Chapter 140

Two days had passed.

Desires, emotions, and time connected many wonders together. Beats were also there, but not wild enough to shock anyone or anything, speak to the moon, or shake the ground. William did not enter the upper floors either, which was unfortunate for Ellie, who hoped to enter and use his card. Timing and her job weren't meant to be less throughout just because she wanted to go up.

Not only did she have to go through her new documents and learn new credentials and qualifications, but she underestimated how much time she would spend on the History and Museum floors. This place wasn't simple and William expanded the time a lot.

Their time wasn't over either, even if Ellie enjoyed these talks and walks and feared the time wouldn't pass faster. In the end, she might stay with William for a week, yet no one would bat an eye at that. No Walker voiced an issue, and Heidi and Burton were surprisingly supportive.

It was a delightful turn of events because Ellie was delighted about her new position and freedom, let alone knowledge that not many people would learn at this level. She almost thought she was at a similar level to some supporting soldiers, or Burton, who had a fair share of adventures under his belt.

For William, it was the same, though his knowledge and relation to Darks or Walkers was much weirder than hers. It couldn't become something else from just a few days in this library. Still, he took full advantage of Ellie and these floors. She uncovered many facts and alluring details.

And after two days, it was over. The normal floors were over!

William didn't mind what he found, or how he always proceeded to focus on what was around him, rather than what was deeply ahead. Ellie always went along with it. She confirmed the end of their teacher-student business would end with the upper floors, but she sounded so cheeky and bright that William doubted he would get them done in a day or two. Ellie had a week in mind for a bare starting minimum, and it might become two weeks if William acted the same as on those lower floors.

Currently, within the restrained rooms, William looked at the documented records of the Dawn again. He used his card to handle what was usually unavailable and bad. A rather time-consuming process went into this decision since most of those locked texts were strange. But so was that diary that remained in his home.

These weren't about secrets and personality. Some were that to some extent, albeit all in text. It was to be expected since it was a deposit of perished ideas and recollections of the deceased Walkers or their partners.

Finding something good was closing on context, the military, other Walkers, and stuff that he didn't understand. Only so much could be gained from skimming around and hoping to get something specific or new. Reports and various journals depicted interesting fragments of tough and rigorous events, so William learned a lot about them.

The Dawn was incredibly taxing and long-lasting on every piece of land, thus some records were important and weren't misplaced, similar to humans. It was a struggle against time and the Darks, while the ever-swallowing Dark Fogs consumed and Corruption did its common Turning. William knew about all of that, if not some more. It was living and breathing, and nauseous and reminding.

Even in the harshest of places, people couldn't run and hide from this new era forever.

By estimations, William figured less than a tenth of land was suitable for human living. And even those might be dangerous and not suitable for long. It wasn't a good discovery. It might even be wrong or outdated since even Ellie wasn't sure about precise numbers because they were constantly changing.

After a few days, William was no longer stagnant or hesitant. He was conscious of terrible things dwelling Outside, so reading about what was further and even hiding closely wasn't that horrendous.

Details about the Darks weren't prominent on these lower floors, or even those locked texts. This fact changed his hopes about the upper floors, which were coming. They had time and the first of the upper floors was in today's plan. Ellie was excited and all giddy about it, and she was unable to hide it.

There was a lot about those floors that William took for reference. For Walkers, many ideas about Darks were pivotal, and on lower floors, they weren't common. If anything, their knowledge had painstaking and confident research, stemming from organizations, survival, and generations of Walkers and overall surviving people. Such things weren't lost over time, but built upon, recognized, and expected. William knew of that from Outside and many camps.

Like that globe of Earth that he had seen two days ago, he wanted to see more. Ellie hinted at it. For now, she showed him the memorial room, where records of losses kept words and names of the past nations, leaving a deep mark over this land. Those followed statistics, years, and records from more than a century ago. Graphs and human numbers twisted to oblivion.

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Very few nations survived in their core meaning and history. There was a handful of them, with mostly nothing new apart from the Federation that was relative or impossible to take for a nation. China was still China. India had its roots and it kept going, yet it wasn't the same as before. Japan was... well, it was complicated.

William apprehended that even though a considerable number of nations no longer existed, their people were around in some shape and form since memories lived on.

The Federation was part of this belief. It was a new and accumulated effort of many broken nations put together, assembling many atypical goals. To shine in this hemisphere and make amends for the past, they struggled and aimed for better times, and it worked!

From Ellie's words, most statistics came from the former governments within the starting decade of the Dawn. Nations suffered but still hoped the cure would be found, but Darks were no disease. They killed and evolved and kept going.

People were everywhere and the Earth was a vast enough playground to be painful and endless. People might hide in holes for decades and not die, yet what life was it? It was a possibility, albeit a lucky and tough reality.

Someone out there kept on recording even in the middle of the apocalypse, delivering a lot of useful and corrupt ideas. Everything in the world turned to shit within a year. Billion died, and it was as if someone had ears under every ground.

Quite quickly, the technological advancement of humanity turned to scraps. Satellites became useless, and farming, manufacturing, and infrastructure became a pain to operate. Not everything was adequate to last or work against Darks. Bullets, missiles, and even tough physical means didn't work. Then, there were even oppressive nukes that hit their signature, creating a time period that William didn't like.

Fleeing and surviving at all costs were the most feasible actions. Humanity extrapolated and years passed. It was shared across Asia, Africa, Europe, and both American continents, albeit one of them had it far, far worse as one of the originators of the First Fracture.

William still didn't know what that phrase meant. He learned it by luck in some notes under some journal. Not the one in his home, which was quite personal, messy, and mad.

The First Fracture seemed to describe early kinds of Rifts, or the worse of their kind, or something that no longer existed. Adherent Incursions didn't make sense in this context. The First Fracture sounded related to South Africa alone, or the Dawn as a whole.

William learned less about that even with narratives of many texts. For example, the situation in South America was the worst because of that Fracture, which literary broke half of the whole continent apart. From there, everything in this hemisphere began and turned into ruin that soon enveloped half of the planet.

By now, South America as a whole was one of the most dangerous zones in the world, second to Australia, parts of Africa, and the southern part of North America. Essentially, every land had its fair share of dangers, and somewhere, it was the safety that was irregular. It was almost close to calling hells captivating because of their pain and dangers. What could survive there, or remain?

Lists, notes, and a variety of papers displayed thousands upon thousands of news about the Dawn and its processes. William and Ellie spent the better part of this day on them since these records were of great value to someone like William. It was a very suitable side of history, including choices and discoveries on how to survive, or how some places stood on their last wits but kept going.

The craziest last wit had the United States of America with its nukes. Albeit it was a long time ago, the aftermath of that juncture left its marks even to this day. The Zones changed, Darks evolved through radiation and human hands, and a lot more stuff was hiding behind rubble and void of radiation and empty history. Humans were hiding from that, even if it was the former government that caused that.

They shouldn't have used those nukes.

It was too bad. Some fools still recorded what they could, and it was around that time when the Walkers slowly crept into the pinnacle of human society. The people fought with what they could beforehand. Be it tanks, rockets, or guns and knives, anything that could kill those fuckers, they used that.

Guns couldn't harm most of the Darks, though many displayed some weaknesses or defects. Everyone at that time already knew it. Aim for the head. Cut off the limbs. That sort of style worked even to this day.

William loved reading about this stuff a lot. So when Ellie started talking about numerous island communities, Tribes in Africa, and many more places that kept surviving like rats, he found many topics to say. Some of those places weren't spared from the apocalypse forever, either dying in isolation or while fleeing away. Darks tended to uncover them sooner or later, and surviving humanity was like a nice surprising box of snacks.

It was a moody, clever, and instinctual approach of Darks and their hunts. Their emotional apathy prevailed like Madness and tiers and all kinds of Fogs. Weirdly enough, some of those things turned milder when the hunt became smaller in scope, or after fun and some factors overlapped or weakened, making them hesitant, funny, or kind enough to calm their hunts.

Which Darks were that, slumbering, weakening, and realizing their prey was actually very weak? They weren't fine. From a mental and body perspective, Darks had many forms. For some people, it was obvious there was no escape from them. They destroyed and dethroned humanity until it ended up with disappointments and no fun. Humans escaped and hoped for the best because of that.

Until the Walkers came to be.

Those were the schoolings that William got to his head, which mixed with his Outside context. After more than two days of talking with Ellie, he was almost thrilled.

Humans grew up being more comparable with one another, and William and Ellie were the same. Sure, she might sound like a never-ending jukebox of knowledge and nice tones, but William didn't have a lot of teachers before. The bar was set quite low. Then, too damn high!