April 16th, The Day It Happened
I never anticipated my day would end up like this.
I mean, literally just hours ago my afternoon was completely normal. Woke up, did some homework, had a nice lunch, and took a nap. I knew this evening was going to be funky because I leave for class at 5:20, then around 7 my family was taking our pets to the vet. They’d be done before I got out of school, but I already arranged plans with my friends that we were all going to have a late night hangout at Ben and Lexi’s. So nothing regarding home really changes for me, but it was different from the normal schedule.
Aside from the rolling in thunderstorm which was strange, nothing still seemed out of the ordinary on the drive up to Evergreen. I pulled in, got to the room on time, even had a few minutes to chat with Claire and watch them make what’s probably their 15th character in Baldur’s Gate. Even class time itself was, by all accounts, utterly normal. Around 7:50 it finally hit Sam that she forgot her computer, so they entrusted us to not pull a Lord of the Flies while she ran to the COM building. We assumed it would be quick, as Sam has a slideshow to show us for our upcoming creative assignment. How wrong we were and how trivial that seems, now.
I felt it before I saw it. Was right in the middle of taking my meds when I felt a rumble in my feet. My water bottle shook. An earthquake? No, this was much worse. A bright red glow broke through the sky, and when we all turned to look, lightning cracked onto the concrete below. Red. Shortly after an earthquake. I duck and cover. The glass splinters, but thankfully doesn’t shatter (thanks riot-proof windows). Strangely enough, the earthquake didn’t last long. Maybe about five minutes. Cautiously, we all crawled out from under our tables. What do we do now? I tried to call my family, no signal. Same with my friends. Nothing. Not even texts were going out. This is bad, something is down and blocking all cell signals from going out (and probably coming in) to campus. Some people were very quick to respond. Those with places to stay made their way back to their apartments to examine the damage. A lot of others decided the HCC would be the best place to gather and check in on each other. Considering I don’t live on campus, or really know my way around super well, I followed the larger group to the HCC, where thankfully I met up again with Claire.
Around 8:30 we heard this wretched roar from the campus forest. As if this emergency wasn’t bad enough. I can’t contact people, and staff isn’t going to want me to leave until they get a solid headcount. For now I can only just stay put.
…Well, that’s not entirely true. No one is really organized, so Claire lets me know they’re going back to their apartment to check on Grace and her partner. I was going to come with, splitting up didn’t seem safe at the moment, but then I remembered I have a car. I can at least get some things out of it if we’re going to be here awhile. We agree to split up and meet back up at the HCC after.
The trip back to my car proved more perilous than I thought. The concrete being cracked and splintered meant difficult terrain, and all the foliage, after glowing a bright green, seemed to grow and expand before my eyes at a massive rate. Hundreds of alarms were going off in my head. Yet there was nothing I could do to quell them. I knew this. At least not right now. I had to hold onto the hope that we’d get released soon and that everything was actually okay and red lightning was actually a new weather phenomenon. Of course, this was just something I’m telling myself. But what else do I have?
I made it to my car with little issue. A bit shaken up from the earthquake but otherwise unaffected. I grab all my emergency gear, the jacket I keep in the trunk, and my car buddy, Poncho, or Sir Poncho Darwin Gladius Xavier III Esquire Junior Senior Sophomore. Then I lock everything up and start walking back. At this point it’s around 9:30. People with first aid training are working on calming the nerves of everybody, and what staff remain are attempting to rally the rest of the students into some organized group. It’s working somewhat, but not very well. Claire gets back about half an hour later, having successfully(?) found everyone else.
Now at 10:00, there’s no sign of improvement, I’m getting tired, and most people are hunkering down somewhat for the night. I do the same, though it’s not a restful night’s sleep. I’m tired, gross, and not in a comfortable situation. Waking up periodically throughout the night occurs all too common, and every time I wake up to Claire staring intently into the fire. Sometime in the middle of the night, I think around 3? I heard murmurs of people trying to go into the forest, and coming right back out where they started. Haha, that’s not stressful at all.
Around 5:30 I just couldn’t sleep anymore. I stayed up with Claire while watching the sun, now a dismal red, rise into the sky above. A single moment of peace amidst the chaos of the previous night. We wait quietly for others to start waking up, as everyone in the HCC comes to the dawning realization that maybe, just maybe, this is our new reality.
Great. Just what I needed. ANOTHER major world event to live through.
Around 9 is when everyone else in our party wakes up. Right as Claire passes out from exhaustion. That’s ok, they’ve been up all night. What the rest of us realized though is that we are getting hungry. We’re not sure how much food is left, but the Greenery is the primary location for food and that sort of stuff, so while one of us stays behind with Claire, the rest of us begin to make our way to the Greenery for food…
April 17th-23
I probably should have been keeping up on this narrative thing for the day to day. I kind of just forgot with the chaos unfolding. Oh well. It’s roughly day seven, the end of the first week since whatever caused the campus to totally shut down happened. Some things that happened:
- We’ve established a wellness camp over by Einstein’s, or what was formerly Einstein’s
- There’s been a rough headcount of people. About 1,000 of us remain on campus.
- Electricity is weird (case in point being unable to contact people) however some technically inclined have started fiddling around with it to try and get it working again
- Sam is missing. Someone thought they spotted her around 8:40 on the first night, but since then no one has seen or heard from them. I might make missing posters for that here soon. It’s small, but something I’m capable of doing.
- Ashe and Paul (I think it was Paul? Ashe had a partner in crime) had a partner in crime) pillaged the food bank at the bookstore. We’re hoping to talk to them to get it back
- Small bands of people started just walking into the mists on the west side of campus (well, east if you’re looking top down. West if you’re in my position) most of them come back but we’ve lost a few people already to this…
- Similarly, other groups of people went back into the forests this way. Apparently, the forest is like a land ocean now; the deeper you go the darker, thicker, and taller it gets. Some people have claimed to spot dangerous and terrifying creatures in there… I’m not sure I want to believe them, for my sanity.
Now we’re at the first week mark. Presently, who remains plans on meeting up in the Evans building to actually sit down and collectively figure out a game plan (thanks [Valken]!). I’m still stressed to the max. Sleep evades me, I’m STILL gross (basic cleaning supplies have been provided but it’s like camping, it’s just not enough you know? I’m used to a very specific level of comfort and this ain’t it and it’s not helping my stress levels), we’ve established no communication so I have no idea if everyone is ok, and this all sucks.
To keep myself somewhat sane, I like to stand at the edge between campus and the mists because it’s like a barebones cold shower. It’s also quiet there (mostly) so I use it to just disconnect for a bit and let my mind rest.
After a while, maybe 15-20 minutes or so, I open my eyes and take a breath out. As my eyes flutter open I catch something through the lid; a dark shadow. I think nothing of it, I tend to catch these odd shadows out of the corners of my eye as is. I turn to start heading to the Evans hall when another dark shadow flicks past. Ok, now that’s weird. Once, sure. Twice? That like, never happens. I turn back to the mists, letting my eyes focus in then relax, like I’m studying an optical illusion. Then, I see it. The figure of a person. Could it be? Someone found their way through or back? Quite a few people had gone missing as a result of the mists. Maybe this was a sign of better things to come?
This person didn’t move, though. They just stood there. Was their back turned? Or were they staring at me? I couldn’t make it out in the mists. I wanted to investigate, but something compelled me to stay put and observe.
I waited.
Not more than a couple minutes later (which felt like an eternity… sorry, I get impatient) I heard a sound. A soft, desperate sound. Like a cry for help. The figure remained unmoved, but I could tell the sound was coming from it. The sound made me feel bad. I couldn’t do anything about their plight. I didn’t even know if they were real. Were they real? I heard rumors about “Mist People” which were supposedly the dead ghosts of the people who went missing in the mists. Honestly, I hadn’t put a lot of thought into it. Ghosts no doubt were real, but people made it out to be something to be weary of. If this, is that, a Mist Person, there’s no reason to be scared. Or maybe I just misunderstood. Either way, if this was some lost soul who got lost and just wants help navigating their spirit back home… I can’t do much physically, but I can do what is respectful, and honor their existence and sacrifice.
I lowered my head to the shadow, not really sure what to think about, but just in general sending good feelings out of thankfulness and reassurance. When I lifted my head back up, the shadow was gone. In its place though, I felt a sense of calm wash over me, and no longer heard the soft, desperate cries.
Whatever that was, Mist Person or not, it seemed to like what I did. I’ll make sure to let everyone know of this finding at the Evans meeting. With all the other strange things going on on campus, I hope this will be taken seriously, but I’ve also been a skeptic, so we will see what the general reaction is.
As far as continuing these journals, self, what do you think? Would it be worth it to document updates as they come? There’s at least a written record this way. Again, another small act, but small acts are what I’m most capable of right now, so it will have to work. I’ll think on it some more, and maybe come back by week 2 to provide another update.
April 24th-May 4th
So I definitely have not been keeping up on this like I said I would. It’s been two weeks and so much yet so little has happened.
For one, we’re out of food. Officially. People are freaking out about it. I’ve had a rumbling stomach for a few days, but been so anxious that I haven’t been able to stomach much. That, or I get so zeroed in on documentation and making missing posters that I just don’t think about food until it’s too late. I suspect some people are still hoarding stolen food somewhere, but am too tired to really care.
As I write this, I have set up myself within the basement with a lovely lady named Dreama. She’s been pouring through the books in the library like crazy, and I’ve been helping them catalog and organize the information. Arbitrarily sorting helps me keep my mind off of all the shit going on topside. Did you know more people have gone missing from the fog since my first encounter with those mist people? Some are already trying to organize search parties, but I honestly have no idea if they will even find bodies in the fog. The things I saw made me think it wasn’t a tangible body at all…
Everyone was looking into the farm and trying to contact any people out there to start growing our own food. The path is obstructed, but Nick suggested we take a car and try to brute force it. Not too many others seemed on board given that the two pathways to the farm in particular have both overgrowth and fog blocking the way. Personally I’m indifferent. If brute forcing works then I say go for it. I don’t know how that will affect the car or the forest, there’s still so much we don’t know about the forest itself aside from the fact it seems to be breathing… but if it’s stupid and it works, it’s not stupid.
Dreama has shored up a lot of historical records about the Evergreen campus. Yeah there’s the general “it was founded in 1967”, but interestingly there’s been historic accounts of experimental fungi and soil tests out on the farm. Could that potentially have something to do with the mutated foliage?
On the complete opposite end of that, more and more mutated creatures have been spotted within the forests. Mostly uncanny things, deer with more horns than normal, squirrels with razor sharp teeth, but it is all odd nonetheless. Those that have been going into the forest to try and hunt turn up empty-handed or confused as to how they got back here when they swore they caught something. People braver than I have ventured in with these people in an attempt to document the creatures… more on that soon I hope.
Our only other option for food is foraging. Again, there’s still a lot we don’t know, but those with an eye for nature, including the whole group dedicated to this very thing, have determined a few safe to eat plants for us to work with. It’s a start at least.
That’s really all that went down these past two weeks. Losing food is so massive that it feels like so much more than what it really was. Since then it’s been a scramble to figure out our next steps. I think I’ll just stay hidden away for now. I like the quiet, Dreama us nice company, and maybe we can find more information that will help us with a food source faster.
May 5th-May 15th
Dear Diary,
I MET A BLACK BEAR. This black bear was weird. Had a much longer snout and an even longer tongue. But it was super friendly and lovey, like my neighbor’s cat Bagheera. It let me pet it and hug it, and I had some berries on me at the time that I had gathered so I gave it some and it ate them crazy fast. This animal is what I’m latching onto now, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop me. I think I’ll call it Sandwich.
As far as other things are concerned… it’s less stuff I’m excited about. Ok well there’s one other thing I’m excited about and it’s that I’m joining the Bards of Evergreen. They work to raise morale around campus and especially around the people who are sick and injured. I’ve done stuff like that in the past to keep myself and others sane, and I fancy myself quite good at it, so like… might as well! I’m hoping it keeps my mind off of missing my friends and family, and how dirty I am, even though we do have access to water.
Okay, NOW onto the things I’m less excited about. We have crabs now… but they’re these shiny metal crabs. They’re all aggressive and will pinch you and I’ve caught them chewing on electrical chords. It’s so frustrating because we’re ALREADY dealing with so much and now on top of that we’ve got evil crabs?? I hate everything.
On the bright side, there’s been a pretty big effort in finding Sam… even though we still haven’t found her. But there’s posters going up everywhere and the effort seems to really have brought people together. Not only is this great for morale, but it’s giving people hope, which is just as important for our new lives.
Other stuff has been going on too, like people developing weapons, groups of students organizing different teams, others finding objects in the forest, lots of stuff has happened in 10 days so it’s promising that we’ve been making so much progress. Me though, I’ve just been taking it easy. We’ve found steady food in foraging and hunting, so while hungry, I’m not as weak feeling as I used to be. I’ve also taken the time to really admire the sky lately. with the new red sun our sky and environment is like a forever fall. Sky gazing has become something of a calming element for me, in addition to admiring the new nature we’ve been given. It’s… nice. It gives me a sense of grounding that I mentioned earlier, and helps me take my mind off of things that bother me about the crushing reality of our situation.
If it’s not obvious in these diary entries, I have started to take up writing again. I should start to draw again too, but I am finding that it takes up more of my mental energy than I am bargaining for right now. It would be nice to draw out more things, but damn, the exhaustion really gets to me creatively in the visual department. That really sucks, considering what I was, but I guess nobody is who they were now anymore. Anyways, life just goes on. I haven’t really found anything cool as of late, but I will definitely be working on befriending Sandwich more. I will make this bear my friend if it’s the last thing I do. Perhaps there will be more to come, we shall see.
May 16th-June 1
I think people have really started to pick up the pace on progress. Our food source is increasing, the energy crabs have dwindled, and we actually have been able to pass through the fog and make it to Olympia! I can finally check on my parents and friends, I’m so excited and hopeful. We can at least see how far this incident spreads… though I’m pretty sure it’s everywhere. I’m resigned to this being our new way of life for quite some time… even if it makes me feel gross and miss basic necessities.
What I am NOT excited about, though, is that while lots of missing people have turned up, so many more have disappeared. I basically live at the longhouse now because of the amount of memorial vigils I hold nightly.
It’s starting to worry me. And I’m tired of seeing people go missing. I’m even more tired of people going missing, showing back up, and they’re different but no one’s really looked into it (granted, I haven’t either… so I’m one to talk). I think I’m going to start a Search and Rescue team. There’s already been some interest (Light has expressed an interest despite its scattered mind after recovering the safe with Sam’s journals in it) which makes me think we’ll be able to help save more lives and maybe even get some answers.
The longhouse has been its own place of intrigue, though. Recently I’ve been finding scraps of red paper, with hidden letters inside the shakily drawn images of nature. Some seem to fit together like a puzzle, but this one I recently found doesn’t seem to have any other pieces that go with it. None that I can see anyways.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think I can make out the letter “A”. Who, or what, is putting these up? And what are they trying to tell us? I’m keeping my eye out for more clues, and am going to bring my findings when we go speak to the recovered students who got lost. Maybe their minds will be able to recall these messages, if anything else.
In happier news, Sandwich let me ride them! Though I still mostly walk everywhere, it’s hella cool to basically have a mount to ride around on. It’s like a horse… but better. I drew a picture of my triumph below:
I’m still not the best artist out there by a long shot, and sometimes that gets me down considering I wanted to be an artist before… all this happened. The sky thing. But I do like to doodle, and it’s nice to at least know I’ve come a long way in my art even though I have so much further to go. I guess my art has always been a point of contention for me and my perfectionism, but here in the wake of the sky thing it doesn’t really matter and I can kind of just freely do stuff.
Before I get too deep into search and rescue, I saw that we have a bus up and running, so I’m going to try to ride into Olympia and make sure my friends and family are safe, before returning (maybe with them?) and continuing my work here. At least here on campus I know I have most things accounted for, which gives me a greater sense of safety. Shits weird lol. I’m just doing the best I can.
June 2nd – June 9th
June 3rd
GOD DAMMIT LIGHT. Every day, without fail, Light sneaks its way into the longhouse and messes with the memorial site. Turns it into one of its many puzzles. And every day, without fail, I have to reset them. I can’t tell at this point if Light is genuinely fucking with me, or it’s a side effect of overexposure to the forest. Or some strange coping mechanism. Regardless, it’s annoying. I’ve yet to find where Light goes during the day, but rest assured, when I find it, I’m going to be trying to have a conversation. Or at the very least, it will have to help me with the search and rescue organization.
That’s right. I’ve decided I’m going to head that up. So many people have vanished without a trace, it’s only a natural step to start looking for them now that the fog recedes in different areas. We still aren’t entirely sure when or for how long the fog stays away for, but currently it has receded from a part of the forest we haven’t been able to navigate before. Hopefully with enough of a search crew we can go in there and find some people. Maybe bring them their objects from the memorial site to jog their memories. Until then, I have just been preparing. Keeping my head down, doing my thing.
Keeping my head down seems counter-intuitive to the whole community thing we’ve got going on here, but with access to Olympia tensions have started to increase. Some people believe that due to the state of Olympia we need to be cautious and prepare defenses as well as bargaining chips so that we are not taken advantage of. Others staunchly believe that doing that will only cause the situation in Olympia to worsen, and that we need to work with them as best as we can. Personally I’m of the mind that the only reason we got this far is because we synthesized our needs and worked together, instead of defaulting to every person for themselves. Preparing defenses seems like an antagonistic approach to an already touchy situation. The tensions about it are ever increasing as it is, though, so I am trying to stay hands-off about it. Other people with a penchant for taking charge have been handling it, which is fine by me. I just hope the people I care about are okay and haven’t been harmed in any way by Olympia’s handling of the situation.
June 7th
Allison has taken to doing morning announcements over the local radio every day. It’s been nice to wake up to. Most of it is coverage over the current progress of the day, and a running count of “Have we found Sam yet?” which I find to be a nice lighthearted way to cope with yet another loss to the large pile of disappearances. It’s funny, you’d think I’d be coping with this whole situation with humor from the start, as that is the way I cope, but I haven’t. This is one of the rare situations where humor just hasn’t been able to land properly. It’s kind of a quiet defeat, but also not at the same time. I am resigned to this being our new reality, and I think there’s a lot of emotions to process with that. Too many to process using humor. I guess my new way of handling it has been focusing on remembering those we have lost, and doing everything I can to maintain some form of normalcy in these very not normal times. Is that a bad thing to do? To hold onto the past as a way to remember where we were? Does that regress us in any way? I like to think it doesn’t, that it’s more of a reminder of how far we’ve come, but I don’t know. These days I am full of even more uncertainty than when this catastrophe first started.
But uncertainty doesn’t get you anywhere in this situation. Not when we have people to look after. And so that’s what I do. Look after people, the departed. Help raise the spirits of those around me, and leave the uncertainty to myself. It’s the least I can do.
June 10th
Just as quickly as Allison started morning announcements, they began spouting odd nonsense (well, not SO odd. As odd as the trees breathe) about how the deer have been telling them things but that the deer also told them “no one will ever believe you”. I suppose there’s a cruel irony to the whole thing; “No one suspects the horse” and all that, if anyone gets that reference. It’s been funny to hear as a tagline for the end of morning announcements, despite the fact that I really shouldn’t be laughing at Allison’s misfortune. There’s just something about “No one will ever believe me! CLACK!” that is just fitting to our situation in a dark comedic way.
I have not seen any of my friends since the very first night. At one point I heard that Claire had holed themselves up in their apartment and then just kind of… wouldn’t come out. But I’ve heard many rumors about many people from many sources. Sometimes I just think people like to talk for the sake of talking to take their minds off of the stresses of daily life, as most people do. It brings a sort of controlled chaos to life.
Speaking of chaos, I suspect Light has been hiding out in the bushes and cabinets inside and outside the longhouse. I’ve found a broom, I’m going to try to coax it out so it can help me sort through these cluttered (though admittedly VERY organized) tables of stuff people have left behind that it keeps moving around. With the search and rescue mission rapidly approaching, I want to have these items ready just in case. It may not mean anything to the people lost now, but at the very least we can return the items they left behind once they are found. Hopefully, with the progress others have made, both in searching through the vault found in the fog (that was a WHOLE thing, I don’t really want to get into it) and in starting support groups for those who need extra help, getting people out of the forest and fog will be a lot easier of a task.
Oh! The reason we are even able to do this is because we’ve determined some form of pattern of the fog coming into and out of campus. While we are still unsure of exactly how long it will take before it happens again, we have noticed that the fog rolls out of the forest at around 5 pm. That gives us a small window of time to go out and search for people before it rolls back up. Unfortunately, that also means if we don’t find too many people, if any, then who knows how long it will be before the fog rolls out again. Could be a day, or another month. I really hope it’s just a day before we can go back out there. If not, we may end up losing those people for good. Something that is not ideal, to put it lightly.
Other than that, I don’t have much else to report. My efforts have been so focused on this that I have diverted my attention elsewhere so that I stay focused. I heard the bears have been showing us new medicinal plants and we have reinvented the carrier pigeon, which is sick as fuck. The deer are returning to packs, which seems like a good sign? Maybe that means they’ve stabilized their own food cycle now as have we. Then again, allegedly they’re telling Allison no one will believe them, so they might still be a menace (or at least an inconvenience) for the time being.
I will report back again when we actually go out with the search party. I want to make sure our findings are reported and that we keep a log of who we have rescued versus who is still missing. Either way, so long as we save just one person it will be a good day for us.
It’s been about three months since I last wrote, and wow, what a busy three months it has been. Our search and rescue mission was a success! We found a nice handful of people who had been lost to the forest and fog. They were taken to our temporary med bay, and with our cure found through these mutated daffodils, we could keep the brain fog away! I’m so happy to have some of my friends back who wandered off, it was keeping me up at night if they were still alive or not. Light kept telling me I gave up too easily, which hurt. I didn’t have this apparent knowledge behind the sky that told me everyone was ok. I only had the knowledge that some people made it back ok and some were never seen again. It’s a terrifying thought and sense of doubt to go through. I’m trying to brush off the remark’s though, as I know Light’s well-being ever since coming out of the forest has been a little shaken, and it’s coping the best it can, as we all are.
But speaking of med bay and medicines, thanks to a (very long and frustrating) meeting with the faction leaders of Olympia, we have the hospital open to us and a trained paramedic on campus at all times. It’s a huge sigh of relief to have those resources available to us in addition to the resources we already had. Olympia is working together a little better too, or so I’ve heard.
OH! I can’t believe I forgot to mention! Thanks to the search and rescue teams efforts, we were actually able to find Sam! Sam had been lost in the woods awhile by that point with no sign of returning, but through some cryptic puzzle-solving we all came together and managed to find her! According to them this had been planned from the beginning? Not the catastrophe, obviously. But hiding out to let the students collaborate and make a new life for themselves. In short, Sam did intend to not stick around so that we could all learn to work together and be our own leaders, but did NOT intend to get completely lost in the forest. I think we’re all just happy to have her back, though some of us were still worried about grades and classes………
What else… ah, Allison’s radio broadcasts received some sort of hijacking. We’re still unsure who it was, considering we didn’t find anyone at the source of the audio, but it must have been someone who knows the radio well and has been taken by the fog. Lost transmissions indicated there were people out there who heard the broadcasts and got sucked in, “becoming one” as the hijacked broadcast repeated to us. It makes me weary of what is still out there in the deep fog, and if we can find more people to rescue, but at the very least we have medications to prevent us from meeting similar fates. After the hijacking the broadcasts went back to normal, but still a very strange occurrence that hopefully never happens again.
With Olympia open, I’ve finally been able to locate my parents and friends! It was quite the tearful reunion, but I was extremely thankful they were all safe and hadn’t been harmed by any of the factions. I took them back to Evergreen, where they’ve been staying since, and it is comforting to know they are within my area and familiarity again.
In short, three months have started to fly by, and feel like a new normal again. I’m hoping we can find out the bathing situation a bit better, but I am more comfortable than I was, and feeling optimistic about the future. Cooper Point, here we come!