Entry 121 -- date unknown
There are only three of us left now from the colony. We have no food, we have no water, and unless the Sinos were nice enough to leave a little oasis untouched in the middle of this sea of glass and ash, this looks like the end for us too.
Lettie refuses to let us give up, though. Even though everywhere we've been is nothing but ruins, she insists we push east until we reach the ocean. I don't think we'll make it there before we dry up and die, but I have no better plans for the rest of my life. I guess if we're closer than I thought, we'll have a nice view before we bite it.
Entry 123 -- date still unknown
Lettie's insistence paid off a little, I guess. We found someone else who went this way and died before us, but it looks like they'd robbed a whole store before they croaked. At least we've got water and a couple days of food now, but unless the entire road before us is lined with loaded corpses we can leapfrog off of, we're just going to die a little further east and a little more tired.
It's been getting colder and colder even though we're moving into summer, and I don't know why. You'd think that all those nukes would warm up the planet a little bit, but instead, it's just getting killer cold at night. We stripped the corpse of the sorry bastard we found naked to have a little more between the three of us to wear, but it barely helps.
Entry 124 -- I'm never going to know the date, so why do I keep writing this?
Both Lettie and Celia shot down my idea of sleeping together for warmth. They didn't buy the line of having to repopulate the planet as well. I guess even being the last man on earth isn't enough for them.
Entry 128 -- ???
We should be coming up on Athens, Georgia soon, if we are where we think we are, which is unlikely, considering there's no more landmarks on the whole damn continent anymore. Lettie's excited that there might be survivors out here. I don't know how she still does it. After everything we've seen so far, there's zero chance of anyone being alive anywhere there used to be a city, but she still gets excited whenever we draw near.
I tried to tell her not to get her hopes up, that the Sinos knew what a city was and obviously how to destroy one, as we'd seen before, but she didn't listen. She said she had a good feeling about this one.
Entry 129 -- a Monday, probably
I didn't like telling Lettie that I told her so, but somebody had to do it. There's just nobody left in the world, and if there are, they're like us, wandering blind and hoping for good luck. Almost out of supplies again.
Entry 130 -- same day
We were setting down for camp tonight, I wrote my last entry and we laid out our sleeping bags to rest, when Celia saw something shining in the distance. We were worried that whatever it is, it might be gone by morning so we're heading out to travel through the night.
I think it's probably just some ruins that didn't get all the way burned to the ground, but if it shined in the moonlight, maybe it's just water? Either way, it's worth investigating, and if it's a landmark, maybe others have found it as well.
Entry 131 -- what
It's like a huge, shining city, underground, made of metal and almost untouched by the war. I don't know if it got built in the last fifteen years, or if it's just made of stuff the Sinos can't touch, or if it flew here, but it seems like an impossible dream. We went inside a little bit, but decided to investigate it more fully in the morning.
Hopefully, whoever's city this is, they're friendly.
Entry 132
Okay, it wasn't a city, it looked bigger in the dark. We're actually lucky we found it, the opening was just a big pit in the ground leading to a bunch of shiny metal rooms.
It looks like it was deep underground and only got opened up after the war. The rooms on top are beginning to fall apart, but it seems like it goes down forever, and past the top part, it all still looks pristine. It's all metal, and it's like a UFO, just hallways and empty rooms inside, with all sorts of machines and science stuff I don't even know how it would begin to work.
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It's all still working, though. There's electricity in here, which is just insane, I thought I'd never see anything electrical ever again. With any luck, there's either people in here who can help us, or enough supplies to make a life in here away from the cold and the rads. Maybe even just an electric razor. I haven't shaved in months.
Entry 135 -- Maybe May now?
We've spent days creeping around this place and just when I think we've reached the end, there's more. We DID find a cafeteria, and the food they had was almost all rotten and gone, fresh meats and veggies and things from before the war, but there were some cans of stuff lying around, and we took 'em all. Tap water works too, tastes funny, but what doesn't nowadays? Probably loaded with rads.
Whoever built this place really loved science. I got Celia to explain some of it to me but she said she only recognizes the basics. I kept asking and she says whatever they were doing here was so specialized that just being a PhD doesn't mean she automatically knows every scientific instrument ever made by man.
I think I pissed her off. Whoops.
Entry 136 -- July 14th, 2218
Found a terminal down here which was locked, but it showed the date at least. Can't believe it's July. How'd I lose track of two whole months? So damn cold for July.
Celia tried the terminal until we got locked out. It told us security would be dispatched, which just made me laugh. Like a bunch of guys were going to show up to arrest us? I'd welcome a cozy prison cell now if it meant I got three squares a day. Still, she was afraid and made us leave in case there was a trap or something...paranoid, but I didn't care to sit around staring at a holo anyway.
Lettie thinks if anyone's in here, they'd be at the very bottom of the facility, farthest from the cold and rads. We keep heading down, day by day.
Apologized to Celia last night for being a jerk about all the science stuff. She seemed to appreciate that. Still didn't want to sleep with me though. How picky can these women be?
Entry 137 -- July 15th, 2218, I guess. Not sure what good knowing the date does, honestly.
Celia thinks she heard something down here. Lettie thinks it's friendly, and I hope she's right. We must be running out of downstairs to explore by now. Things are getting more alien and sciencey and less like residences and basic rooms with every floor we go down. It feels like whatever they did here, down here is where all the expensive machinery must have been, with all the experimental stuff. I'm starting to think Lettie is wrong, if someone survived here, they wouldn't be down this far.
At least we see the occasional bathroom or elevator shaft (all offline of course, because screw us) to remind us it's still humanity at work down here, once upon a time.
Entry 138
shit shit shit shit shit
Apparently security was after us this whole time. Automated defense drones chased us down today and told us to surrender. We did of course, because they had guns, but they just held us there until someone came to arrest us, which would be never.
Lettie made a run for it, but got shot full of bullets. I don't think anyone could live through that. Those fucking robots, they don't even realize they're killing one of the last people on the planet!
Celia grabbed me and dragged me away while they were chasing Lettie, and we somehow escaped. We made it down another floor, but if the fire exit map is right, this is the bottom floor. End of the line, and no way back up with those insane robots running around. We blocked them out, but we're also trapped down here, and don't have much more food.
If I'm going to die, I want to go down killing one of those robots. Lettie was the best of us.
Entry 139
Writing this in the morning. Celia came to me last night. I think she thinks we're going to die, I don't see any other explanation for why she'd change her mind on me now.
It's been an awkward morning around her.
Entry 141 -- July 17, 2218
The robots are breaking in. I tried to open the elevator to see if we could climb up that way, but they were already there, floating and waiting. I can't slide the stupid door shut, and they're getting it open by inches. It's only a matter of time now. If this is the last thing ever written by a human on Earth, I just want whoever finds and reads this to know that we as a species really fucked up, and not to do what we did. War is never worth it.
Celia's going to try some science stuff with the things down here, but I think she's just working out of desperation. Wants to die trying. We've got a few doors between us and the robots but they won't hold.
Entry 142 -- July 18, 2218
I don't think I've properly documented what a beautiful woman Celia is. Even here at the end, with the robots slamming their little hovering metal bodies into the doors we've barricaded, like some doom metronome, she's typing away at terminals and checking sciencey things. I know I can't help her, except maybe to buy her another few minutes at the end, but seeing her working so hard…
I've lived my entire life without being a sappy asshole. I can manage a few more days, if we even have that long.
Entry 143 -- July 19, 2218
We're out of food and doors. The robots are right outside, but Celia's been working around the clock, saying she thinks she's close. Close to what, I don't understand. She explained it to me, but I'm just a jarhead. She kept talking about some guy, and how this was his work, and how brilliant he was, Dr. Ramanathan. Never heard of him, aside from my physical, the only other doctor I've heard of was Seuss.
Wish I hadn't dropped my gun and kit all those years ago. Would like to go out fighting.
Entry 144 -- July 20, 2218
She's done it, but I still don't know what. There's a big machine in here that looks like the kind of thing that kills you or turns you into a monkey if you step into it, and she wants me to step into it with her.
There's cracks in the door where the robots slammed into it all night, and I can see them peeking through. Every time they hit it, it bulges like it's about to splinter open.
I don't know what this machine does, but I guess I'll leave avenging Lettie for another day. I can't leave Celia alone. Hopefully this isn't my final entry.