《Old World Recovery》 Void, 4th. First Mission. I''ve got no idea what to do with this. The Remnants said we should keep a log of our findings and explorations, but I don''t know what that entails. They said we can be informal, it does not need to be a checklist or a file, a diary-like structure works, but it feels weird to be forced to write. If it wasn''t for the machine''s autocorrect (which is far from perfect) I doubt I could even write whole coherent sentences. I came here for the money; I''m not educated enough for an essay. First day: Apparently the first mission is going to last four whole days, so I decided to document every day separately. This way no one can reprimand me from not taking notes. Our first destination was an underground bunker of some sorts. The installation was big, kilometers and kilometers long without seeing the end of a corridor. Not that I could, even with the torchlights incorporated in our suits, the darkness of the underground unlit corridors is too thick to disappear. The bunker was mostly empty and the things that remained were broken at best. It was just a straight line of endless concrete. This job is uncommon. I knew it before I signed in, but the idea is still alien to me. The job is simple, go to the Old World and recover things. Literally anything. I asked this multiple times to the machine, read any manuals (with a lot of effort), and asked my crewmates, but the answer was always the same: anything that¡¯s not bolted to the ground is free game. This became clear when Teradoi, one of the crewmates, brought a rotted door to the cargo area. I thought he was insane, I had searched for more expensive things like sheets of metal, but no, Kerian, the ¡°navigator¡± said it was a valid recovery. I ended the first day only having brought a handful of broken bed frames to the ship. Second day: Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. At first, I thought the suit was comfortable, but after wearing it for two days straight, incommodity set in quickly. Directives said that we could only remove the suit in the ship after we ended our shift as the scene could be contaminated and toxic. That I could accept, but not being able to piss or eat for twelve hours was irritating. And having a feast is not exactly possible. We are given limited rations to last the whole mission. They are not fancy, but free food is free food. I brought more stuff the second day, mainly because now I knew I should bring like anything at all. The cargo area of the ship is big, bigger than houses, but I¡¯m sure we will hit a limit if we continue to bring anything we find. Third day: I was wrong on the limit thing. After we stripped cleaned the first rooms of the bunker, it became quite more difficult to find any ¡°loot¡±. (I am not comfortable with calling a gnawed pipe loot.) Maybe I should refer to it like the machine does. Recoveries sound far better than loot. Anyhow, the third day we walked a lot. Everyone took a different direction and stripped the contents of those bunker wings. Everyone except Kerian, of course. I know that she¡¯s educated and has a higher position than us, but it¡¯s not fair she can ¡°do inventory¡± and ¡°revise machinery¡± whilst we walk all day and haul heaps of trash. The only thing worth mentioning found today was that Zal found a broken clock. Nothing out of place there, if it wasn¡¯t because it was made out of gold. Unfortunately for Zal, we are not paid for the quality of the recoveries, nor for the quantity. Just for the hours. Well, quantity does help. Kerian said something about extras when Teradoi hauled a whole bunker bed in one piece. Fourth day: Rereading the third day entry, I noticed that was the first time I mentioned all the crewmates. Maybe I should have written something about it in my first entry. Whoops? I am not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, nor the most motivated. There are four of us in the crew: me, Teradoi, Zal, and Kerian. The first three of us are like the brute force. Men that haul all the Old World recoveries back to the ship. Kerian is the woman. As much as I would like to say she¡¯s the ¡°easy conquest¡± type of girl, she¡¯s more of the ¡°I will eat your balls¡± type of girl, and I like my balls. The fourth day came and went far faster than the others, maybe because I¡¯m already getting used to the job. Considering it¡¯s a single month endeavor, I think we are set. Tomorrow we will spend the whole day in orbit as we unload the ship on the main transit station, then the next we will go to our second mission. I¡¯m not excited about it, but this means we are basically over with one eight of our term. If the Remnants are going to pay us as much as they said, then I¡¯m going to be rich in thirty-six more days of this boredom-and-sore-back-filled job. Money is a great incentive. Void, 6th. Second Mission. They told us that our results were excellent for the first mission, so they assigned us to more complicated ones. I don¡¯t know how to feel about that one. My back is already killing me, and my arms are slowly becoming sore. At first it didn¡¯t seem as bad because the Old World¡¯s gravity was weaker, but considering how bulky our suits are, the decreased gravity doesn¡¯t really play an effect. Unlike the first mission, they didn¡¯t give us any day limit for the second one, so we will be on the field until ¡°something happens¡±. Their words, not mine. Yes, I am writing this before the mission starts, it is still the fifth of Void night. Tomorrow will be the second mission. I¡¯d better get some sleep. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. What are those noises? I don¡¯t know what happened but once the sun set down we began to hear them. It¡¯s like they are watching. How can noises watch? There is nothing out there, I made sure. Well, as sure as one can be with the sun out. We used the ship¡¯s front lights at full blast, but nothing appeared around. Not a wild animal, nor any strong wind. And that¡¯s unsettling me. We are still in the ship and we still can hear it. Kerian told us to tough up, that we are supposed to be the tough one and not little bitches, but it not that easy! How can we still hear the noises with this clarity inside the ship? I¡¯m worried. ... I can¡¯t sleep. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it The noises are out there still. Zal had the same problem as me, we met in the lounge and played some cards. We wordlessly decided that the best thing was to distract ourselves until the noises stopped or we collapsed from exhaustion. And not gonna lie, we are pretty close there. There are two machines in the whole ship, one in the cockpit, the other here in the lounge. Zal went to make a homebrew sleeping tea for us and I¡¯m taking the free time to write about the day. Whatever that keeps me distracted from the noises, really. Today¡¯s location was a bit different. Instead of a bunker in a nondisclosed plain, we find ourselves now in some sort of factory complex in a marshland. There¡¯s more light during the day than in the bunker, most walls and ceilings have collapsed ages ago, but there¡¯s something wrong with the place. Maybe marsh it¡¯s the wrong word, but swamp isn¡¯t correct either. The water is foul, a black sludge that make us move slowly, no matter how much we try to push our step. And if you move to quickly, you sink. I can only bless the Remnants for these suits. I know I cursed them on my previous entry, but I have seen the error in my words. If I had to trek the sludge without this watertight suit, I¡¯d rather just keep farming. And catachella farming isn¡¯t profitable nor pretty. I wonder what smell the sludge has. It¡¯s probably as foul as its viscosity. I can feel the sludge flowing down my legs even though the suit is a solid finger wide. We need to either leave the suits outside or clean ourselves and depressurize before making it into the ship to avoid containments and whatnot, but one cannot help oneself to be curious about the foulest things of the world. The factory seems to have sophisticated artifacts than the bunker. The most sophisticated recovery on that place was that golden wrist clock. I¡¯m not familiar with the machinery, but Kerian finally went out for the first time and gathered some things herself. They are still outside on the cargo area, but it was obvious that she picked them up for herself rather than for the job. I don¡¯t care what she does with those apparatus, but I¡¯m sure as Forgetting that I¡¯m going to surrender those things to the Remnants once the mission is over. I¡¯m not going to lose my payment nor job over a girl¡¯s interest with machinery. She has picked up a weird p.we. Whoops. Mistyped. Zal¡¯s here. Gonna write more tomorrow, I guess. Void, 10th. Second Mission. Today¡¯s better, I guess? Once daylight set in we went out of the ship, even Kerian got out. She wanted to investigate some things, mostly machinery, but I can¡¯t say for sure. The noises came back once the sun disappeared, but even with torchlights and us keeping watch beforehand, it was impossible to detect anything. It¡¯s certainly not the fauna that¡¯s making the sound. Not a wild animal, though it could be insects? Not sure. I cannot help but recall what the Remnants told us when they sent us here. They said that we would stay on this location until something happened, and this may be paranoia, but I cannot help but believe that they knew weird things would happen. Zal and I couldn¡¯t sleep today neither, so we took one of his teas and played cards until we dropped from exhaustion. Today was way faster than yesterday as we were more exhausted. Kerian keeps going out, which is weird. She refused to go out on the first mission. Sure, the first location was way creepier and this one is way more illuminated, but doesn¡¯t the noises incomodate her? Well, they do appear only at night and she only goes out during the day, but it¡¯s weird. Ignoring what the Remnants said, we are going to fill the cargo way before ¡°something happens¡±. Machineryh is big and it takes us a lot of time to put on the bay, but we are getting the job done. Three people can do a lot of work, especially if you have all day to do so. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. My back is killing me, heavy machinery is a heavy toll on the body. Today I went out. With that I mean out in the night. Zal and I were tired of staying up late because of the noises, so I did the best next thing: grabbed a pipe from the cargo bay and went out at night. At least they wouldn¡¯t caught me without a fight. If it was a they. I don¡¯t know. Obviously nothing happened. Zal stayed in comms overlooking me. There¡¯s a small radar on the main cabin that scans the surroundings of the ship, but it detected nothing. There was nothing. I was out there with a pipe in hand, blasting the torchlight in my suit at full force, and we found nothing. The noises were still out there, but there was nothing. I hate that. I feel naked. Why are they there? How are they whispering? It makes no sense. I slept better knowing there was nothing out there. But at the same time, I¡¯m afraid because there¡¯s nothing out there. I wish there was nothing out there. Anyways, today¡¯s we recovered more garbage. We are running out of space in the cargo, soon we won¡¯t be able to even enter the ship. Kinda of a garbage disegn out of itself. Talking about garbage, why do the Remnants want all of this? I don¡¯t mind, I¡¯ll get paid regardless, but I can¡¯t stop asking myself that question as I haul things over to the ship. They are paying us for recovering rusty pipes, and a lot at that. And copper is not that expensive. Is there something that makes all these recoveries worth? I know that Remnants are the only living people from the Old World after the Forgetting, so is this about nostalgia? But I doubt anyone would feel nostalgia over some rusty pipes. Like I said, I don¡¯t care, but my mijnd is free for hours at a time, and there¡¯s nothing better to think at or of. If we don¡¯t return to orbit tomorrow, then the next day we surely will. Void 11th, Intermission What can I say? I am really proud of the title. Anyways, as I had expected, we went into orbit. We are right now in space, inside of the Old World¡¯s orbit. We have unloaded everything for the day. It has been tedious, but the idea that only two thirds of the job remains keeps me moving. I¡¯ll be set for live in just a few weeks. I tried to ask the Remnants, well the Remnants on this station, but their responses have been dubious at best. They won¡¯t respond to any questions related to the recoveries, I had already tried that the first time. We all tried that. I have the feeling that even Kerian tried it out. Talking about Kerian, she¡¯s been close to the Remnants. Whatever her mission is, it¡¯s different from ours. We just haul pieces of junk up from the ground up into orbit, but her job seems to be more technical. I¡¯ll ask on the next mission. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Where was I? Right, questions. It¡¯s a bit pathetic that I tried to actually remember what I was talking about when I could have just read the what I have just written, oh well. Instead of asking about recoveries, I asked the sounds at night. And whilst they didn¡¯t respond me, their response was intringuing at best. They said: there¡¯s already noises at night? Now, I am far from a genius, but isn¡¯t that mysterious? They said it in such a way that they expected to be sounds at night. And instead of being sounds, which don¡¯t come from anywhere but everywhere, they were surprised that they were early? This is weird. I can only hope that there are only sounds and nothing more. We have yet to find another recovery crew in orbing, but considering there are a lot of orbital statiosn, I¡¯ll attribute the lack of people to that. Though a lot of people should have taken the job offer. There¡¯s limited space in Tored, and any money is welcome. Why haven¡¯t we seen more recovery crews? I hope today¡¯s mission is... more normal. Void 12th, Third Mission This mission feels weird. It¡¯s difficult to describe, but I don¡¯t like it. The new place is a lot more lifeful, so to speak. Though it doesn¡¯t have nearly as much flora as the marsh. It¡¯s like an abandoned city. Or so I imagine. No one said anything. The Remnants don¡¯t give us names, they point to a place and we recover stuff. And if Kerian knows anything, she hasn¡¯t said it. Zal is worried like me, but Teradoi just shrugs it off. Considering that man slept through the noises, I feel like nothing affects him. I said this place is like an abandoned city, but only rocks resembling houses remain. There¡¯s a lot of debris compared to the other locations, as if something rocked the whole place down. It doesn¡¯t feel like the cause of an earthquake though, the ground is smooth and doesn¡¯t have any cracks. What really itches me, are the statues. They are shaped like people, most are destroyed, but. Fuck. It¡¯s just not right. I cannot help but wonder if they are actual people. Some are in weird postures, others looking at their hands close together as if praying, most of them actually are. Was this place of the world overly religious before the Forgetting? The statues of people praying would make sense then. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. That¡¯s what I tell myself. Beyond the eeriness of the statues, what surprised me was how, foor the first time, Kerian told us not to pick up trash into the cargo. Well, we still do, she just referred to rock and concrete debris. Apparently the Remnants are not that far gone. But considering how old they are, who¡¯s to say? They are older than Tored. The statues are really messing with me, but I think today I¡¯ll sleep peacefully as the sounds are yet to torment us. I¡¯m here on the lounge with Zal, we were waiting for the inevitable, but it would seem his teas are not needed for today. One day less of recoveries.
Teradoi broke a statue. He was recovering a heavy white metal box, and whilst doing so, he collided with a statue and it shattered on the ground. My heart almost jumped out of my chest when he did so, I was nearby him you see, but there was something calming in seeing that they were just stone. I told myself that if they are purely made out of stone, then they cannot be people. There would have been some remains otherwise, right? Kerian continued with her excursions like with the previous mission, but like unlike before, she would go far away from the ship, only barely coming back on twilight. Whatever she¡¯s doing, it looks like she does not want to be seen. That makes me want to know what she is doing. Just morbid curiosity. Void 14th, Third Mission I¡¯ve trailed Kerian. I record this to state that there¡¯s nothing wrong with it and my motifs. Only curiosity and no other hidden agendas. I mean, there¡¯s nothing wrong with following a crewmate, especially in a potentially dangerous environment as the Old World, but with all of this I just say: there¡¯s no ground to prosecute me, Kerian. Anyways. Nothing happened, but paranoia is healthy. It would be more healthy if I didn¡¯t have it, but the idea of the voices coming back stresses me out. Kerian just checked places with some sort of handheld device. She didn¡¯t check any technological piece in specific, not that I was aware of. Kerian just seemed to check more about the places themselves than the actual contents. Kinda the opposite of what we do. The device was strange, it hummed strangely. I have no other way to describe it. The sounds, they felt as if they sounded more than sound, like they affected my own body. It¡¯s difficult to put into words, and I¡¯m far from a fucking poet. I felt the vibration in my bones, that¡¯s what I want to say. Every time the device activated, it was as if the space warped. Weird I know, but I¡¯m at a loss of words myself. I could see black motes floating around when the vibration ended. Kerian ignored them, which unsettled me a lot. Couldn¡¯t she see them? Or was she just ignoring it? Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. I think I¡¯ll try to fake an encounter with her, to naturally ask her what she was doing. I wish for my sanity that she can see the motes. Please.
I found a diary, well, what I think it¡¯s a diary. The paper is corroded, and the ink has faded away. There¡¯s only one thing I made out of the diary, a single beginning of an entry in the last written page. It said: Light 15th, 510. Now, I thought I misread. I showed it to both Zal and Teradoi because they were next to me and supposed the ink blurred out, but that¡¯s the thing, this was the only intelligible page. The ink wasn¡¯t clear, but it didn¡¯t look like a random splotch. Next, I asked Kerian. And then I freaked out. Kerian did agree with me that the text looked right, and we she ran it through some of the machines that I have no idea how to use, it estimated that it was some centuries old. How? That¡¯s what I asked Kerian and she suggested that the Remnants just resetted the calendar. Today¡¯s Void 15th, 495, so that can only be the only right answer. I. Well. The other possibility implies that this entry is somehow from 15 years into the future. More like 14, but that doesn¡¯t really matter. If the Remnants really started the calendar again, how old is really this diary? At minimum five centuries, but then how is the paper still here? Does paper survive that long? I don¡¯t know, but my instinct tells me no. The diary took my mind for the full day, and the hauling of recoveries is getting difficult as there¡¯s not even trash here, only rubble. I¡¯ll try to ask Kerian again tomorrow about the device and the black spots. I have no prove, but I think the diary and the spots are related. Everything is too weird. The air is too humid and the temperature too cold even though the suit is fully water and temperature tight. The whole aura of the place gives me the creeps. I hope for a more comfortable tomorrow. That¡¯s not much to ask, is it? Void 16th, Third Mission I¡¯m inclined to believe that we will spend more time on this region compared to the others. We are already on the same length than the others, but the cargo bay is nowhere near full, and we have depleted the ship¡¯s surroundings already. Me and the boys have asked Kerian to move the ship to have easier and faster access to new untoched lands, but she has denied our petition. She was pretty verbal about it, this spot was apparently hand-chosen by the Remnants and we cannot fly back or repourspose the ship without the approval. I honestly don¡¯t know how to feel about that. Not about the ship, it theirs so it makes sense we cannot move it unless they say so, but about the region. It creeps me out. Even though I have grown used to the suits, I no longer feel trapped inside like in the first mission, but the place oppressed my mind. And that¡¯s taking into account the harsh weather and whispers of the marsh. I don¡¯t know how to describe it. It isn¡¯t like I feel observed, but it¡¯s like I don¡¯t feel alone. And to be honest, in a place like this I prefer to feel alone. The sense of company that I feel isn¡¯t from the crew, but something else. The statues? I don¡¯t know. But there¡¯s an underlying presence that accompanies me. I¡¯ll talk tonight about that with Kal, he¡¯s the only crewmate that I feel that understands me. He seems the only normal one.
Kal is with me, the place creeps us out. He doesn¡¯t feel the presence like me, which IS NOT COMFORTING, but at least he understands me. Teradoi looks at me with derision as if I were a child, when I¡¯m pretty sure we are around the same age, and Kerian just ignores us. I hate when she does that, that gaze of superiority she carries with her. She¡¯s not superior to us, just more educated. And I doubt she could carry a single metal pipe with that frail body of hers. She¡¯s not built to be here. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. To be honest, no one is. There is nothing, but which each passing day I grow more uneasy. Maybe it is because nothing is happening. In a way, I feel some nostalgia to the noises and whispers. They kept me at edge, they told me something could happen. But here¡¯s there¡¯s nothing. It has been six days already but the place is just concrete debris, statues and most of them are broken, and the occasional trinket or furniture we find. Most of the recoveries are metal, anything else is hard to come by. Like the diary. . Oh, fuck. I just realized. Fuck. The diary. We found it, well I, in one of those rectangular metallic boxes. Maybe that was the only reason why it was conserved that well after centuries. It was in a closed space. But I just remembered something. There was a statue in the box. It¡¯s the only statue we have ever found in one of those many boxes, but the diary had taken so much of the space in my mind that I had omitted it. But now, what if the statue wrote the diary? I know I said that statues are not people, nor they were, that much was clear when Teradoi broke one and it was revealed that they were only stone. But. But. Fuck. I cannot removed the idea from my mind. What if they are actually, or rather, were people? Fossilization? Does it happen like that? I don¡¯t know. I guess it¡¯s weird that I even know to read and write for someone of my cast, but I feel it could be possible. I¡¯ll try to ask Kerian, but she tends to be dismissive about my questions, mostly pushing me away. Damn, I also forgot about asking her about the device. My mind is a mess. I have a diary but I don¡¯t bother to read it, I guess I¡¯m that stupid. I¡¯ll try to reread my entries every morning. That way I¡¯ll have a fresh mind. That seems like a good idea. Yup. Void 18th, Third Mission Kerian knows something we don¡¯t, that much is clear to me. I¡¯ve done as promise and found her ¡°by accident¡± while I was recovering junk. She was with her weird beeping device. I tried to be as natural as possible, I even practiced while alone on recoveries to make sure I wouldn¡¯t come out as weird or too pushy. Paranoia was the first thing on my mind. Probably the only one. The thing mostly went like this. Me: What are you doing? Kerian: Stuff. Me: What stuff? Kerian: Work stuff. Me: Oh, come on, give me some conversation. Aren¡¯t you bored? I sure as Forgetting I am. Kerian: We are not paid to be entertained, and you know it. Me: Does that mean we should be bored? It wouldn¡¯t hurt you to amuse me for a second. What¡¯s that beeping thing? Kerian: Work tool. At that point I sighed and grabbed the junk I was carrying. I haven¡¯t given up though. Me: Alright, if you don¡¯t want to talk just say so. See you for dinner then. And, as clockwork, as soon as I turned, she talked. Kerian: I¡¯m checking the survavility of the zone. I was thankful for the mostly opaque glass of our suit, otherwise she would have seen my grin. The thing aboutKerian, and the whole crew at that, was that we had near to no entertainment at our disposal. We had a single deck of cards and Kerian never played with us. So I knew she was reaching a breaking point, because I was. She barely communicated with us and when I saw her on the ship her hair was always undone and had bags under her eyes. She acted as she was not affected by it, but because of her self-imposed solitude, I know she was even more affected than us. Me: What for? Are you checking if we can go back to living here? Kerian: Not exactly. She didn¡¯t elaborate more and her tone was weird. When I tried asking her she dismissed me saying I already gave her enough conversation. I knew better than to push her buttons and went back to recovering junk. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Kerian knows something we don¡¯t but I can¡¯t say exactly what. I¡¯ll try to pry on what she knows, I have managed to make her open to me a bit, maybe I¡¯ll achieve something more in the future. At the end of the day, we are only the four of us and she¡¯s the only woman. We won¡¯t do anything, but the Remnants don¡¯t prohibit relationships. Perhaps, she¡¯ll do something on her own.
There¡¯s been no progress in that enterprise, not surprising to be honest. Courtship isn¡¯t something that can be done in a single day, even if it¡¯s only a one night fling or at best a friendship with benefits. Oh well. I¡¯m more interested answers than pleasure. I value my sanity first than my cock. I say that, but I became more irritable as of late. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s abstinence, even if we have no room to do our business. Or rather, time. The other day Teradoi came to me and I just responded roughly. Nothing serious, but I noticed it. I think he did too. I won¡¯t go into details, but even if I don¡¯t exactly like the dude, I had no reason to be as aggressive as I did. Zal scolded me for that. The relationship we have is weird, the whole crew. Kerian is like the bitchy boss, regardless whether she¡¯s polite or not. Zal is like the young brother by sake alone of being the youngest, though I won¡¯t deny he¡¯s rather cute and pure in some aspects. Teradoi is that older brother that bullies you, though once again, he hasn¡¯t bullied us. It¡¯s hard to fit people into stereotypes, they tend to be more dynamic than a given role. For me? I guess I¡¯m the middle brother or the dude you hang at the bar. I will hear you, especially if you buy me a beer, but my opinion doesn¡¯t matter. Well, none of our opinion matter, but that¡¯s what I said, it¡¯s difficult to shove one into an archetype, especially if I¡¯m doing that to myself. I¡¯m rambling, I know it, but I¡¯m stressed, no amount of playing cards will help me. The nearest five kilometers around have been stripped clean, and the cargo has still some space. We have no machinery to transport the recoveries, meaning we can only carry things with our two hands. For fuck sake, we don¡¯t even have a trolly. A forgotten trolley! If we do recover a trolley, I will hide it from the Remnants. And inversion, I¡¯ll return it at the last day, but think, it¡¯s going to make us more efficient! Though I doubt I¡¯ll find a trolly on this crap. Gravity is lower on the Old World yes, but the suits makes us slow. Five kilometers is around two hours to walk, meaning we can only do like two or three round trips before the sun goes out. And no one wants to stay at night outside. Not even the Remnants. We are explicitly forgiven from going out at night under justified conditions, and I may not know why, but I¡¯m grateful with that rule. Because of that huge radius, we are always alone now on recoveries. I will only meet with one of the guys if they have found something bigger than one of those metallic white boxes to help them carry it, but that¡¯s all. I cannot even talk to Kerian outside now, only inside the ship. She¡¯s slightly more open, at least giving some trivial conversation, so I count that as a victory. We are almost two thirds down of our contract now, so it¡¯s a bit useless she¡¯s opening now to us. I guess it¡¯s my fault too, I never tried interacting with her before. Not as a superior, but as a person. We are the same crew but I have alienated her, all of us. I¡¯ll do better from now on. I don¡¯t want to grow sour this last days because I was an asshole. Damn, I would kill for a beer, writing this diary is making me a better person. Void 20th, Third Mission The cargo bay is almost full, so we¡¯ll go out back to orbit either tomorrow or the next one after that. I kinda don¡¯t want that. This city is really creepy, but there are no whispers, so I almost fill safe here. Who¡¯s to say the next location is not going to have more weird things? At least it comforts me that we have less that nine days remaining as we will spend one in orbit unloading. Will the Remnants also count the last unloading day as part of the contract? I wish, the less time we spend on the Old World, the better. Though I guess we couldn¡¯t protest if they forced us to work for one more day in orbit. Damn, considering how much they pay us, I would even thank them. I¡¯m a bit tired from everything, but I cannot help wonder how easy it has been. Not the work itself, I¡¯m mentally and physically drained, but the recoveries. I almost don¡¯t get tired anymore. I know I have been heaving up and down boxes that weight twice as much as me multiple times a day, but that¡¯s not enough time to grow muscle. Well, not a lot of it. The gravity is lower here yes, but those metallic white boxes? They are bigger than us and we can all carry it by ourselves, well the guys. I think I will be asking the others about it. It has been so gradual that I haven¡¯t realized it until now. Have I grown used to the gravity and the suit, or there¡¯s something else at play? Hard to tell really, maybe it¡¯s all of it. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Also, we sorta did a party today. Not really, but kinda. Ish. There¡¯s not any alcohol here and not a trace of good food, we survive on stale rations, but we decide to make a banquet as there are a lot remaining and eat all of us together for once to celebrate that we are more than two thirds done. Honestly, we should have done something like this a while ago, but I haven¡¯t thought of it until Kerian opened to us. Even if I forced her hand a bit. It wasn¡¯t the liveliest of parties, but I guess we had a good time. I surely will have more energies for tomorrow.
Zal has disappeared. We have searched for him on the whole cleared perimeter but there¡¯s no trace of him. The cargo bay is already full and Kerian is telling us to go back to orbit to follow protocol. What? Fuck protocol! I ain¡¯t leaving Zal here! Unfortunately, I have had to go back to the ship because the doors automatically lock at night, but I intend to search for him tomorrow. I doubt I will be able to sleep, he¡¯s out there and I¡¯m here. How can I sleep knowing that? I hope he finds his way to the ship, but at the same time, could he even lost himself? We have done the round trip to the ship dozens of times now, he must know the way by memory. Has something happened to him? Our only chance is to go to the third he was searching for recoveries. I fear the worst. I¡¯m scared. We only had a few days remaining and now a crewmate disappears out of nowhere? This doesn¡¯t brood well. I just want to find him. Void 22th, Third Mission No luck. The area is too big to search for him. I¡¯m not good at maths, but we have searched for a kilometer further from the five kilometer radius, and an arc of what 120 degrees? That¡¯s a lot of terrain for two and a half people to search for. Yeah, Kerian isn¡¯t exactly helping. She did on the morning but then insisted on remaining in the ship ¡°in case he came back¡±. Something smells foul, I honestly believe she intends to leave us behind because she keeps pestering about going back into orbit and to be honest, I had enough of that. I don¡¯t care if she¡¯s a woman, if she mentions that one more time I¡¯m going to punch her in the face and knock some teeth out. How can she even say that? Zal is fucking out there! The fucking nerve! It would be easier if she helped, but today we didn¡¯t have the best of visibility. There was just too much damned fog. If I can¡¯t see twenty meters ahead, how could I even find him? And the worst part is that Kerian said that it will only get worse. That tomorrow we would only see five meters ahead. How does she even know that? Is she a fucking meteorologist? I¡¯ve searched the ship for anything that might help us find Zal but I came emptyhanded. This ship has literal garbage inside, what did I expect? The most advance thing here are the ship controls and the computer, but they won¡¯t help me to find him. Not that I even know how they work. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. I¡¯ll do my best to find him. I must.
Kerian was right, the fog grew thicker today. It was impossible to see anything five meters beyond me. But I have not lost hope, I have found a trail of footprints way past the six kilometer mark, I haven¡¯t yet found Zal but this is a great discovery. I tried to push myself as much as I could, but after a few kilometers night closed in and I had to come back here. I honestly wish I wasn¡¯t just a few meters away from him. I shouted just in case, but no one can never know with this things. Maybe he tripped on a rock and has been unconscious ever since? I hope so. But not everything thing is good news. The Remnants gave us an ultimatum after finding out that the cargo bay is already fall. The ship is going to leave tomorrow night no matter what. I only have one day to find Zal. A single fucking day. This is all Kerian¡¯s fault. If she hadn¡¯t snitched we would have more time, I don¡¯t care if I had to stay on the Old World well past my contract, I ain¡¯t leaving behind Zal. What kind of monster leaves a man behind on a hostile world? I¡¯ve left marking behind to follow the trail tomorrow, but this is the last chance. I¡¯ll have around fourteen hours from the moment the ship doors open and close. A big window, but even if I do find him, we have to trek at minimum a roundtrip of twenty kilometers in this suits and shitty terrain. I must push forward. Zal is out there looking for us. And I¡¯m not leaving him alone.
Zal is dead. Void 26th, Last Mission I didn¡¯t write yesterday, for many reasons. I can¡¯t still believe it. I walked for twenty kilometers before finding what remained of him. I knew something was wrong when the trail extended that far, why would he walk that far away from the ship? Was he running away from something? But there wasn¡¯t more steps on the trail. I¡¯m still confused, it¡¯s hard to assimilate. His suit was tore open, something opened the suit. The weird thing is that it couldn¡¯t have been an animal, there weren¡¯t any footprints of any other kind besides Zal¡¯s suit. I checked, they matched. And there wasn¡¯t any blood. There wasn¡¯t any blood, but Zal didn¡¯t remain in the suit, not fully. It¡¯s hard to describe. Fatigue and lack of sleep was already affecting me back then, and even more now. I couldn¡¯t even carry his body back. I had only around five hours to make those twenty kilometers, I doubted I could even do it without carrying anything. I feel awful about leaving him behind. I met him only 26 days ago, but that¡¯s no way to die, or to be remembered. The corpse is what unsettles me the most. I can understand running away and getting killed from something, but that¡¯s not what happened. But I¡¯m not sure if something happened. He was dead. Simple as that. His body was partially blacked out, like splotches of ink. I don¡¯t know if that¡¯s necrosis, but it didn¡¯t look normal. And the body was thin, unnaturally so. Zal wasn¡¯t the biggest of us, but he had meat on his body. This one was on its bones, as if it was sucked dried. I¡¯m no doctor, but I can tell that¡¯s not normal. Whatever killed him, it wasn¡¯t painless. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. The face still gives me nightmare. That isn¡¯t the face of a man who passed away in a blissful sleep but in a long session of agonizing torture. Fuck. cdyfhtgj Four days remain. Four days of this shit. But I don¡¯t know if I can carry on. I, we have been sent on our last mission. I¡¯m not making up facts because we only have four days left in our contract, the Remnants have explicitly said this was going to be our last mission. But I hate it. We are now three on the ship, we have gotten no replacement, and the place feels way bigger than before. And I hate that. The recovery site is not better. i prefer the marsh with the whispers. This one feels off. It¡¯s a complex of some sort, with reinforced concrete like the bunker we were sent on the first mission, but worse in every aspect. The region is always covered in snow from the reports and we have landed during a snowstorm and apparently it won¡¯t end until far our contract and the mission is over. So over the next last days we will have zero visibility. The only thing that makes this not the worst is that the snow does not make it inside the complex. Technology is more advanced than any other places, or that¡¯s the impression I got. This complex is less destroyed than the marsh factory and the rubbles of the city, and though the bunker wasn¡¯t destroyed, this place is in a far better condition. More than destroyed, it¡¯s decayed by age. Kerian examines all the machines we find, acting as these last days never happened, she¡¯s gone back to her reclusive self. Teradoi has done the same, acting as normal, but I know he¡¯s affected. He¡¯s a man of few words but he¡¯s carrying less weight than he used to. They can lie all they want, but I know it and they know it. Zal¡¯s death could happen again. Void 27th, Last Mission Day¡¯s keep coming and going, I guess. The complex is big and there are no lights whatsoever. We are trying to map it, mainly to not get lost, but it¡¯s difficult. We have decided to scratch walls with a crowbar to guide ourselves to the ship. The worst part of the recoveries is going outside. The snowstorm is getting worse. It¡¯s only about a hundred meters to the ship, but the winds are strong enough to sent most recoveries flying, and the cold doesn¡¯t fall behind. Our suits are insulated in every possible way, but I still feel the cold in my bones. It¡¯s survivable inside the complex, but the moment I step outised I start to freeze. I know that in a few minutes I could die. Kerian spends most of her time inside the cargo bay, examining the machines Teradoi and I recover. I know near nothing about machines, even aftert a month I have troubles with the computer, but I can tell they are advanced. Maybe even more so than any machine on the ship or the orbital stations. The Forgetting was a long time ago and not many Remnants remain from that time, but I feel like this technology is lost. This is something worth recovering. But that only makes it worse, why spend almost a month recovering trash then? Why let Zal die doing so? We all carry recovered crowbars to defend ourselves, but I don¡¯t know if that will do something. We don¡¯t even know if something killed Kal, and because I was the only one to see the corpse and didn¡¯t brought anything with me, neither Teradoi and Kerian believe that I actually found it. Nor I blame them. In some way, I wish I didn¡¯t. but I needed the closure. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. For the first time since our first mission I feel our work is worth something, but that feeling is not worth the death of someone. When my contract ends, I¡¯ll not let this matter slide.
Kerian has moved the computer outside of the ship. She did that whilst Teradoi and I were on the complex. I don¡¯t know why she did that and she¡¯s refusing to answer. The best I got out of her was ¡°climate data recompilation¡± but that sounds like a load of bullshit. And no matter what I said, because Teradoi didn¡¯t care about it, she wouldn¡¯t let me carry it inside the ship. The computer is right now on the entrance of the complex, I don¡¯t know how it keeps working to be honest. Machines require electricity but right now the computer isn¡¯t plugged to anything, does it have an internal battery or something? And yes, now I have to write my entries before entering the ship for the night, this means it¡¯s now even harder to write because the suits gloves are really thick. Not that I¡¯m blaming the suit though, I would freeze to death if it weren¡¯t because of it. I¡¯m just pissed at Kerian, why is she being such a bitch? Nothing happened today, but the complex is big, not even in the two remaining days we¡¯ll be able to explore it all. There¡¯s a big hole in a wing though, I threw a peeble and it took a solid half minute to reach the bottom. I won¡¯t do anything about it. Fuck spelunking. I don¡¯t have any equipment for that and I¡¯ll most likely die from the fall than whatever killed Zal. Two days remaining, that keeps me going. I¡¯m out for the day, im freezing. Void 29th, Last Mission This place is becoming darker. It has been pitch black since the beginning but now it¡¯s getting worse. Even though my suit is fully charged, the flashlights illuminate way less than before, and it¡¯s not a malfunction. On the ship it works perfectly, even on the snowstorm, but once I make my way inside the complex, it turns way weaker. I can barely see one meter ahead of me. The complex has nice acoustics, I can hear Teradoi movements no matter if we are kilometers away, but I feel lonelier than ever. The darkness is oppressing, and having a crowbar at hand won¡¯t solve that. I¡¯ve talked with him about the flashlights and the darkness, but he just thinks I am chicken out. Chicken out? This is our prior to last day, how the fuck would I chicken out? He never intends to offend, but I always come out angry when talking to him. I don¡¯t know how he manages that out. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I am making multiple entries this day, courtesy of the machine being at the entrace. And also, the days feel way longer now. I feel like I¡¯ve been working for two days straight and that¡¯s taking into account that our shortest work day is twelve hours. The darkness is more oppressive. I feel like the hole it¡¯s consuming everything. It hasn¡¯t moved, it truly hasn¡¯t, but it doesn¡¯t feel like it. it feels different. I didn¡¯t even bother to talk with Teradoi about it, he would just dismiss me. Kerian hasn¡¯t come out today, is it because of the darkness? I feel at danger. It is an oppression, hostile and lurking. There are no eyes, but I¡¯m being watched. The walls are growing black. Teradoi must have noticed that, right? One day. One day and this is all over. I¡¯ll go back to the ship now. I won¡¯t talk about any of this with them. They won¡¯t believe me anyway. A single day. The darkness won¡¯t take me. This light won¡¯t be devoured. Void 30th What is real anymore? I carry metal and electronics on my arms, a dash of light into the nothingness? There¡¯s only darkness. Whatever is inside, it has consumed the whole complex. The walls are here, I can touch them. The floor is here, I can walk on it. Then why can I see it? It¡¯s impossible to see anything. The flashlight doesn¡¯t illuminate anymore. It doesn''t matter how hard I blast it¡¯s power, nothing shines. The darkness devours the light. An allconsuming void. There¡¯s only one thing I can see. Recoveries. Recoveries. They are unaffected by the void. What are they? What? How? The void takes all. I¡¯ve begun seeing recoveries through the walls, they are no longer there. The complex is a mess of nonexistence. But they are. I cannot walk through them, I don¡¯t fall into the ground. I are longer here? Righ. It¡¯s difficult to get more recoveries, the flashlight doesn¡¯t work anymore. I cannot see where the walls are, and seeing all the recoveries around me makes it impossible to judge if there¡¯s a wall even there. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. The hole There¡¯s a big recovery there. I won¡¯t get near it. one step in false and I¡¯ll fall to my death. There¡¯s no floor to see. I have avoided getting near it. the recovery is big, it must be kilometers underground yet I can see it¡¯s light the size of a fingernail. Whaty would be? I haven¡¯t seen Teradoi in the whole day, I¡¯ll go back to the ship. I¡¯m done. It¡¯s weird to be at the entrance and be able to see light and the ground, even if they snowstorm makes be blind. They are dead. I am not surprised. Kerian hid another computer on the cockpit. Why am I not surprised? I moved the bodies to the cargo bay, yet another recovery. At least this time I managed to recover it. I know for a fact that the ship does not need to be piloted. Once the clock hits midnight it will close its doors and go back to orbit. Last hours. The darkness is encroaching, but bad luck, I¡¯m making my way out. Should have gone for me sooner. This is my last entry from the Old World as I am leaving the planet, and probably my last one ever. I guess the Remnants were right with making this diaries/almanacs. I just have one thing to say. You might stare me all you want, fucker, but I see you back. Straight through you. Llum out.