CHAPTER 31

You hear a soft rumbling, a disturbance to the otherwise peaceful nothingness that clouds your mind. Light flows and ebbs, taunting your consciousness. So slowly. Faster it comes through like a pendulum set on the timetable of a cuckoo clock to alarm you awake, but every hour it fails. You remain acutely aware of your own unconsciousness, yet unable to do anything about it.

Silence. The rumbling has stopped, but then it is replaced by a steady pace. Thump thump, thump thump. You think it is your heart beat, but then you remember that you don't have a heart anymore—the human bodies as of late as an unnecessary organ. What could it be then? Thump thump. It grates into your soul. Thump thump. It drives you crazy. Thump Thump. Then there is one that seems to go on rapid fire; a crazy thump-thump-thump-thump that vibrates your entire core. In your mind's eye you see a creaky wooden floor. That must be where the sound is coming from, and sure enough you can see one of the floorboards rattling to the beat. All at once its gone and your eyes open slowly,

The overhead lights are a bit blaring at first, and they don't seem to be dimming anytime soon. The silence around you is gone, the thumping is gone, and thank god for that last one. You feel your arms and that's when it hits you—you feel your arms. It isn't any phantom pain, not a tale of what once was, your arms are sitting right by your side as they should be. You're sitting in your room in the bunker.

Surely it all couldn't have been a dream? The expedition and the sand worm...even you don't have that kind of imagination. But here you are with both of your arms. This is the time where you expect Jesse to walk in the room—to somehow magically know that you've woken up—and tell you that you were right. It had all been a bad dream. Your past life all a dream—your time as Devon all a dream.

No one comes through your door.

After ten minutes of waiting in silence you finally swing your legs over the side of the bed, feeling oddly nostalgic for the very first time you woke up in this world much the same way—a peaceful bedroom in a land a million miles from your home. That reminds you of the case of Roland's secret hideaway, how he was able to go missing for seven years. It has something to do with that room you woke up in—the room nobody else could see from the outside. Maybe once this is all over you can go back to investigate.

Maybe, if Pandera weren't in ruins.

Standing to your feet, you feel a sudden lightheadedness that passes quickly. The silence pervades through your room and you cannot stand it any longer. You turn the handle of the door and step outside—the layout of the bunker is still fresh in your mind. You take the path down towards the common room, not a soul remains in sight. It's the quietest you've seen the bunker.

The common room is similarly empty. "Hello? Is anybody here? Jesse? Sen? Khap-Ar?" You call out, framing your hands over your mouth to amplify your voice.

When nobody answers back, you run into the room that Andrew had been staying in—empty. The room next to it—empty. The entire bunker looks like it had been abandoned completely. The third room on the right hand side of Andrew's isn't wholly empty, a hand-held tablet rests on the bed. You pick it up in your hands, its curved display rests comfortably in your hand. It looks like whoever had been staying in this room had been using it like a journal. Curious, and with that as your only justification, you begin to read:

1

The days are long, the training hard. My mind grows bored.

My body grows even more tired. We fight this war

and we cannot win, but yet we try. How long must we fight

until we realize that fighting an enemy that cannot die is futile?

The commander's delusional by keeping us in here.

He's delusional for sending us out there.

By day we fight a war against an enemy

that can rebuild itself overnight.

By night we hide out in abandoned bunkers

praying that the menace holds out on killing us.

Nine's going a little stir crazy down here,

and I can't say I blame him. With all that fur on his body

and the sweltering heat that stays down here

I'd be itching to leave as well.

Well, I should get some rest,

maybe I should continue this more often,

so when we're all eviscerated by the Dromedans

I'll have something to send to my family.

Keep Teddy warm for me, Isa.

-Five

The end of the document leads into a whole host of entries. You decide to take the tablet with you, but you really should keep moving in case you find someone. Skimming the other articles seems to show that the writer, this mysterious Five, is really critical of everyone and everything around them. You also see that they call themselves Five because of their rank in the army, this all but confirms that this war that was written about in the first entry is the very same one that first caused the end of the Dromedan race.

It does make you curious on why someone seven years later would still keep a journal open like that—unless the owner happened to come across it and decided to skim it like yourself. You make your way to the elevator—the very same one that you and Jesse went down to meet with Hatta. You find yourself pressing the button and feeling a sort of warmth on it as you let go. Looking back at the journal, you find one that's dated, the very first of its kind.

242

Day 19 | Month 3 | Year 1999

I know not where I am.

I want everything to make sense. I woke up.

I woke up and nothing makes sense.

Nobody is around. Why isn't anyone around?

I dare not step outside these walls for I fear

what I might find. If any government

spies can read this information I beg

you dearly to at least explain to me

what kind of torture I must be

forced to endure. This bunker denies the

most basic of my human rights.

I do not even know why I am in here.

Bonnie, if you can ever read this message—

and dear God I hope you do,

know that my mission was a failure.

My mission was—

It's the first entry out of all of them that is dated, and the last entry out of hundreds. It wouldn't make sense for someone to start making entries and then after dozens upon dozens of entries to only start dating without any warning. This likely means that there is in fact two people writing these entries. And that's the thought that freezes you in your tracks as the elevator doors open up. You can feel your breathe begin to slow to a near halt as your eyes read and reread the entry over again.

"There is no way...there is no goddamn way!" You find yourself screaming. But the pit of your heart knows what this means. Somehow—someway, what has happened to both you and Alex has also happened to a face you had hoped to all gods that you wouldn't see again. Noah Marshall is here, somewhere. That thought makes you sick inside. It's one thing after another, and you're not particularly sure that you can handle it.

You stand in the elevator still, the doors still open as ever. You take another look down at the tablet and scroll all the way back to the very first entry, rereading it carefully for any identifying features. Nothing. You step out of the elevator, scrolling through the entries one by one again in an obsessive manner. Anything to point you in the right direction. You pass by the medical bay—the beds are all empty, a fact that would alarm you more if you weren't scrubbing through hundreds of journal entries at once.

You can't even believe the date attached to the one with Noah, he must have believed he was still in 1999. He did mention how nobody was around these bunkers at that time—just like Five had previously. You remember Jesse mentioning that the bunkers were used prior to the fallout, although you never did hear many specifics.

"War is hell," you say, stepping out before finding your way to the large marketplace. The lot is barren, you expected as much to be honest. A chill run down your spine as you finish. You look around you, waiting for someone to reveal their terrible practical joke. "Ha, gotcha! Made you believe that someone was actually writing these things right to you!" They'd say.

That is, if they actually existed.

You walk over to the west-most wall placing your hand against it and slouching over, breathing in slowly. You run your hand through your hair and then all at once you want nothing to do with it. You scream to the top of your lungs, hopefully if you scream loud enough someone will come down to chastise you. Scream. Disgruntled, you move to walk back to the elevator. Heading back up you think maybe if you leave the bunker you can find someone outside who can help ease your mind. The elevator rises and then the doors open with a short clang. Unfortunately, the exit to the bunker's been completely sealed off. A giant silver plate rests on the hatch that leads towards the outside world.

You think even if you had a million years to wear it down it wouldn't move an inch. You backtrack now to the medical wing on the first floor, back to where Jesse showed you where the stockpile of foreign and not-so-foreign medical supplies is. There doesn't seem to be any way out from there either. You find another plate latched onto a large door at the end of the hall, but again you don't think that you're even close to strong enough...Wait! You're still wearing the power armor!

It had slipped your mind entirely. You press your thumb to your palm and you feel the sudden weightlessness you'd expect from an astronaut. Ha, what a twist of fate. Unfortunately, this isn't the one you are looking for. You press your thumb to your palm again and instantly hit the ground hard. Now what one was it again? You try your index finger next, and see the red glow filling your trim. "Okay, now with this I should be able to—Wow...I really miss having Jesse around to bounce my ideas off of."

You take in a breath and move towards the plate. If your guess is right you should be able...to...lift. You're grabbing the plate by both sides, but it doesn't move an inch. You're pulling with all of your—and the suit's—strength, and it still doesn't budge.

You let go and wipe your face with your hand, and then an idea begins to form. You walk away from the door and then turn around to face it. You press down your middle finger—activating your speed. You begin running towards the door—faster and faster until you're right before the door and you press down two other fingers to increase your gravity and your strength. You brace your shoulder and slam into the plate, bursting through it like a bullet from a gun. You fall on your face, but you've made it through. On the other side is a hallway that ends in a large door and forks off to the right.

You pick yourself up and look behind you at the silver plate, it curls outward and shows the hallway to the medical bay outside. You smile and chuckle as you feel some sort of pride for figuring it out. Actually doing something and having it work out is really cool, you think.

You keep moving forward to the door at the end of the hall. There is no handle—no hand scanner or knob. You have to lean into it, and hard, to get it to move on its hinge. Inside rests a row of bookshelves stacked full with all kinds of different books, and just in front of the mini-library sits an ovular desk with a strangely human computer resting on top of it.

You walk closer toward the desk and look just past the computer at the books, this time in more detail. You recognize them—at least some of them—1984, Salem's Lot, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and even Moby Dick. You remember reading some of these books when you were younger. You turn around now to the computer, finding its power button right on the face of the monitor. This whole room is like a place out of another time...your time.

The screen flickers on with a dull hum, a password prompt is the only thing on the screen, the cursor blinking in and out slowly. Crap. You don't have the password. Why would you? It's not like it's the first time that you've been locked out of something because you didn't have the key.

Key.

Your mind flashes once and you instantly remember the vision of Roland Duschand. Your fingers flutter on their own, finding the keyboard down below the monitor—hidden underneath a portion of the desk that slides out.

Pulse.

You click enter and the prompt disappears, shining white text takes its place. "Delta Key Entered. Welcome back, Mr. Duschand." The desktop is brought up and it only has a few icons spread around it.

"Soldier Database" catches your eye first, but there are others around it, "Journal.txt", "Instructions.txt", and "Watch_Me.avi." Feeling an insurmountable uneasiness about it all, you decide to click the video file first. A window pops up on the computer, the screen is all black for about ten seconds.

"If you're watching this...then you're probably looking for some answers," A voice says. The grim face of Roland Duschand fades into frame, and he's fiddling with a small cube in his hands absentmindedly. "You're probably so very confused about what's been happening to you—so confused on where and when you are." He takes a deep breath. "Well let me let you in on the secret."