Seaslip
Edith's Diary
(13th Session): Index ; What the F*ck ; Body Count ; Who's playing Who ; What's been happening
26th December 2013::
We came across the pack of dogs again today, we must have been heading in the same direction as them for the past few days. We were heading south along the road when we first saw the smoke rising, it was a mansion aflame, it seems that someone had set themselves up a fortified house, set up to be defensible and secure. It reminded me of The Day of the Triffids, a mansion and grounds secured from the monsters outside, a refuge of civilisation with people working alongside each other for common good, hope. Just like in the story, hope was dead, the monsters had broken in and civilisation had fallen. At least that's what it looked like.
The house was full of Wallabies, works, not fighting each other for petty reasons like food or sex or living in squalor, extorting the surrounding peoples but actually co-operating for mutual survival, the ground had been toiled, they had grown their own food and began to rebuild civilisation, the works, building civilisation, this was new. But civilisation had fallen, the dogs we had been following had burned and looted the place, this was depressingly familiar. A few of the group tried to parley with them to share or co-operate but they wanted neither, we left them without violence but it certainly struck home, civilisation is dead, this suits a lot of the survivors just fine. We waited for the dogs to leave and then had a route around ourselves but anything of any worth had been taken, there was a raised platform on which something had been mounted but it had been torn away, all that was left were dead bodies. The Koala started to talk about eating works, I advised against it and left to find some wood for a weapon, let them find out the hard way, I did.
I found wood enough for a staff and a short bow maybe, give me a couple of days and Bruce's knife and I can make something worthwhile with them. It was then that Bitch found me.
I was terrified of being alone with the cat, with the others she had simply been unfriendly, it wouldn't be too hard for her to kill be and then blame it on an accident or a random creature, not the way she lies, I considered attacking her on site but the fact she could tear my arms off without breaking a sweat made me reconsider, I tried to keep my distance but she preferred talking up close. She asked about the wood, I explained, she asked if I needed anything else, I told her a bowstring would be nice, I stopped short of explaining that a piece of catgut was probably the best I could hope for but only just, she offered a piece of fishing line, not great but it was the thought that counted, she was trying to be kind, it disturbed me, I didn't know why or what she wanted but at least she wasn't tearing my guts out. She asked what happened to people who ate work, she seemed disturbed by what I had said, I wondered if she had... but then she would be vomiting by then. We talked, well she talked and I mumbled, she was getting depressed, saying how her life had lost its meaning, there was nothing to look forward to, she talked about summoning dragons and flying away from everything that somewhere things had to be all right and all we had to do was get there. I remembered her words, they were mine far too long ago. I'd given up on the promised land where things are safe, if it existed help would have arrived, I'd pretty much given up hope of anything and all those words of hers, of mine reflected in a brave young woman like her just made me depressed. We sat there together, depressed.
There are few things can make a spell of depression worse but somehow that bloody Koala managed it, he waved a hunk of Wallaby in front of us, Bitch ran crying, I looked at him, his jaw dripping with blood and vomit, his eyes wild and his claws covered in the blood of the corpse he had torn apart for food he didn't need, I ran for my life.
Bitch found me, we were depressed again, the Koala found us, he had flipped, I had thought he was incapable of thinking enough to be crazy, I was wrong, Bitch opened fire, she was in a state but she hit anyway, she hit his bandanna and the bullet must have bounced off the electronics, she ran, and someone shot at Pixie, I did what I always do when someone opens fire, cower with extreme prejudice.
It was Peter firing at Pixie, whether he was shooting at the crazy Koala or had just flipped like the ones in Sydney I still don't know but he got a knife in his chest for his troubles. Pixie ran off, Bitch went into hysterics trying to shake Peter out of the fit he'd gone into, that bastard must have poisoned his knives with an alkaloid or something. The others turned up with the medical kit, I did my best to save Peter's life, he was in a bad way but I got him semi-stable.
Bitch began to cry and play with the poisoned knife, someone should have stopped her but I guess we were all in shock slightly, she began to wail and scream that life had no purpose, that she was better off with the tigers and such. It got to me, I had come close to that before now but I'd never just given up like that, not after everything. The selfish little bitch, wailing and wanting to die because she didn't have a purpose anymore, I told her what I thought, but then she looked at me, I looked in her eyes, beyond the two black slits covered in tears and wet fur to the young woman beneath, not simply crying because she didn't know what to do with her life, not because she didn't like what was happening but a small child crying because she was lost, her hopes and dreams suddenly destroyed by an idiot with a nuclear weapon and frightened of losing her sanity and becoming that which she most despised. I wanted to hate her, I wanted her dead for being a work, to scream at her for everything that I had went through, to blame her for wallowing in her own self pity when Sahra and Eric were dead after a bunch of works decided to rampage, the beatings and rape that followed, being forced to scavenge from the dead to keep alive, losing Richard. I wanted to scream at her for all of the pain and suffering I had gone through and tear her apart for it.
But I didn't, not even after she screamed that I was a sad old woman with no children and no one I loved, that hit home but I didn't strike back, I didn't because I knew it wouldn't help a bit, she wasn't Bitch a hard as nails mercenary turned work she was Marie Lee, a scared little girl who had the world kicked from under her and like it or not I was probably the closest she had to a mother or even a friend when she needed one. She needed purpose, so I gave her one.
28th December 2013:
We buried Peter in a shallow grave with the Wallabies, I don't think he'll come back, not with the poison in his system and we headed south for the market the dogs were talking about. Judith hasn't been seen since last night, I guess either Peter or Pixie got to her.
30th December 2013:
Marie actually smiled today I guess she's getting better.
1st January 2014
Rain for the new year, wonderful, that bloody Koala's been spotted following us, he's like Gollum, I just hope he has the good sense to keep his distance.
3rd January 2014:
We've found the market, it seems to be the ruins of a seaside town that got built on after the fall, everything seems strange and disjointed there, a memory of a past world fused onto the nightmare of this one. Tomorrow we go into the market to see what we can see.
4th January 2014:
The market is amazing, works of every kind trading peacefully, we weren't welcome that was certain but with the firepower we had no one was going to argue, we traded a few rabbits for some stuff and Bruce traded a gun he didn't need for a sword for me. The sword isn't just any old sword, it's one of the Dragonsbane five hundred, it's in amazing shape considering, it'll need a scabbard and a stone to sharpen it but they shouldn't be too difficult to come across. It gives me a nice warm secure feeling to be carrying a sword again.
Marie wanted to go off on her own to scout around, it seemed like the sensible thing to do, she can get information we never would have I just hope she doesn't prefer things with the works, I don't want to lose her too.
It seems Marie got some useful information, it seems there are a group of humans in the area who are large enough and dangerous enough to stay alive around here, there's also a group called the greys who sound an awful lot like the dogs we met, word is they might have a satellite dish they stole from the Wallabies. Suddenly things don't seem so hopeless.