bar of chocolate. I hope that this will calm my nerves without upsetting my stomach even more. I'm waiting for some water to boil, and then will return to bed. Stockpiling water seems like a good idea, especially since I plan on taking a bath one fine day, and using as many pots and cans possible to use the limited amount of fuel I have to heat the stove feels like the best way to do it.

But something strange has happened to the world - is happening to the world. And it scares the living hell out of me.

Day 4

I got up early, still groggy on my feet. My nightly scare and my unfortunate eating accident left me somewhat weakened, and I plan to spend the day mostly inside. The howling wind outside doesn't sound too inviting either, and since the day is barely dawning, after eating some cold tomato soup for breakfast I decided to tear down curtains and towels in the house and try to improve my clothing with one of the sewing kits I found.

---

I'm not a born tailor, that much is for sure, but I'm good enough to mend my clothes that they will fulfill their primary function: keeping me warm. Good looks and impeccable style are luxuries I cannot afford, and maybe looking like the homeless cousin of Sasquatch will scare away a wolf or two.

I'm also facing two problems. The first being somewhat a fortunate one since I accumulated so much gear over the past few days that I cannot just keep on carrying around whatever I have with me at all times, but need to select what I take with me, and what I leave behind. This also upgrades the status of the Milton Manor from "shelter" to "official base of operations". The second one being more of a grim nature: I have enough food for today, and probably to scrape by tomorrow, but I am far from being as sustained as I would like to be. Considering I might get more seriously sick or even hurt, I figure I should stockpile enough food to last at least a week. So... as much as I would like to hide inside and let the apocalypse take its course without me attending it, I need to continue scavenging the town for food. But actually being able to worry about the next day or the day after that is a luxury in and of itself I should be thankful for.

The weather outside still sounds daunting, but it's around noon, so it should be as warm as it’s going to get today, and the day looks snowy, but bright. Considering my encounter last night taking the rifle with me sounds like a good idea. Into the fray then!

---

Another barred house, but then one that actually yielded some notable supplies - along with a can opener. You would never believe what a marvelous invention a can opener will look like to be unless you are in dire need of it. No more dulling my precious hunting knives while almost chopping off random body parts by accident. And well, yeah: More dog food, really? Two cans, one of which I ate on the spot. While among the most vile stuff a person could imagine to eat, it's actually filling and probably sustaining me better than a pack of crackers would. It's not even been a week, but being picky about how to get by got thrown out pretty damn quick.

The more important occurrence was an encounter with another wolf. Or maybe the wolf from last night, I don’t know. They don’t wear any name tags. Thinking about it I hope it was the the same one since this means there is only the one roaming the streets of Milton.

Or was.

This time I got the drop on it. Lured it into place with some half rotten meat I found at the house (Rabbit? Deer? Unicorn? No idea.) and then sent it to Valhalla with a leaded goodbye between the eyes. Crows stirred up in disarray as the shot was echoing back from the mountains. It's been years since I shot a rifle, and I was happy not to waste one of my four bullets. But if someone was listening he or she would know there's a new sheriff in town.

Now my late friend is cooking on the stove in front of me. Cutting up an animal this size is a vile, bloody and frankly disgusting task. But considering my food situation having some wolf meat to fall back to is infinitely preferable to starvation. I'm not entirely sure how safe eating wolf actually is since, being predators, it's likely they are infested with parasites. But I'll try my luck eating limited amounts of extremely-well-done wolf for a bit.

As for the pelt it might actually make for decently warm if grim looking clothing eventually. I'll leave it hanging in the kitchen for a few days to cure the leather, and then I'll see what I can do with it. Same goes for the guts, which I hope to use as some sort of stone age strings. I still have that rabbit carcass lying around, which I will dress up the same way. Depending on when and if I actually get the chance to rejoin civilization I will have to think about how to live off the land as effectively as I can.

Which brings me to another problem I'm facing. Having a rifle is great. But being down to three bullets again I'm not sure how long it's going to be any good to me. I cannot really rely on finding more ammunition, and I lack the raw materials, the tools and the skills to make more of it. Resorting to something more survivalist like a hunting bow might be my only alternative to seeking melee with wolves. My hatchet will make for a decent weapon, so will the prybar, but I'd be naive to expect coming out of such a confrontation unscathed. This means that my selection of clothes shouldn't only reflect how good they protect me from the elements, but actually how suited they are helping me to survive a wrestling match with predators. In any case: I don't think I can sneak up on a deer close enough to bring it down with a hatchet, and I don't delude myself into thinking I would be anywhere fast enough winning a race with one. So at least for those I will need some sort of ranged weapon. Knocking out deer with stones as it worked with the rabbit is a bit optimistic for my taste, so I guess I should look into the bow-approach.

---

I had decided to use the remaining daylight for a little stroll collecting firewood. Running the stove exhausted most of what I had stockpiled before. Up on the hill I noticed an old radio tower. Was it there before? I'm not even sure, but then again.... those things don't just drop out of the sky unless some very fundamental laws of physics have changed as well. I went up the hill, planning to examine it. Up there there's a small frozen pond that provided me with some more cat stalk. This stuff really is barely edible, but will probably keep forever, so I decided to keep it as my emergency stock. Also it is light and I can probably keep enough on me to make it through a day or two, so having more of it never hurts. Somebody else liking cat stalk are rabbits, apparently. At least I found several of them and manage to strike two of them down with my flawless stone hauling technique. Alright. It was more like scattering them into the blue and hitting two rabbits by accident - but in the end I've got them, which means I will have a lush meal tonight.

At the radio tower I found a makeshift cache that looked like it had been used recently. It was empty, except for another hunting knife, which I gladly took, but someone apparently had been stockpiling supplies here before. The tower itself appeared dead, no power running, of course. Not far away I found a small, windy cave, in which someone had left a backpack and a rifle. The backpack contained a heavily ragged down vest and some fingerless driving gloves. Not optimal, but finally something to cover my hands. The rifle looked fairly banged up itself, but was actually loaded with a full clip of ammunition, raising my count to eight again. Considering everything was covered in snow and ash, I figured this stuff must have been sitting here for months or even years. I'm not even sure the rifle would still fire, but I took it anyways, and be it for spare parts.

I took my time dressing up the rabbits, and now I've got them cooking on the stove, rabbit pelts dangling from the furniture. This more and more turns into a prehistoric cave, both by the looks and smell of it. Oh, right: Wolf actually isn't that bad, to be honest. A bit of salt and pepper, a huge deal of imagining it to be a proper steak, and it is actually among the more tasty things I've eaten since my arrival on Great Bear. Having had an overall pleasant day I guess I should use tomorrow to continue scavenging the town. I'm well fed, I feel strong and well, and I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep.

Day 5

I got up way too early, a good two hours before dawn. No aurora tonight, apparently. I used the time to prepare some of the rose hips I collected over the past few days to make tea with them, same with the reishi mushrooms. Both should prove useful due to their medicinal value. Rose hips are known for centuries to ease pain and lower fevers (and make a mean itching powder), and reishis are supposed to have antibiotic properties, or so I've read. I also started to collect some old man's beard lichen, which I hope will prove valuable as wound dressing - not that I hope to have too much opportunity to find out anytime soon. But all things considered I have to expect illness and injury, and need to be prepared in advance. That's why I started to put together a checklist of items I plan on bringing every time I leave the house. I cannot be prepared for everything, but I should at least prepare for surviving a wolf attack or getting lost in a snowstorm and having to survive a day away from home. After doing these chores I got into bed for another hour, and woke up to a bright and mostly calm day outside.

Right now I've finished the remaining rabbit from yesterday and I seriously crave for a cup of coffee. Maybe I'll have more luck today. I’m hopeful.

---

Oh yes, I got lucky. It's already evening now I am writing this, but I was determined to take advantage of the more than favorable weather while it lasted. Today was the by far most successful pillage I had until now. I'm not going to list every single item I ransacked since it would probably fill the remainder of this notebook. Suffice it to say I've got enough canned food and snacks to last me a week, which is what I aimed for, and I've hauled so much clothes and cloth back to the manor I probably won't run out of it in months. I even found a pack of antibiotics in one of the houses, alongside some disinfectant solution, so even my foreseeable immediate medical needs should be taken care of for now.

I should be celebrating. But I don't feel like it. At all.

The disaster that befell Milton predates The Event by months or even years. This isn't a ghost town. It's a graveyard. And I'm desecrating it for a living. I found three more bodies in different states of decomposition today. One guy that died in his bed, a long, long time ago, probably of natural causes, and nobody ever came checking on him. Another one that must have frozen to death or starved in the old post office, maybe a few weeks ago. More evidence of people visiting Milton, because by now I am fairly sure that nobody actually lived here for months and years, the only exception being my current home.

The third body I found was at the ruins of what must have been the school a long time ago. There she lay, only bones and patches of hair in a dress. A girl, maybe ten years old. Left here to decompose, so long ago, nobody to bury her, left for the crows to feast on her body. How and why she died I don't know, and frankly it doesn't make a difference. A life cut short in this way is a tragedy beyond words no matter the reasons.

I almost startled myself when I heard myself weeping in sorrow over this child, sinking to my knees. I didn't know her, and she was long gone before I even set foot on this god forsaken island. But it was the proverbial straw that broke my back. I felt sorry for her as much as for myself, being flung back into the harsh reality that everything surrounding me was dead, dying or death itself, and my situation as hopeless as this little girl must have felt in her last moments. Maybe a wolf got her, maybe she starved, looking for something to eat at a place she used to be fond of, maybe she froze to death after she fell playing in the ruins. I don't know, but in many ways the way she died is how I probably will meet my maker as well: Alone, in the cold, with nobody to care, and noone to bury me.

I started digging in the snow with my hands, until I reached the ground that was frozen solid, but I kept digging, ruining the wool mittens I found this morning, until my hands were aching in the cold, painting the snow in a glowing, bloody red. I buried her, as well as I could, and with her I buried a good bit of hope and all the euphoria I felt only hours ago. I whispered a few words of comfort and asked her for forgiveness. For me, for her parents, for a world that had forgotten her. The way home I kept hearing footsteps behind me, only to see that nobody was there when I turned around. The weather had turned on me without noticing it, drowning me in thick, wet fog. What was a beautiful oasis of hope just three days ago had turned into a haunted abyss.

I've scraped together enough composure to eat and mend some clothes. But there is an onset of paranoia following me around the house. The wind isn't just banging up the windows, it's knocking at the door. Trying to dress up another rabbit I caught all I could see was blood and bones, until I threw it out of the door, well onto the street. I heard a wolf in the far distance, howling at the dim and gloomy moon rising above the mountain. Fog was rolling down the slopes into town, and the cold was sharpening its teeth once again.

My belly is full, every thirst I had has been quenched, I'm safe from every foreseeable danger and I'm ready to fall asleep in a warm bed. But I'm afraid I won't find peace tonight.

---

I woke up, in the middle of the night, thinking I was going insane, shaking as if a ghost had touched my face. Music. I was hearing music. The aurora was back, lights were flickering all around me. The air was thick with static and the windows were glowing in green and blue. And I could have sworn I heard someone banging at the door.

Rifle in hand, wearing the few clothes I had on me, shivering in the cold I crouched down the stairs. Music. I laughed, more giggled in silence, to myself. I don't know why, and I felt like I was going mad. Maybe the girl had come to haunt me, maybe this entire town was actually cursed, maybe had I lost it completely. Music. A shade in the corner behind the fireplace. I called out. "I'm armed. Come out. I'm armed." Nothing moved, nobody answered. Music kept playing. I kept crouching down the stairs and stumbled over my bare feet. I fell and hurt my ankle. The shade in the corner came at me. Or did it? I grabbed my rifle, shaking, hardly aiming and thinking even less ... I fired.

The recoil punched me in the chest, I sat my backside down on the stairs seeing stars, and my ears were screeching and ringing from the shot. The shade in the corner fell, crashing to the ground. Bells rang. Music! I screamed. I just screamed. All I did was scream until I ran out of air to scream with, my body stiff with panic.

I don't know how long I took to find some composure. Seconds, minutes, half an hour, I don't recall. The room was silent except for some piece of piano music that kept playing along as if nothing had happened, and lights flickering and buzzing randomly all around me. I was freezing in cold sweat, which made it even harder to catch my breath. Somehow I managed to light the torch I brought despite my shaking hands and started to look around.

The old grandfather clock that probably hadn't worked since forever lay broken on the floor, a bullet hole in the side. I shot the clock. The shade in the corner. The clock. Good gracious.

But there was still music coming from behind me. I hadn’t imagined that. I turned around. In the corner next to the staircase there was the radio standing on a table. I hadn't given it much thought until now, since, like everything else, it was dead. Well, it wasn't dead now. It worked. And it played music.

Certainty that I freaked at a long case clock in a dark corner and at a radio playing music started sinking in and my pulse started to calm. I felt ashamed and utterly ridiculous. I checked the kitchen, I checked upstairs. Nothing. But when I peeked out of the door, there I saw it.

The rifle slipped out of my fingers, jaw locked wide open.

The sky was on fire in all colors of the spectrum, far more brighter and intense than the night I crashed on Great Bear. The moon was glowing behind it, seeming unnaturally big and bright. Crows were screeching in hefty unrest, and far away I heard what sounded like entire packs of wolves howling, coming together like a crescendo of dying angels weeping for their children. Again tears stood into my eyes and I could not but wonder and gaze in despair at the breathtaking yet terrifying beauty of what was happening to the world. I stood there, in the open door, half naked, freezing, watching my cold breath glow in the aurora in front of my eyes.

Feeling this is the end of the world. And I was its herald.

I had finally arrived on Great Bear Island.

Hotzn · July 27, 2018

Good writing, +1.

For my personal taste only, the story seems a bit elaborate - I come here for a mix of gaming insight, humour (somewhere between witty and dry, or both) and easy reading, not really intricate story or personal background of the avatar. So I prefer survival stories short and crisp. I also really like it when the occasional screenshot visualizes what is going on and breaks up the monotony of text walls, I think that goes for many readers. So I would advise to insert a screenshot here and there.

ThePancakeLady · July 27, 2018

I thoroughly enjoyed the read. My imagination painted the images, being familiar with the game, the maps, the situations you told about.
Honestly, I am glad you did not include screenshots. It would have taken that imagination and internal visualization away. And that has always been one of the best things about a good read, for me. The cinema my mind creates to go with the words. You seem to have a wonderful experience when you play the game, the roleplaying is exceptional here.

Wonderful writing. I look forward to reading more work by you, if you choose to share it.

romerabr · July 27, 2018

Great story. Please, keep flowing...

Mixxut · July 27, 2018

1 hour ago, romerabr said:

Great story. Please, keep flowing...

I have nothing to add here. Great story. Hopefully we get more

July 27, 2018

Thank you everyone for your kind reception :-)

Chapter 2 is done and ready, Chapter 3 is done play-through-wise, but needs additional touches. I didn't want to release a big drawn up story just to get facewrecked by a random bear half way through the 2nd chapter and end on a "well, that sucked, kkthxbye" note.

I'll release those Chapters each Friday as long as I can keep up the pace - and as long as our surviving friend keeps going.

August 3, 2018

Chapter 2: Acceptance

Day 6

Wouldn't I've been used to being exposed to the cold by now, I probably would have contracted some sort of affliction standing in the door wide open. I probably stood there for about an hour, until my torch burned up, trembling. And if I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn the ground beneath my feet was trembling as well, but that was probably just my knees starting to weaken under all the pressure. It was close to morning, and I don't know what I expected to see, but mere moments before a perfectly normal sun rose behind the distant mountains the radio stopped playing, and the aurora... just vanished.

Naturally I couldn't get back to sleep. The house had cooled to below freezing, which was a terrible waste of warmth, and the moment I got back in I realized that I was about to become hypothermic. I lit a fire in the kitchen, which had become my favorite room in the house, and put on some of the coffee I scavenged yesterday. Waiting for the coffee to boil I sat down at the kitchen table, and after some consideration fiddled a pack of cigarettes out of my backpack - another conquest from yesterday. Still shaking, and still terribly inadequately clothed, I lit my first cigarette in years, and tried to wrap my head around what had just happened.

And truth be told: I still do. The coffee is done by now, and I'm at my third cigarette. I have to say they taste like a mild blend of garbage, burned tires and excrement of unknown feral origin, but also admit that they calm my nerves. I quit smoking back when The Great Collapse hit, as such habits became almost impossible to afford. I had tried for years, and the sheer necessity gave me the final nudge I needed.

I’ve set up some water, which is about ready, and actually plan on taking that bath I mentioned. It’s high time, since I feel like I smell like a “Great Bear” by now, and after the last night I need something normal and utterly civilized in my day.

---

Lying in the relatively hot water I had time to recapitulate.

Something came apart my head yesterday. Finding that girl unraveled the illusion I was doing fine here. I mean, considering, I am. But really, I am not. I don’t know if that makes any sense to you, but to me it does.

There is more to health and survival than just food and shelter. There is more to a human being than a functioning, working body. There is the mind, the soul, the spirit, whatever you want to call it, the miracle that makes us more than just the mere sum of our parts, that has to be taken care of as well, and that, just like the body, can only endure so much strain and suffer so much stress before it breaks. And the incident yesterday had shown me that mine was in worse shape than I had anticipated, than I had been admitting to myself. Deluding myself into believing I could go on here forever and that I was doing fine didn’t help. I had to face the facts, head on:

I’m screwed. Not without any hope, but for hope to work you need a point on the horizon you can go for, and a plan how to get there.

Every day I would spend in this place was playing for time at best, wasting it at worst. I didn’t know how long I could take it being surrounded by death and decay, and frankly: Everyone in this town either died or left. What was giving me the impression I would fare differently, eventually? If there was any hope of getting back to whatever was left of civilization, it wasn’t here.

Also, even if there was no getting back anytime soon or even ever, living here was hardly sustainable in the long run. I don’t know anything about farming, and even if I did, the harsh weather didn’t really invite farming anyways, not until winter ended at least, which was at least a month away. Hunting game would become problematic once I ran out of ammunition, which, counting now seven rounds, was a very realistic prospect.

I got out of the bathtub, put my clothes on and went down to the kitchen. There I took out the map of Great Bear I had been carrying in my backpack since the day I arrived and laid it out on the table. I could make out were Milton was, so I had a fairly good point of reference. I suspected the patch of land where I touched down must have been the Hushed River Valley, an unpopulated wilderness north of Milton. The road Milton was located at should lead to Pleasant Valley, and eventually to the Coastal Highway. Which direction was hard to make out from the map, but I figured the best place for me to be would be at the sea. And I had pretty good reasons for this assumption.

If anybody would ever search for anyone on Great Bear, they would probably be an expedition of several people, which made them likely coming by ship, and they would very likely use roads to traverse the island instead of scraping through the wilderness. Chances that this would happen were slim to none, but the chance existed. While they wouldn’t be coming for me, the very reason I am here was proof enough that someone was still around somewhere. Also if there was any lifestyle that appeared sustainable to me, it was fishing. It would probably take decades until I ran out of things to make fishing tackles with, and fish were easy prey that didn’t fight back and rich in calories and other things the body needs. So the best place to be on the island was near a big road at the sea.

So I had my point on the horizon. The Coastal Highway it was.

As for a plan how to get there I would take what I need, then take what I wanted, and then take everything else I could carry and leave Milton behind, first trying the road up north, and if that proved unfruitful, down south. Either of them would have to lead somewhere eventually.

By now I have somewhat cleaned up the mess I made last night. The clock is even more ruined than it was before, but it is standing again. Sort of, kinda. I’ll be hobbling a day or two having sprained my ankle, but that’s nothing that won’t fix itself in time.

I’ve decided that I will spend the next few days continuing scouting the surroundings for supplies. I think I spotted something that looks like a farm from up here yesterday, so I guess that’s at least worth a look. But be that as it may, after that I plan to be on my way.

Ah right, about the radio, which is again resting powerless and silent in the corner on its table. It is tuned to some AM radio frequency, which means that whatever I picked up last night could have originated next door or halfway around the globe - no way to tell. At least there still is someone around somewhere, but there is no way for me to know if they still have power, or just as long as the aurora is out, like me. Thinking about it: it could even be some automated radio broadcast for all I know. In fact all I know is how little I do know.

I still feel a bit silly about last night. Having shot one of my valuable bullets into the dark is more than just unfortunate, but something I cannot change - as much as I can’t change what is happening to the world. A famous prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr, a theologian of the 20th century, goes something like this: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

I’ve never been a church goer. I haven’t even visited one for almost a decade, not even on Christmas. I’ve always considered myself the laziest possible flavor of christian. The kind that didn’t live by the bible or anything religious, really, but merely by the basic christian concepts of charity and compassion, right and wrong, good and evil. But now that charity and compassion are luxuries I cannot afford, right and wrong have become blurry inbetweens, and good and evil have lost their meaning in a world that divides mankind into the living and the dying, it’s almost funny that I’ve begun to hope for the presence of something divine holding a hand over me. I guess it is true that, when in need, every person craves the touch of god, in some shape or form. I know I do. And if this thinking keeps me help my sanity, then it cannot be a bad thing.

Still, even while not being able to change anything about it, the strange things surrounding The Event, that is apparently very much ongoing, keep me troubled and guessing. By now I am a one hundred percent certain that it is a global catastrophe that has taken hold of the world, and I can only guess what is going on in whatever is left of it.

Anyways. Weather outside seems good enough despite being a bit foggy. I’ll try and see what’s about that farmstead I either saw or imagined.

---

Well I didn’t imagine it. It’s a farmstead alright, just down the small side road leading out of town. I spotted a herd of deer making a living from what they found on the frozen fields that haven’t been tilled and farmed for at least a season, but probably more by the looks of it. I thought about hunting me some fresh venison, but decided against it considering my rather scarce supply of ammunition. Mere moments later I got to use some anyways.

Coming up on the farm house I encountered another wolf, this time hunting for some small game, and much too busy at that to notice me. I decided not to take any more chances with these buddies and took aim… and missed. Goddammit. The wolf took off like a scared dog, but it didn’t take it long to realize that it was very much fine and I very much still where I was. With it now coming towards me at increasing speed I had to make this one count.

And I did.

After a quick sweep of the immediate environment I quickly dressed up the wolf. More fried wolf for dinner, I guess. It hasn’t done me any harm so far, and I could always use more calories to go by.

At the farmhouse I was greeted by something I had quickly forgotten existed: A locked door. A sudden rush of excitement stirred up inside me. Could someone be actually living here? Knocking at the door and windows yielded no response, but with the windows stained with dust and ice I couldn’t make out if the house inside was abandoned or not. I sat down on the bench on the porch considering my options. If someone was still living here knocking down the door was a bad way to make friends. However if not I would be a fool for leaving valuable supplies behind, especially considering the place hadn't been ransacked, yet. Then it struck me. This was still Canada, so I’d be damned if there wasn’t a spare key lying around somewhere.

The doormat? Fail. The shed behind the house? Lots of wood, no keys. The pickup in the car port didn’t yield anything as well. But the tractor did. Under the seat, thoroughly hidden, I felt a key, and after some fiddling I got it out from under there. I wasn’t sure if it was actually the key to the farmhouse, but as it didn’t fit into the tractors ignition I had high hopes - which wouldn’t be in vain.

I was excited when the key slid into the lock, and even more when it clicked once, twice and finally unlocked the door. But said excitement was quickly smothered when the same mouldy stench of stale air, abandonment and decay I had come to know much too well these past days breathed out of the door. Who ever lived here was gone for some time. The owners had just bothered to lock the door upon leaving, possibly planning to return, but never making it back for any reason imaginable.

I doubt the farm was abandoned right away along with the rest of the town, but much longer ago than my current home. I quickly fell into my by now well practiced ransacking routine, grabbing everything I deemed useful, of which there was plenty, as expected: food, supplies, clothing and ammunition. Four rounds pretty much balanced out my previous blunder with the wolf and also my nightly clock shooting, bringing me to an all time high of nine shots in my beloved rifle. I also had found a set of tools and a hacksaw in the old machine shag, laid out on the workbench. Having a proper place to craft weapons and clothing might allow me to better prepare for my journey, so I am actually considering putting off my voyage an additional day or two.

Right now the wolf is cooking on the stove which is pretty much the same model I have at my house. It’s funny to think how the detriment of having a cooker that still runs on something as medieval as firewood would turn into an invaluable advantage. I guess there is some truth to the thought that simplicity prevails in the end, albeit The End, as it seems. I will make a second sweep of the house and the surroundings, and spend the night here as it is already pretty late in the afternoon, the house is fairly warm from all the cooking by now, and the bed looks very comfortable.

---

My “quick sweep” took longer than anticipated. I found a freshly ravaged deer carcass that the wolf I killed (and cooked) earlier must have gotten. Now they are reunited as food for me. What a love story. I also chopped off a birch sapling which I hope will make for decent material for arrows eventually. I have collected a few of them by now, so I should really get the entire bow idea going. But what’s more worthy of mention, is that there is a huge frozen lake area down a cliff not far from the house. It’s a very steep descent, but someone must have tried and possibly even made it before, since there is a mountaineering rope dangling down all the way to the ground. But I don’t feel too compelled to get down there to be honest.

But enough for today. It’s way into the night, my torch is dying on me by the minute and I really have to catch up on some sleep.

Day 7

Forgive me if this is hard to read, but I am still shaking all over. No, not from the cold. But let’s go one by one.

When I got up this morning the world had submerged in snow overnight, following a snowstorm of epic proportions that must have raged from shortly after I got to bed, and it was still ongoing, although slowly subsiding. Going out in this kind of weather is one of the more reliable ways to get you killed out here, so I sat down at the kitchen table and spent the time with chores like preparing rose hips and mushrooms for tea, thinking about how to proceed from here.

I must admit there was a temptation to quit my plans from yesterday and move in here at the farm house. The house is warm and in good shape, I even have a workbench nearby, and there is ample opportunity to hunt with deer frequently in the area, mostly due to the fact that they found a liking to what they are able to scrape off of the fields - which isn’t much, but probably more than they find out in the woods - and the fluffle of rabbits that inhabits the ground for the same reason. If I managed to spend my ammunition well and dial down on calorie intake I could probably wait out winter, assuming it ever ended.

Prompted by an unexpected discovery I also got thinking about another aspect. The face of the woman in most of the pictures hanging in the office seemed utterly familiar to me, but I couldn’t place her - until it hit me this morning. The elderly woman I found frozen on the roadside the day of my arrival in Milton. She really hadn’t made it very far assuming she started from here.

So Milton is but an afterimage of all those people’s desperate attempts to fulfill the same type of quest I have set my mind to so thoroughly - and I think it’s safe to say that many if not most - or even all ? - of them found their demise on the road. Who’s to say that there even is a better place to be than right here and a better time coming than right now? What if this is it, either until things get in order again, or until things come to an end one way or another? Were the promises of venturing out into the unknown real? And even if so - were they worth the risk?

But no. I won’t go quietly into that good night. I would rather bet my last imaginary dollars on making it to the shoreline than facing certain albeit slow and comfortable death here in the town of lost hope. I’ll might extend my stay a bit to take advantage of ways I can prepare for out there, but Milton and I will be parting ways eventually. We have to. It's like one of those relationships you know you have to end if you want to make it out alive, just not how, yet.

So once the storm subsided, which must have been around 10 or 11 (time really becomes a very fluid concept once you have no way to measure it) I packed what I could carry and went. I planned on returning to the house later to get the other things worth taking.

About that: There’s a kind of priority list emerging of which supplies I am willing to take long walks for, and which I leave behind. Water is one of the latter. As long as I can find it in unlimited supply literally lying around, I don’t see the point in carrying it from one place to the next by the gallons. Firewood is the other one I tend to leave behind. There is no immediate shortage of that in my current situation, and ample opportunity all around me to easily restock once I run out. I don’t need it to avoid freezing to death as long as I have well insulated shelter nearby, so even going without firewood for a day or two is a possibility that doesn’t induce any worries. Everything else, however, is precious. Everything else is either in limited supply already, or eventually will be, especially ammunition. Tools and clothing are important too, but also food. While the other items on this list will be good sitting somewhere for a prolonged period of time or even indefinitely, food will go bad eventually, some of it rather quick. So the first things I tend to secure are whatever helps to keep me safe, and whatever has calories in it.

So that’s pretty much what I packed this morning. Food, cloth and clothing, the two knives I found in the kitchen drawer, the tools, the hacksaw, the saplings I chopped and the hides I gathered. If I will be back for the firewood and tinder (that woman had a library lying around) I honestly don’t know.

I made my way back up the road, and I already could see my house when I was alarmed by the barking of a wolf. I hid behind a car and saw it hunting after a rabbit, right there on the street. But to add to my predicament the wolf wasn’t alone, but alongside three other of its brethren. So what I did was hide behind the car and waited. And waited.

And waited until I felt it safe to sneak towards my house. I was almost there, almost at the porch when I heard quickly approaching footsteps behind me. No time to draw my rifle I grabbed my hatchet instinctively and then it was already on me. What entailed was a desperate, uncoordinated struggle for bleak survival, slashing my hatchet at the wolf with one hand, trying to keep him at bay with the other hand, my feet and anything else at my bodily disposal. While all of this lasted mere seconds, I can remember it as vividly and everlasting as my prom night.

I must have hit the wolf at least once, probably more often, because eventually it let me go, and I could both see and smell blood on my hatchet. Still not entirely sure whose blood it actually was, and coughing from exhausting and inhaling saliva I stumbled towards the porch, almost falling into the house. The wolf had mauled my already aching left foot, but my boot had taken the brunt of that. Even after taking a few painkillers walking would continue to be quite a pain, but to be honest I got lucky way more than I deserved.

So here I am - back at the kitchen table, back to smoking a cigarette, and gruesomely reminded that the world outside, despite its calm and beauty, is my fierce and cunning adversary. And it will show me no mercy.

No mercy whatsoever.

---

After an hour organizing my plentiful supplies into several kitchen cabinets while hearing the wolves howling and growling outside I was thoroughly annoyed by them. Having them running around in my front yard, in my town, was something I couldn’t accept. I also realized that if I was to take the road up north I would have to either get past or through them eventually.

Through them, then.

I lit another cigarette, and cigarette in mouth I grabbed my rifle and some of the guts I had lying around curing from dressing up animals before. I stepped out and took posture on the porch. If things went south I could always retreat into the house.

I flung the guts across the street. It didn’t take the wolves long to notice the smell, making them investigate, so I took aim at the closest one and fired. Bullseye! The wolf collapsed immediately, another wolf took off into the wild. The two other wolves froze, either scared, confused or still way too interested in what they had found miraculously dropping onto the street. I took aim again and hit another wolf, but this time not well enough to kill it on the spot. While it limped away in agony, the last remaining one grabbed the guts and took off. It took me too long to aim again to make the shot a well enough prospect to actually take it, and I didn’t want to waste ammunition on an already dying animal. Forgive me if this seems cruel, but my struggle for survival had just become a full on war on the local wolf pack, so every shot would have to count.

Being proud as a god for having stood my ground, I crushed the cigarette butt under my boot and yelled a loud “Go screw yourselves!” which echoed from the mountains several times, filling the area with evidence of my victory. After all, it was a good day to be alive.

I roamed the streets for a bit, wearing my new found confidence like a badge, looking for more wolves and sticking my head into a few spots I haven’t before, finding a few snacks in a car’s trunk and another pry bar in the back of a pickup truck. Sun was setting when I reached the other end of town, and possibly the last house I haven’t scavenged yet. I decided to call it a day and come back tomorrow, heading home.

Celebrating my successful day and also my one week anniversary of living on Great Bear I snuck into bed with a bar of chocolate and a soda. Probably not the best if I planned to preserve dental health, but arguably highly effective in terms of preserving mental health.

So I end the day that started so dramatic on a major chord. I just heard the howls of a few wolves, but in the far distant instead of in the immediate neighborhood. I guess I will have peace for a day or two, which is another thing to celebrate.

This also concludes the end of this notebook as I am about to run out of pages, something I couldn’t have imagined just a few days ago. I will continue to use a mostly empty ledger I found at the bank, which should allow me write down a good bit more this time. Maybe I will be lucky enough to fill even this one. I haven’t changed my mind about leaving Milton eventually, but right now, this moment in time, it’s a great place to be, and all things considered: tonight it’s great to be me.

Day 8

I woke up from the lights humming in the hallway. The aurora was back yet again, and the air was thick with static as I had come to know it these nights. Whatever happened two nights ago, it made me at ease with this new normal. Thoroughly annoyed but not worried I got up, drank some water and put on some clothes. A quick glimpse out of the windows revealed the sky looking like a rainbow put through a mixer, just as I expected.

It was still well into the night, and frankly, I didn’t feel like doing much of anything. But I still used the time the lights were on to patch some holes in my clothes yesterday’s encounter with the wolf had ripped into them while drinking some tea. Mending clothes had become a relaxing pastime activity for me, probable because it was neither physically taxing, nor did require much attention.

That’s when a sudden tremor caught me.

Needle and string in hand I froze, holding my breath, trying to point my senses outwards. Had the ground just .... shaken? I got up, carefully, approaching the window. I could hear crows in unrest screeching outside, see the aurora pulsating in a calm but forceful rhythm.

There it was again.

This time I could feel the tremor more heavily, and the pots rattled on the stove in concert. I dropped to my knees and quickly crawled under the table next to the windows, stuttering a never ending series of “no, no, no, no, no”, when everything stopped the moment I had grabbed a leg of the table to hold on to. I held my breath and listened again. For minutes. Nothing moved, nothing happened. I got up from under the table, slowly, already contemplating what had just happened when a short but immense tremor knocked me off my feet like a punch and sent me crashing to the ground, dragging down a chair with me. All of this was accompanied by a shock that sounded almost like a detonation and felt utterly nearby, making the windows clang so heavily I expected them to burst in a flurry of shards of broken glass. But luckily they did not.

I didn’t dare to stand back up for what must have been an hour, cowering under the kitchen table, and when I found the courage to stand up again, the aurora had gone and the new day was about to dawn. Dripping in cold sweat I sat down in the rocking chair in the living room and tried to put two and two together, still distraught with the sudden quickening of events.

I still do. I still am.

I’m afraid that something massive is at play here. It can’t be a coincidence that the earth would quake for the second time the aurora was out, because now I am sure I hadn’t imagined it two nights ago, but that the ground had been actually shaking, if only ever so slightly. I know I would probably not see the aurora if it was out there during the day, but since it came with a certain feeling of static, not to mention otherwise dead electronics going wild, I think it really is only there during the night. But why?

That the sun would only act out when the other side of the planet is facing it seems strange to me. The first few times all this could have been attributed to coincidence, yes, but by now there is an emerging pattern that makes me wonder if the sun really is the problem, or if not actually the earth has taken a sudden turn for the worse itself. And now earthquakes.

Maybe seismic activity way, way below was actually the reason for all of this. I mean, I’m way into the realm of fast and loose speculation here, but if indeed Earth’s core suddenly shifted I could be sitting on top of the new magnetic north pole for all I know. Changing the planet’s magnetic field in such a dramatic way would explain most of what I am witnessing. I think. I actually don’t know if there was an earthquake before I crash landed on Great Bear. If there was, this could have been but an aftershock. Then again until now I haven’t seen evidence of an earthquake, so if there wasn’t, this admittedly rather mild quake could very well be the precursor to something … cataclysmic.

So if the core would actually still be shifting, the poles moving around at a rapid pace, this could actually tie the aurora and the quakes together. Somehow, I guess. But it still does not explain why all of this apparently only happens at night. Oh man, I guess I’m really out of my league here. But in any case: It’s not like I or anyone, really, could do anything about it. I mean I really want to know what is going on, but I am not sure if should want to know.

---

I must have fallen asleep in the chair, and when I woke up again, it was already way past sunrise, even if there wasn’t much to be seen of the sun itself in the foggy mist that made up the world. Following yesterday’s victory I was keen on seeing if the streets of Milton were still safe, and if the small earthquake had left any traces behind. After a quick breakfast I got going with light exploration equipment.

And yes, indeed the streets were quiet and there were no tracks of wolves or any animal for that matter to be found in the snow that must have fallen earlier this night. But while there clearly was fresh snow all over the place, some of the roofs were completely devoid of it, with small heaps of snow beside those houses. So the earthquake had had an effect on Milton, and so the last remnants of suspicion I might have imagined it vanished, but nothing else seemed out of order.

I decided to return to the house I had finished my round at yesterday and found a whole lot of nothing except tons of curtains to tear down and an old flashlight. I wonder if it might actually still work when the aurora is out.

Feeling adventurous I decided to give the small hut on the hill behind the frozen pond a closer look. Coming up on it the resounding howls of at least three different individual wolves reminded me that while I had won The Battle at the Porch the Milton Wolf Wars were still very much a thing. From up here I had a pretty good view of the town and the immediate area surrounding it. The howls had come from a structure south of Milton, but I couldn’t make out what it would be from here. I decided I would investigate further after taking a look inside the hut.

It turned out to be mostly empty, one of those stripped down inside to the bare walls and beyond, with nothing useful left to be found. But someone had been living here for some time as a worn out mattress, unraveled wrappings of food and frozen human “dejection” was evidence to. Not even going out to get rid of what has to be gotten rid of spoke its own sad language of desperation.

I left the house and continued to travel on high ground. Coming closer to the structure I had seen from up the hill I could make out that it must be a gas station or something like that, but also clearly spotted an animal the size of a wolf roaming down there. While wolves admittedly had lost some of the terror they inflicted upon me, I still wasn’t too thrilled about running into them unprepared. In the other direction, further up towards another hill, I could make out another hut of some sort, which I would give a look first. Knowing my surroundings before facing a wolf was definitely better than the other way around.

The hut turned out to be some sort of registration office for climbing tours and the area itself the Milton climbing park. At some point in time this place must had been a frequently buzzing go-to location for tourists and locals alike, as there were benches and a wooden pavilion at the climbing site, and the register at the office was hundreds of names long, but all dated back at least five years, putting the closing of the site to about the same time the Great Collapse hit. The climb actually lead down to a shelf above the basin I had seen from the cliff at the farm, both at which the now cleared up weather revealed a comprehensive view to from up here. Despite being maybe a hundred feet below me, the basin looked like itself was elevated over some other terrain miles away in the background, which I could barely see from up here despite having a direct line of sight. This made me realize that Milton itself was a highly elevated point on Great Bear and probably much more secluded than I thought, which in turn again stirred some hope that the island might not be as deserted as I had feared. It made sense that a place like this, hard to reach and remote, would be the among the first places to be abandoned. This also reinforced my conviction that reaching the Coastal Highway was the right call, because if mankind had thrived anywhere in its history, it’s near bodies of water.

But all of this still left me with the problem of the wolf infested gas station down the road. After resting for about an hour in the registration office I began my way back down the path that led right to it. I say infested because I either clearly had missed a wolf before, or those beasts were spontaneously multiplying. Funnily enough the wolf that actually came prowling at me was a third one I had also missed completely, and which must have been tracking me for some time since it came at me from an entirely different angle.

Luckily the good ol’ “throw him a gut” trick worked, which threw the wolf off while I slowly retreated, and gave me ample time to aim and put it down. I felt the excitement of being on a killing spree, and had my mind set on exterminating these vermin once and for all. No time to lose with the other wolves scattering after hearing the shot. I had also startled a deer that was now running wild not knowing where to go. I managed to drive the poor animal towards the gas station cutting off its path again and again, and it didn’t take long for one of the wolves to overcome its fear and start chasing the deer. It was quite the gruesome play I was witnessing, but after mere moments the wolf had the deer by the throat, and I had the wolf in my sights. Two down. One to go. Come at me!

To my predicament I had lost track of the third predator. I retreated back towards the park hoping I would spot the wolf again. When that proved unfruitful I slowly and carefully started to approach the gas station again, having both eyes out for everything that might move, the rifle prompted and ready.

I’ll never know where it came from, and how it had managed to evade my sight so completely, but I bet the wolf saw a most surprised and equally terrified me when it knocked me down to the ground, taking a big bite out of my parka, another one out of the vest I was wearing below it and eventually digging some of its razor sharp teeth through my sweater into the soft skin underneath. Meanwhile I was pounding at the wolf with every bit of desperation only the mortal struggle for survival can muster.

And the knife I had managed to grab god knows how.

Plunging it into the wolves neck once, twice, again and again until blood in my eyes left me blinded. Screaming, half from pain, half from adrenaline making my heart punch halfway through my chest with every beat I kept stabbing the wolf in a frenzy, even as it ceased to attack me, ceased to move, ceased to exist, I kept stabbing and stabbing and stabbing. How long … I don’t know.

It took me some valuable time to find scraps of composure, but once I did I realized that I wasn't just feeling dizzy from shock, but that some of the blood on me was actually my own. I stumbled over to the gas station, only to find it locked and hearing me cry out in an inhumane voice filled with desperation. With the very last of what strength was left in me I managed to pry it open, shut the door behind me and sunk to the ground in the doorway. I took off the ravaged clothes only to find a glowing red bite mark right above my stomach, still bleeding dangerously.

I emptied my backpack, hastily, grabbed a bandaid, the disinfectant and a stick. I put the stick in my mouth, bit on it and poured the disinfectant generously over the wound. How I managed to still scream and cry like a child I cannot tell you, but I did. I bandaged the wound as well as I could, and cowering there took the first look at the place I had entered.

The place reeked of decay and worse things, but it was a temple of life, a shining safe haven in the stormiest of oceans to me right then. I crawled through the doorway to the left. The room looked like a place someone else had used as a shelter before, with a mattress lying on the floor and an old barrel repurposed as a fireplace standing in the corner. With the last adrenaline that still infused my blood I managed to crawl onto the bed and lost conscience.

---

When I woke up again it was already approaching nightfall. The bleeding had stopped, but I felt sick and dizzy, like I did when I had eaten the bad dog food. I wasn’t sure why, but I suspected it had to do with the wolf attack I had managed to survive. I, nevertheless, took a dose of antibiotics to be safe.

I actually mustered the strength to get a fire going and warm up some pinnacle peaches I miraculously had found on the shelf next to the bed. I also cooked a cup of herbal tea on the fire barrel. But that was it for that day, and I went back to uneasy dreams full of horrors.

Day 9

I woke up at morning, drowning in sweat, freezing with the room having dropped below zero again.

I had had the most terrible night since my arrival on Great Bear, arguable since I was a child. I had dreamed of gargantuan monsters eating my intestines and beasts of fire and fury pulling my body apart to feast on it. The first look out of my eyes were aimed down, at my belly, and while the wound still hurt like hell it didn’t bleed and it didn’t look infected. But my head felt warm, and I was sure I was developing a fever, but all things considered I was in better shape than I looked.

I remembered that outside of the gas station the place was swarming with dead animals, so despite my urgent wish to lie down and pass out again I flung down some cat stalk, not just because it was the only thing I had on me, but honestly thinking of anything else, especially meat, made me sick. I grabbed my hatchet and wandered out into the cold, with a hole in the middle of my parka the size of a football, and hacked away at the frozen corpses of the deer and the wolves for hours, only going back in to warm up, drink some water, put new meat on the barrel and walk out to slaughter the next carcass. The wolf I had struggled with the day before was basically decapitated, its head dangling only by what little was left of its spine. Flashes of the struggle kept coming back to me, and before long I threw up what little I had eaten this morning. It was way past noon when I was finally done and had stored most of the meat in the trunk of a car parked in front and a nice pile of pelts stored in my room at the gas station. All of a sudden I was in the unexpected situation of not knowing how to store all this meat I got. Whatever it might be good for.

Looking at what my bowels produced after all the tension and stress started to subside revealed to me a problem possibly even more severe than the one I had faced yesterday. I apparently had pushed my luck with eating predator meat since the only explanation for what I saw was that my intestines were infested with parasites. Excellent. I took another dose of antibiotics right away, but I was aware that this issue was serious and I probably had a long period of illness ahead of me.

Realizing that time was of the essence I started to scavenge the gas station, which I had put off to this point. I would have to take what I could and leave for milton as soon as possible, possibly today, maybe making two runs if I would make it, but then hunker down at home waiting to let my infection run its course, hopefully with a good outcome.

Sorting through the gas stations supplies I found several interesting things, so at least that wasn’t all bad. The most notable addition to my end time survival armament was an old oil lamp with a mechanic and hence still working igniter. I also found a well preserved bedroll that will serve as a spare should something happen to mine. Other than that the place was stuffed with snacks as you would expect. And yes, of course: More dog food. What is it with people and stockpiling dog food, anyways? Or maybe it’s just the last thing that gets ransacked, and I can clearly understand why.

I decided to get back to Milton with what I could carry and leave the rest behind for now. Leaving the gas station through the front door my gaze strafed down along the road leading up to the tunnel. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing at first, so I started walking towards it, completely ignoring my previous plan. But soon there was no denying. The tunnel had collapsed, possibly in the earthquake, burying a bus under its weight, and leaving no possible way to get past it. Not only had my plans to leave Milton been put to a sudden delay of uncertain amount, now also one of my two options to get out of here, the road down south, had vaporized into thin air. How ever I would get out of Milton - if I ever did - it wouldn’t be through that tunnel.

Demoralized and freezing I turned on my heels and headed back to the gas station to warm up again. Nothing had changed about my plan to make it back to my house in Milton, but knowing for a fact that my plans were falling apart and my options dwindling one by one really took a hit on my already brittle psyche. When I arrived back at the gas station I got in, sat down on the mattress and cried. It took me some time to get back up, maybe an hour, but once I did everything I wanted was to get home. And thinking of home I actually had started to think of Milton Manor. So I again strapped my backpack, straightened my back and started walking my aching body down the road, now certain that whatever wolves had waylaid it were resting in pieces in the trunk of a car.

Walking down the road I noticed that the paranoia had returned. I heard tripling steps of agile paws behind me, I saw teeth flashing from behind every corner, I heard the wind howling promises of doom and demise into the same eardrums that waves of blood kept crashing against, and I felt my feet plummeting through the ground as it opened below me with every step I took. It went so far that I attributed the howling to my imagination, but luckily I realized that what I saw was very real. Not only my paranoia had returned - but also there was a wolf wandering the streets right in front of my house. Everything I had done, everything I had gone through, would it all really have been for nothing? Were these beasts just coming back from the dead? I managed to avoid it circling back through the town coming up on my house from behind, and it only spotted me when I was about to close the door behind me.

After taking a bit of time I actually got going again to make another run. I wasn’t sure how long I would be confined to my home, and the sun was setting quickly on Milton, so taking what I could while I could was probably the right call. I successfully collected the supplies I left behind - but it cost me, dearly, far more than it would usually have. My infection was really starting to show and I was certain that I would be out the following day. On my way back I managed to avoid the wolf again which was still prowling around the house, but I had enough of it. I was done running, done hiding. If this was how it ends, amen. I set down my backpack at the door and waited for it.

When it came up the porch again I just stood there, hatchet and pry bar in the right and left, ready to face it, face nature, one on one, creature to creature, accepting either outcome. The wolf clearly was startled by the fact that I would neither run, nor move at all. But in the end it still charged me, nevertheless, jumping 5 feet high. There was a split second, a moment, when we saw eye to eye, suspended in time. One of his claws graced my cheek while the pry bar struck the wolf down mid air. The blunt force crushed it into the ground below my feet, and I just kept hitting it, pummeling it into submission and eventually unconscious.

Every retreat, every time I ran, every tear I cried, be it in pain, be it in fear, every fiber of my hurting body, every stroke of the madness emerging from my mind, every bit of anger, anguish, desperation and hatred I slashed into it, pummeled into it, beat into it until all that was left was a red, bleeding pulp of bone, fur and flesh on the front porch of a lonely house in a forgotten town on a nameless mountain rising over an abandoned island somewhere in the sea of nowhere.

But what was it worth?

Writing these past two days down I spend the last couple of hours in bed, with the twilight silently crawling through the blinds, and my blood soaked and ravaged clothes lying in red waters in the bathtub in a desperate attempt to get rid of the stains. Fixing the damage of the past two days might take me as many, and recovering from it even longer - assuming I do.

I realize that I had tricked myself into the same kind of dangerous delusion that man tends to fall for - time and time again. The Trojan Horse of science deceiving us into believing we were at the top of the food chain if we just tried hard enough, the madness and stupidity of thinking that all our tools and toys would eventually let us bend to our will what they were made of. It doesn’t matter if I win the Battle at the Porch, or the Battle for the Gas Station or a brawl hand to hand with a wolf or a bear for that matter. There is no such thing as a winnable war on nature.

I realize an age is about to come to an end. Time has run out, and god has abandoned us long before we knew it. The tides have turned, our toys are broken and mankind is on the retreat, with its world falling apart around it, making way for what comes after. I shouldn’t count on getting back where I came from, because where I came from is gone, and the person that came from there has gone with it. It died on that porch today.

I realize that the only way is forward, no matter where that might lead me. Where I was worried about running out of food or not being found by a possible rescue party up here mere days ago, I am now certain I will not withstand the permanent onslaught of wolves and what else Great Bear has in store for me. Milton belongs to them now, no matter how many I kill, they will take over the place eventually. My house will keep me safe for now, and my rifle will give me an unfair advantage for five more shots, but the endgame is not in my favor. The plan of leaving as soon as I can is still the best option I have left if I value my life, which, despite everything, I still do, I think. Only the reasons and premises have changed in the most dramatic of ways.

I realize that I am no longer part of natures plan. I have been found out as the cancer that I am to a world that worked perfectly fine for millions and billions of years before I showed up, and will continue to exist in perfect equilibrium long after everything that would remind the universe of the fact we ever existed has fallen to dust.

I realize that my kind has been merely tolerated until now, but that my species has overstayed its welcome way past being asked to behave and even past being asked leave kindly. We are being shown the door bearing all the brunt force, chaos and calamity that entails.

But cheer up, my friend. Dry your tears, quench your fears, find the courage to face the wind, the rain, the thunder, the end, and rejoice in the fact that you still bleed, that you still breathe. Breathe. Breathe all the way in until your lungs want to burst. Breath all the way out until you can see the stars beyond the horizon. Breathe with me. This is not the end. Not yet. The Long Dark has yet to fall on this place.

All of that isn’t as bad as you might think. All of this, you see, all of this around us. It just puts things into perspective, you know?

Accepting that you are a member of an endangered species now.

Senauer · August 3, 2018

Mind-blowing reading! Although some of the related things might not be entirely aligned with the game's mechanics, it is fantastic how one is thrown into the whole story without even realizing so. I very much like the style and the narrative, an immersive and deep (in many ways) piece of literature.

Keep thriving, keep surviving! +1

Mixxut · August 3, 2018

This is just like reading a book! Actually if someone told me that this is from a book I could believe it!

romerabr · August 3, 2018

Great!

Admin · August 3, 2018

This is really well done, so we're moving it to the "Fan Creation" forum where it'll be better highlighted.

August 4, 2018

12 hours ago, Senauer said:

Mind-blowing reading! Although some of the related things might not be entirely aligned with the game's mechanics, it is fantastic how one is thrown into the whole story without even realizing so. I very much like the style and the narrative, an immersive and deep (in many ways) piece of literature.

Keep thriving, keep surviving! +1

Thanks! I make careful choices to let the fiction not interfere with the actual game play. Things need to actually match with the world - which puts some limits and boundaries on the story. So while the tremors are not part of the game, they don't actually interfere with it and actually match since there is plenty of evidence that earthquakes have happened on Great Bear at some point. I try to follow the rule "You can fictionalize whatever is in the game or would fit its setting, but nothing else". So tremors are fine to some extent, but UFOs crashing on Great Bear are not

11 hours ago, Mixxut said:

This is just like reading a book! Actually if someone told me that this is from a book I could believe it!

Thank you. Considering English isn't even my native tongue and I am far from being a writer (I'm a web developer ) this is high praise!

3 hours ago, admin said:

This is really well done, so we're moving it to the "Fan Creation" forum where it'll be better highlighted.

I was actually considering this originally, but then again most of what you find there is artwork, so I decided for the story forum. But if you think it's better placed in the Fan Creation forum - thank you for moving it!

Sign In

Affliction - A “The Long Dark” Story

Recommended Posts

Guest jeffpeng

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Guest jeffpeng

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Guest jeffpeng

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Guest jeffpeng

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Archived

Important Information