Work Text:
Rations: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Day: IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII
Day 126
I found another man.
Alive, I mean.
Day 127
He’s got a fractured wrist and, besides that, I don’t know what the hell is wrong. He won’t wake up. He’s got a fever and looks too pale. I have him laying in my cave with his feet up and rags with clean water next to him … I’m trying to change the rags as often as I can … But I don’t know what else to do.
He might die right here, especially if any gas comes.
I’m planning to start digging a hole tonight.
Day 128
Well, damn, what an adventure.
He awoke while I was in the middle of digging.
I heard him gasping and trying to speak, so I ran back into the cave and dropped to give him some food.
He was delirious, barely able to focus his vision, and I tried to get him to tell me anything about his pain. But there’s one problem …
I don’t think he speaks a word of English.
He rambled some stuff to me that I couldn’t understand, and it nearly broke my brain. After about ten minutes of trying to make out what each other was saying, he passed out again.
Thankfully, his breathing is a lot more regular now.
Whenever he wakes up again I’ll try to figure it out.
Day 129
Yep, I was right. Not a lick of English.
And needless to say I have no clue what he speaks, either.
It sounds quite harsh, rough consonants and clipped syllables … almost Slavic, but I’m no linguist.
Blasted Alice ... why couldn’t she stay alive, I need her ……
Well, that’s not important. What’s important is that my rations are now split in half.
Rather, I’m going through them twice as quickly which means I need this guy to get back on his feet asap so we can scrounge for more.
Otherwise we’re goners.
Day 135
We’ve come to a sort of understanding—a rhythm, if you will.
With hand signals and holophrases, we’ve worked out some kind of language just for our own needs.
He’s still very weak and can’t stay standing for too long. But when he does, we make as much progress moving deeper into the forest as we can. He leads the way—I don’t know the destination, but somewhere west.
Then when he gets tired, he collapses and I make camp around him before we take the next few hours to rest up.
So far I've found some weird fruit and he foraged for berries, but I don’t know how to tell whether they’re poisonous or not. He refuses to actually try and eat them so I’m assuming he doesn’t know, either. I want to throw them out in case they attract beasts, but he refused that, too.
So far he’s really good at refusing things and acting stubborn, but not so much picking up his own damn weight.
I have no clue what to make of him.
Day 137
Today he very insistently showed me some wadded-up papers he had in a pocket, all in a script I decidedly can’t understand, and seemed very bent on having me look them over.
Which I did, but I couldn’t make them out any better.
They had some sort of official seal on them, and signatures, but I couldn’t tell what type of documents they might be no matter how long I looked.
He appeared more frustrated the longer I tried before he finally gave up.
Now he just looks listless and sad.
He has a cough, too, and it sounds worse by the hour.
Day 142
Turns out, he was leading me to a sort of underground bunker full of rations.
He was much more talkative when we made it inside. Seemed to be explaining lots of things to me, nothing of which I could understand.
He showed me more documents that were kept in a desk in the bunker. This bunker is well-hidden and has more supplies than I could ever gather for myself. The most important being extra gas masks. They seem out of place here, but I’m no less glad to have them.
No more passing the same old gas mask between ourselves when we go through noxious zones.
Speaking of which, I’m not sure if we’ll be moving around as much here on out.
Unless any gas comes our way … Pray that doesn’t happen.
Day 145
He keeps showing me things, and pestering me to try and understand what they are.
More documents, certificates, I don’t know.
They’re written in the same script as the packaging on all the food here.
I got frustrated and rose my voice at him earlier.
Day 147
His cough is only getting worse. I spotted blood.
None of the medicine we’ve tried in this bunker seems to help.
Day 150
He tried to kill himself.
Oh, God, he tried to kill himself––
Day 151
It’s unfair of me to force him to stay alive like this when I don’t even know why I’m doing it.
I can tell he wants me to just let him die, or maybe even for me to kill him myself, but––I can’t.
The truth is I don’t know why I’m alive, either.
I just know that it has something to do with him.
And, God, if he dies, I won’t—
I can’t let him.
I’ve tied him up close enough to the furnace for heat at night, but far enough away so he can’t try anything else.
Curse this drive in me to survive. I don’t even know, myself, where it comes from …
I’m sorry …
Day 155
Another man found us.
His name is Luchino, and Frederick—as I finally know his name to be—seemed wary of him at first, but then they found out they both know a little bit of French, and Frederick quickly warmed up.
Can’t deny that I’m a little jealous as they’ve made progress getting to know each other in leaps and bounds.
Apparently, Luchino was a professor before it all went down, invited out here to lend his expertise in a military base further south.
Survived in a similar way as I did—slept through it all. Woke up to find all his comrades dead … and the radiation.
He stumbled onto our bunker because of the fire I made outside two nights ago, for soup.
It’s relieving having someone to talk to. I’m sure Frederick feels the same.
Day 166
Oh, the human mind, and human emotions, truly know no logic.
Today I found out that Frederick was part of the lead team of researchers who made the bombs.
Luchino said that Frederick tried telling me multiple times, but I simply didn’t understand. Apparently that’s what those fancy official documents show on them. Like hell I could ever glean such a thing.
Frederick begged me to just kill him and I really felt enough anger to. But then when it came right down to it, again, I couldn’t.
Who the hell cares? At this point …
Frederick didn’t even know this is what would happen. What his research would be used for.
The situation he’d be stuck in.
How could he have? How could anyone?
Who the hell cares, anymore?
I’m just tired.
Day 168
Luchino is plenty mad at Frederick, I can tell.
It almost seems like he's plotting something, and I'm tempted to kick him out and have him keep moving north.
But then I'd lose my only source of translation with Frederick.
I'm not sure why I feel so protective ... It might just be the feeling of being the only ones left.
Which, even though there's evidence that that isn't the case, the feeling ...
Day 173
The more snide comments Luchino makes, the more inhuman he seems.
Day 175
Luchino's dead.
I ... I ...
He tried to kill Frederick with some kind of poison he apparently brought with him, and I ...
Day 176
My hands won't stop shaking.
It rained last night.
Frederick still hasn't awoken. After the poison. He still doesn't know ...
Day 178
His fever finally broke but the cough is worse than ever. I'm worried there's internal damage. Dammit, I'm no doctor—why did Luchino have to ——?
I understand now why I can't let Frederick die.
Because otherwise I really will be ... the last one left.
The last human.
My brain can hardly grasp "next steps ..." The only concept I have is here, right now, counting and recounting the rations in this bunker, trying to plan and feeling more insane by the second.
Frederick, please wake up.
Day 179
He finally, finally did. But now he's lost his voice completely. Can only make these horrific rasping sounds.
His memory was foggy and I had to walk him through what happened.
The poison, Luchino, the shovel I used ...
Where I buried the "professor" ...
And now we're back to square one.
His eyes are so empty. I'm sure mine are too.
I've locked all the sharps up in a lockbox and I keep the key with me. It means that he hasn't shaved for a few days now, and we're both as haggard as we look.
What now?
Day 188
We're both restless. Even though this is where all the rations are, I can't help this itching feeling that we need to move.
It's rained more of the days this week than not. Acid rain. It seems to keep coming from the east, so I want to pack up and head even further west, see if we can find anyone else ... Anything left ...
Only problem is, he doesn't want to do the same. He's back to his old stubbornness, now worse than before.
Our arguments are bizarre. Lots of angry pointing and glaring, lots of inhuman sounds.
I try not to raise my voice, but it happens. He can only cough or grunt back.
Speaking of which, I've been having him wear a gas mask as much as possible, and his cough seems improved.
Slightly, but still. Slightly improved.
Day —
He relented. We'll pack up as much as we can carry, and start moving tonight.
He seems to have given up on the suicidal schtick, too, now that he finally recognizes—I need him.
That I won't give up on him.