Chapter Text
Following a massive tactical wipe of the infested areas, Tachmyron's military forces were ordered to undertake a thorough sweep of the affected sites. One such expedition led soldiers to an underground server room, where they were then ordered to recover any potentially useful data.
Despite heavy damage to the server room, several electronics survived to be in reasonably serviceable condition. Several hard drives were extracted, with their data being withdrawn the following day. Though most of the data was deemed inextricably lost or of no importance, researchers were surprised to discover that one of the hard drives seemingly contained a single file stored upon it. This file held a single folder containing a series of journal entries with accompanying full day’s hour time stamps, collectively chronicling the journey of an individual known only as "Audrels".
Who exactly this individual was remains unknown, as the only identifying information available was their supposed place of residence. Whether the events depicted in these journal entries were actually real or a mere work of fiction remains uncertain.
***
What's happened to this world has been a long time coming.
I didn't want to say anything— a lot of people didn't.
Yet we tried! People spoke up, people like me, and made our thoughts and concerns known and warned of the potential consequences, but it was all for nothing. We were either getting ignored, censored, or labeled as bigots by those ridiculous vampire defenders. I wonder what those people are thinking now. Oh well, it doesn't matter anymore.
The fall of Tachmyron is upon us all. We're all facing the risk of death every day and yet the people here… the ignorant, the stupid, our politicians even; continue assuring us that oh, everything's alright! No need to panic! Who do they think they're fooling? Not with the way things have been going!
There hasn’t been a single mention of the past months' vampire attacks! The news programs are outright refusing to report them! It's just the same meaningless nonsense over and over again! Those aid programs are worthless! Why did the government ever think this was going to work out? A whole damn continent full of vampires? What did they expect?
My town's gone now. I knew it was suspicious when I stopped hearing sirens two nights ago. Haven't heard from my neighbors, haven't from anybody. Nobody's out there anymore! The only thing I ever hear anymore is the screeching at night.
Considering how bad things have gotten and with how everyone’s been turning a total blind eye to the situation, I’ve fully accepted I'm the only one who can help me. I’ve lived my whole life unable to trust people, and my personal stance has only further been reaffirmed by the events that have transpired these past months. So once I saw the signs of impending doom, I got myself prepared for what was coming: I gathered supplies, learned to fend for myself, started a tougher workout regime, and thanks to my engineering know-how, built myself a proper anti-vampire armor suit complete with a full head covering helmet. Well… at least I hope it is. I haven't actually tested it out yet, but the foothold trap tests seemed promising enough. If it can stop those, it can stop vampire bites. Only thing I wish I had is a proper weapon, but ever since my hunting license got revoked, I’ve been unable to procure a gun. Hopefully I’ll be able to pick one up from a dead patrol.
Even before everything went horribly awry, I'd be hearing emergency sirens and screams every night—clear signs of vampire attacks. Made sleeping a real terror. Nothing scares you more at night than hearing people screaming before getting their throats ripped open.
From what I've read online, safe areas on Tachmyron are far and rare now. Feral vampires are everywhere, and their numbers only grow each day. That being said, I've made the difficult decision to leave Tachmyron for good. One way or another, I'm going to leave the planet I once called home.
Unfortunately, my escape options are limited. In the months leading up to this disaster, Rocket Towers were getting condemned left and right, likely to stop the further spread of feral vampires. Then there's the ORA, which I would use, but I saw the platforms get shot down in the middle of the night. Finally, I would go to the nearby Institution outpost, but I watched it go up in flames a week ago. Guess they couldn’t handle all the refugees. This leaves me with only one viable option: finding a ship to stowaway in, in which even then I’m limited to one choice of ship: the military ships I've been seeing every night through my telescope. I know for a fact there's a shipyard hundreds of miles down the highway, because that's where they've been landing and taking off every night.
In the meantime, I've taken it upon myself to write everything down on my personal holopad, starting with this entry, a little after midday. Not only will documenting everything keep my psyche stable while on my journey, but I'm going to eventually use these journal entries to show everyone just how bad it’s gotten here, because if the media isn't going to do it, I'll do it for them myself. Maybe then they'll start being more open about everything going on here.
I don't know if I'm lucky or what, but there haven't been any intruders of the feral kind in my home… yet. I know they're out there, but I just don't know if they know I'm here. I mean, they have to know by now, right? I haven't exactly tried keeping my presence hidden. I've just been carrying on as usual albeit with my suit always on. That way, I'm going to be ready for them whenever.
I can't stay here forever. They're going to find me eventually. And once they do, I'm not going to hold back, protection laws be damned.