I don’t know if there are any actual human beings still out there. If the news is anything to go by, well… I won’t get my hopes up. Apparently we’re just over one thousand days now… the reality feels so, so much longer.
It’s been rough, I’ll be honest, I mean really really rough. I never thought it would be easy… but, the first few casualties really affected everyone’s morale.
They were foolish, preventable accidents; an improperly secured load… a broken carabiner… the safety on the rifle… we would do better, we had to. We had become responsible for the future of humanity regardless of, if wanted to be or or not.
Vaughn told us to keep our heads up, he said we would persevere… and we did, for a while at least. That was until ‘the fights’ happened… that was… well… I think that everything just got to some of them. They snapped you know? I mean being stuck here and all.
I heard it was all over a board game, other rumors said a bag of chips. We lost a lot of people that night… I think, that was the straw the broke the backs on a lot of us here.
It wasn’t just all of the trauma that got to us, there were the little things too. How long really can you smile through eating the same MREs and canned peaches for the hundredth time?
I know, I know… I was thankful to even be in here but… we tried to stay positive, the majority of us even. Only, the bad news just wouldn’t stop.
That was one thing that Vaughn always made sure of, that we had a connection to the outside world. We knew when we left that would need to be able to monitor the situation at least until things got better… but it just, never did I guess.
Of course it would have been nice for everyone to have satellite TVs and WiFi but it just wasn’t feasible being this remote and underground. Instead Vaughn has maintained a radio and transmitter to keep us posted on what’s been happening.
In some ways I wish he never had.
I admit it was difficult getting used to, but did we really ever have a choice? No one could have ever expected what happened. I mean this place was built for a situation like this, I just never thought we would actually need to use it, you know?
At least we had prepared, and because of that we were alive. I think we probably left around March or April? Three years ago now. That’s when things started to get bad.
‘Lockdown’
I never would have thought it would get like this though… who could have imagined? Most of us only planned to wait it out for a few months, until things settled down, a contingency…
I’ll never forget the look on Vaughn’s face when he told us:
‘Most of humanity has been wiped out… it mutated. The reports say what’s happening out there makes those zombie movies look like a walk in the park’
We cried for hours that night lamenting the news. Everything gone? Our homes destroyed? Things would never be the same. Still some tried to remain optimistic.
Well, they did until Vaughn told us about the wars…
He said the Russians had made a move. I could believe it, the tensions were there before we left. What I couldn’t understand is why Australia had to get involved?
Vaughn said they had invaded Laos and triggered world wide chaos. Apparently, taking advantage of the situation Mongolia annexed Canada and it all spiraled out from there.
What little hope we had left was dwindling. The world was over. At least the one that we had known. We were the last bastion of hope on the planet. Out of three hundred, there are only about half of us left, and I… I just can’t take it anymore.
Last month I saw one of the guys glaring at Vaughn. Later that day I heard him whispering in the corridors. All I could make out of their conversation was “He’s full of it, I’m confronting him.”
I was going to ask them about it the next day but there was an accident in the lower levels and I haven’t seen them since…
If that wasn’t bad enough, Vaughn told us a week later that what was left of Mexico had been taken over by aliens. Supposedly they unveiled some declassified bodies the ships came down and took over in one night.
Actual aliens?
He said if we could just hold out a little longer we would get it together and bring humanity out of the ashes like a phoenix. He said in order to pull through we needed order. Someone fearless to take the reins.
He wants us to start calling him ‘The Chosen Wise Leader’…
I’m leaving.
I miss the outdoors, I miss real food, the sun and the rain… how about some fresh air maybe?! I don’t know what’s going to happen to me… to be honest I’m scared to death, but one thing I know, is that I can not, stay here.
I haven’t told anyone… I have to see it with my own eyes. I have to know, undoubtedly, that humanity is gone. I’m holding onto a sliver there still might be others out there.
I’m sending this message to you though the radio transmitter in Vaughn’s office. I don’t know how many are left to hear it.
Unfortunately he keeps the radio in his quarters under lock and key, but… if someone does hear it, just know that there are others out there.
You are not alone.
I don’t know what I’ll find once I get out but it has to be better than being stuck in here another day.
Wait. Is that?
I see Vaughn on the monitors… he’s headed this way.
He has a club in his hands and his shirt is all red. What the…?
I have to go.
Is that… screaming?
I have to go… I think I can make it to the exit…
I’m not going to wait around to find out why he looks so urgent.
Signing off.