Emma's history.

It's a good day to visit the New London archives. Cool passageways offer relief from the blistering heat outside. Emma feels a tingle of excitement as she approaches the Survivors' Diaries section. She’s had the genetic genealogy results less than a day.

She turns nano-protected pages at a viewing desk, a special privilege for direct descendants. Her gaze moves over the stained and charred paper, the curls, loops and lines of the handwriting. They are dirty and smudged, almost illegible, but a typed copy is available on the desk screen.

Tuesday

Food run today. We're down to tins and jars of things no-one likes. Jake and Melissa want volunteers.

[missing] …I need more books. I’m going.

Wednesday

A pile of burned books outside the library. Wtf?

On the library doors, someone has daubed a red face, with spikes or feathers or something coming out of its head, and a finger over the lips. Fucking weirdos, whoever they are.

Inside was a mess, bookshelves toppled, ripped pages everywhere. Plenty of books still intact, though. My next reads - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Human Anatomy. I finished the kid's section years ago. Reading adult fiction means a) I swear a lot and b) I know how crazy the old world was.

The weird face and the mess really put a dampener on my mood. I didn't stay long.

I forgot the damn gardening books. Next time.

Saturday

I'm thinking someone might read this, one day. I mean there'll be 'civilisation' again, right? And I don't see anyone else writing a book.

I [missing] …about Nancy.

I was five or six when [illegible] …read a bit already, but it was Nancy who really put me on to books. [illegible] …ran on 'biofuel'. She was the first adult we had seen in a couple of years. She had this old thing she called a locket, a heart shaped box made of metal. She used it like a metaphor (another new word!). If we are closed, she said, showing us the closed locket, we just vanish, like the past, but if we are open - here she opened it up - and we collaborate and learn, we can build a future better than anything before.

Nancy had a way of making you believe you could do anything. Words pave the path to the future – that’s what was written inside the locket. Nancy got me hooked on reading. I love words. Swear words like little nuggets of energy, complicated words like houses with lots of rooms. I can’t get enough.

Nancy read to the younger kids too, and got me to try, but [illegible] …kids got bored and went to sleep or [illegible] …I’d get impatient. The youngest kids had been making up their own words. Most of them could read before she left.

It's been maybe seven years since then. But I know she'll come back. I know it.

Friday

[Missing] …It's pretty okay here, luckily there were no floaters in the pool when we moved in. There were some cats and an old dog, but the dog died and the cats wandered off. Best of all, the place has its own water supply.

We moved out here when the town smelled bad, and dog packs got to be a problem. There are static caravans and [illegible] …Jake and Melissa, the oldest two kids, rounded up as many toddlers they could find still alive. Some of the youngest got sick and died, so there are about twenty-five of us now. The youngest is about nine or ten. I must be fourteen or fifteen by now. I have my own caravan.

If anyone reads this, that's what the adults did - drowned themselves I mean. We called them floaters. Maybe you already know, but there was something that got into their brains. They all got dumber and [illegible] …just started walking into water to drown. Worms come out of their noses and ears after that. I read what I could find, but it all happened so fast, there isn’t much in the library’s journals. I know it’s a parasite, that it eats into parts of the brain and uses hormones to control it, and lays eggs up there. Gross.

It doesn't affect kids, don’t ask me why. People on TV said it was caused by [illegible] …but before long no-one was saying anything about anything, so who knows.

[Missing] …I'm not the only one who dreams about filling up with worms until I choke.

Emma knows about the brain parasites. The fact that they appeared to disappear completely at some point, becoming untraceable, was a strong indication they had been engineered, but there had never been any way to prove that.

Wednesday

I know this is a mess. My hands are shaking, my brain is vibrating like a drum. [illegible] … I need to get this out of my head

Two trucks and a car [missing] …certain Nancy has come back.

[illegible] …older teenagers get out of the trucks. They have guns and look around with eyes like the packs of dogs have. None of them says anything. The smaller kids [missing] …flat area in front of the main building.

When these [illegible] …surrounded, [illegible] …sort of hat made of feathers, like the painting, and a fancy suit with strips and squares of colour on the chest and shoulders, [illegible] …He has on these high boots with heels, but even with those he’s shorter than the others. His face is narrow and pointy, with a large nose like a beak [illegible] …thin eyebrows above dark glasses. His skin is sort of orange, it looks like the colour has been painted on [illegible] …sort of saggy [illegible] …must mean he is old.

He walks towards us, arms open. His face contorts as if there’s some mechanism hauling up the corners of his mouth.

'Children! I am so happy to see you! Ut be praised! Now, which of you can tell me who Ut is?'

No-one says a word

‘Ohhh, you have so much to learn!’

We wait all day in the games room while the dog men search [missing] …They make a pile of my books out on the drive. Guess what happens to those?

Only in the evening [illegible] …bottled water.

'There is magic in this water’ Feather Man says, with that creepy smile, ‘Drink up!

[The next section is missing]

I'm starting to feel weird. There’s a blurry rainbow fringe on the edges of everything. I look around, the other kids are looking at their hands, or just staring into space, eyes wide. My mouth tastes weird.

Feather Man starts talking again, from the dark behind the screen. I can't make out what he's saying. His voice is rhythmic, like waves, but I can't fix on the words. My hearing seems to be floating away…[illegible]

'Look!' the voice is Feather Man's, clearer now

We look and collectively gasp - bluish flames are dancing over his body, flowing around him…suddenly he is right up in front of us, hovering above the ground….fuuuuckkkk…I experience a moment of sheer terror, my heart hammering like the anvil of the gods. Then, in his hands - Nancy's locket. I know it instantly. It’s broken in two.

Something in me fights violently to the surface. I know what is going on here, and knowing, I detach. The fucker has us drugged, or hypnotised, or both. The flames are some trick. I’ve read about stuff like this. My brain is still flailing through a storm, but part of me is now standing in the eye of it. How did he get that locket? My jaw clamps like a vice as I try to think.

[Missing] …parts of the locket and holds them up.

‘Every human heart, children, is like this. One half longs to serve Ut, the other to do evil. The same choice is yours to make – and you must choose!’

I hear [illegible] …'Ut….Ut….Ut' slowly, clearly, like soft blows of a hard hammer. What is this?

[illegible]… burning torches, the shadows dance. I want to tell the others it's a trick, but the dog men [missing]

An adult, hands tied [illegible]… man or a woman? The person’s face is distorted, gagged, the eyes huge. Is the face painted? The features all seem outsized. The drugs in my brain make the face move and swirl, I can't be sure if…

'This thing, this creature turned against Ut!' feather man says. The children gasp and huddle together. It seems like the whole universe is exploding with swirling light and shadow.

'It was taught the way of obedience, oh yes, it knew the right way, but turned against it'

He pauses.

'We caught it on the way here. Yes, children, it was coming here, here! But Ut warned me in a dream, and I saved you'

I stare at the struggling figure. Is it…? The painted face swirls and contorts. I…I

'We all must choose, children'

He pulls out the two locket halves.

'There is no joining place between evil and good, between light and dark. We must choose light, and destroy the dark, we must burn it away'

[Missing]…drop tyres over the person’s shoulders until only the head is visible. An old stink burns my nostrils – petrol.

One of the children laughs, pointing. What will they remember, tomorrow?

[Illegible] … Nancy…? It’s her. I feel it. My whole body freezes. Is this real? It can’t be real.

‘Evil must be burned away – only evil burns – you saw, I was aflame and yet here I am!'

He stoops forward like a beast over its kill.

‘Everything will be tested by fire’ he growls

He [illegible] …the human tyre pillar erupts. As a wall of heat hits us, an animal squeal rises from the flames and I clutch my ears and moan through clenched teeth. Then there is only flame and smoke, and the bitter-sweet stench.

New day zero

Jake and Melissa, he tells us, will be taken to be ‘educated in the ways of Ut’. We are to wait. Some dog men stay. Was that Nancy? I think I know. And I did nothing, I froze.

Nancy said words are powerful, and she was right. Words do things; hard words, kind words, telling people what to do and where to go words. It's all about words. Everything starts and ends with someone saying something to someone else. And words pass on knowledge; and with knowledge anything is possible.

But there will come a day for action.

Emma realises her fists are clenched. She lets a breath out, touches her chest, then reads the notes above the laminated diary.

Who saved the future?

In Britain at least one figure emerging from these fragmentary diaries deserves our attention. The woman we know as Nancy, one of few surviving adults, dedicated years to locating communities of children and teaching them to read and write. In turn, some were inspired to do the same.

Here also we hear of the mysterious 'Kingdom of Ut' cult and its central figure, the Feather Man. It is thought this person was an illusionist who made occasional appearances on popular pre-event entertainment shows. True or not, he used illusion, hallucinogens and violence to gain child followers, and promoted the teachings of Ut, a deity apparently of his own invention. Along with some crude religious practices, this cult also brought in the prohibition of literacy, among other things. Followers engaged in book burning and ritual violence.

Although the author’s name is unknown, this diary is one of the most complete records we have from an early post-event community.

Emma reads the last line over again, and smiles. Danny. Danny was his name, my however many times great grandfather. She’s glad to have had this opportunity to make a connection with the past, knowing her ancestor did take action when the time came, did his part to bring the world out of that dark period. It gives her courage.