Genes’ Entire Journal

Genes’ Journal

July 07, 2510

The worse of the worst has already happened; we’re just here picking up the leftovers. No one knew it was coming, but it happened. This wasn’t foretold by a past civilization, and this wasn’t in any book; humanity paid the ultimate price because of it. Three humanoid beings, unlike any other, came to retrieve something that was lost, and they will do anything to get it back. Sadly, with most of humanity wiped off the face of the planet it is hard to find anyone willing to sacrifice themselves for others. Out of all the groups fighting on the front lines to protect what is left my group is the smallest. Other than me there is only 4 others, Alice Berkley, the twins Lenny and Rose, and lastly Leslie Johnson the 3rd. We try our best to survive on a weekly basis, but this hellscape we’re in isn’t the easiest. Currently we are switching camps, so I’ll explain more in the morning.

July 08, 2510

Waking up to the sounds of people screaming and roaring thunder throughout the sky is not the best way to wake up, but it has been the regular for everyone since those Humanoid Beings showed up. We call them the True Beginners because of their origin story that they shared with us on the day they arrived. This all started roughly 5 years ago, and for me, it started inside a Panera Bread in the middle of New York City. I was having a late breakfast with my wife when suddenly we see a blinding light outside the window; it stopped us right in our tracks as the sounds of tires screeching, people screaming, and all types of alarms bellowing throughout the city. Once the light dissipated, we saw nothing but destruction on the streets; cars completely flipped over, people that looked like they were jettisoned into a wall, and trains that were somehow uprooted from the subway tunnels. My wife instantly ran outside to help any survivor she could find while I was still stuck in shock and awe like a deer in headlights.

I finally get out of my funk and rush outside to help her but stop when I hear a loud beastly roar bellow and shake the very ground we were standing on. A devastating shockwave accompanied the roar and decimated everything around us. Buildings toppling over like dominoes, people being flung through the air like ragdolls, the landscape itself being used as a massive steamroller and crushing anything in its path. I get flung to the Bay and fight to stay afloat while the shockwave continued and blew tsunamis in every direction. When the shockwave finally passed over I swiftly swam to shore to try and find my wife. I start screaming her name once on land only to realize I am yelling at no one; New York City has been completely leveled and erased from Earth in only a matter of seconds.

I continued to call her name while walking around aimlessly for hours, but I knew once I gave up hope of her being alive then that would be the end of me. I soldiered on for a while longer before final stumbling upon her arm; it was completely severed from her body, so I buried it and stayed beside her grave as if waiting for judgement. Hours had gone by and I still didn’t know the source of all this destruction. In the middle of mourning these 3 planetary sized, humanoid like beings appeared in the sky and were seemingly looking down on the planet. They didn’t have eyes, they had what looked like the form of a human, but the entirety of their bodies resembled superclusters or even universes; it was terrifying. After that I heard a deeply baritone voice ringing in my head claiming that they were the Originators of Infinity called the True Beginners and that they had lost something very precious to them and would do whatever it takes to get it back. What they had lost was a heart shaped locket called the Locket of the Infinite and Sailor of the Astros; to make it identifiable to everyone they said it had the acronym L.I.S.A. etched into it.

Once everything was explained the world was launched into this perpetual storm of darkness and red lightning roaring through it like a rodeo, otherworldly creatures took over the lands, and finding any survivor after that was basically looking for a needle in a haystack.

July 09, 2510

Today we took on our first horde just outside what we think is West Virginia. The star of today was Alice Berkley; she was the second person I met on my journey to find the locket. I was sleep under a destroyed Walmart probably just outside DC when I could hear someone rifling through my stuff. I quickly got up, pulled the machete I had under my pillow and held it near her neck ready to slice, but I had hesitated. I didn’t know why back then but now that I think about it, it’s probably because she reminded me a bit of my wife when I last saw her. I slightly frightened look in her eyes, yet a face that looked content with the outcome. I then gave her supplies right there; she had stuffed her face as quickly as possible, so I just asked if she wanted to follow me. She had said no at first and ran off, but after a few days she had came back to my camp again and told me she was staying.

Alice Berkley luckily was a college graduate that got her Masters in engineering just a week before the True Beginners showed up. Once I found that out she has been the main weapons developer for our group. Which helped her shine today; she had discovered massive Goblin, which is what we call those otherworldly creatures, activity on her DIY radar gun. She released an electromagnetic smokescreen grenade which disables the Goblins for 10 seconds, and then she started to slaughter them one by one with her twin electric katanas. Slicing and killing over 15 Goblins with so much ease had everyone excited and boosted morale a bit; with all the carnage it also gave us food and armor to have.

Goblins have a very rough, very dark outer skin that is also very light to wear; most of that skin covers all the vitals, but they do have soft spots which we found out is very susceptible to electricity. Once you hit them with a strong enough current, they are frozen for a few seconds until their bodies adjust to it and then they’ll come after you. You do not want that because they are very agile and swift creatures; with 6 legs, 2 upfront and 4 in the back, they are unstoppable when given freedom to run, leap, or pounce. That is why with every encounter with them we try to make it to where we have the element of surprise, hence the small group. This small group is also good for when we reach “Survivor Nests”, which are like small communities hidden from the True Beginners and the Goblins; they’re mostly filled with people tired of fighting or the sick, orphaned, lonely, bounty hunters, and such. At the last Survivors Nest we just came from we heard rumors of a group that may have found the locket, but they don’t want to turn it in because they found out its true nature; the group are somewhere near Raleigh, NC, so that is where we’re headed.

July 10, 2510

This morning our main navigators, Lenny and Rose, just confirmed that we entered the state of Virginia some time last night before my journal entry. The way Lenny and Rose joined the group is a bit sad. A year had passed, and it was still just me and Alice; we were making our way in land to try and see if we had a better chance at finding regular food than what we had staying in what was New York City. We happened to stumble upon a car repair shop that had its roof caved in from the shockwave. We got loser and closer to it and started to realize that smoke was coming out of one of the holes of the building; we rushed in hoping to find people willing to help us and were surprised we found 2 kids that looked no older than 12 years old. They were scared to see us, but I think it was mostly because we barged in without introducing ourselves at first or calling out. We then introduced ourselves and asked them their names, but they said they had forgotten their names. We looked around for any indication of who owned the building and saw some varsity jackets that had Lenny and Rose Racing on it; we gave them the jackets and called them Lenny and Rose ever since. Whoever the real Lenny and Rose were had maps for days, we took all their information and have been using it to travel around this new world and because it was with them, our Lenny and Rose have been the navigators of this group since that day. They don’t talk much about their past because they don’t remember much of it, but even after 5 years they still have night terrors of the day the True Beginners came.

Lenny and Rose luckily still remember that they are twins, so anytime one person is having a hard time the other person comes and helps them through it. On some days when we are relaxing around a fire and telling stories trying to laugh, I look at those and feel like we have some type of family thing going on and it makes me feel truly happy.

July 11, 2510

Now today was a rough one. Early this morning we were woken up by a massive electrical storm and hurricane. We ran as fast as we could to the closest bit of shelter we could find, the Luray Caverns. Looks like we will be stuck here for at least one more day if it keeps persisting outside. These storms don’t happen often, but when they occur take shelter or you will be cooked with over 2 million volts in an instant and turned to dust. We learned that from Leslie, Leslie Johnson the 3rd. Leslie was a paramedic we had found in a Survivors Nest outside of Michigan roughly 3 years ago; he wanted to explore this new dystopian world and we just needed someone who could heal us if we got injured. We also got lucky because he was a radio mechanic in the military, so we get most of our information on other Survivor Nests and stuff from him and the DIY radio that Alice built for him from a car stereo and old HAM radio parts.

Leslie, even though he is only 6 years older than me and Alice at 33, is like the old man of the group. He is always aching somewhere, and he’ll have a mountain of stories to tell us at nighttime when we are all gathered around the campfire; it’s refreshing, like our personally little comic relief inside this hell. I may be the leader of this group, but I always defer to him as a second in command if I can’t decide. Maybe when all of this is over I’ll have him write one of his stories in this journal as well.

July 12, 2510

It is now morning time and from the noise going on outside, the storm is still rolling through. We start counting our rations to see how long we can hold out here if we need to. Taking stock of ammo, our charges in our blades, and our protective gear as well just in case a surprise attack from rival groups or Goblins. Only now did I realize that our ammo is something out of a kids book. Our “weapon” for our ammo is a crossbow gun and we shoot what looks like a ball of nails; we make sure to aim for the soft spots, but it is harder than it looks. Back in the early 2300s the US basically adopted Japan’s Gun Laws, and after that a lot of Americans have found it much harder and too lengthy of a process to want to eve purchase one; they could get one illegally, but the consequences of that are too much. We may just relax here for the day again, rest our laurels.

July 13, 2510

Today, after 5 years without another word, we hear from the True Beginners again. They have now given us a timeline because they got wind that people have already found the locket and won’t return it. We only have 4 more days to return the locket, or they will reach into our planet and extract the core with their hands and kill us all off. They are 5x bigger than Jupiter and have already killed off more than half of us with a roar, so I do think it is possible. We moved up our timetable and push forward to Raleigh, NC faster than before.

When we entered Halifax, VA we saw a Survivors Nest under attack by a horde of Goblins. The horrid sight of seeing kids in the nursery being torn to shreds by a few Goblins fighting over their “food” pissed all of us off. Lenny, Rose, and Leslie took our vehicles and proceeded to ram them from both sides while Alice and I went at them from the rear to box everyone in. We didn’t show mercy to anyone of them and fought with strategic rage to annihilate them. Both of our vehicles were destroyed in the fight, but we emerged victorious. During the fight another group of fighters staying at the Survivors Nest joined in; they called their group the Fighting Refugees. Sadly, because we never met or trained before, one of their men got caught in one of our electric smokescreens without protective gear or some type of grounder; the current was basically a defibrillator on his heart continuously and he died.

Once the fight was over we decided to stay and have a proper burial for the man and join the Fighting Refugees for a banquet afterwards to honor the man’s wish. This would only give us 3 days to find the locket, but we couldn’t disrespect a fellow fighter in this dystopian world. When the feast ended we helped the rest of the community rebuild their Nursery and bury the kids; that attack ha us bury over 10 kids no older than 8 years old, a few teachers, and the Survivors Nest Leader, so you can see that even though we won we did not feel like it was. Leslie helped them create an alarm system while Alice, Lenny, and I built a wall and DIY’ed some search lights. Rose helped the kid’s that were still alive cope with losing friends and teachers to the horror of the Goblins. Thanks to our goodwill the new leader gave us one of their vehicles that they have been using to search for any close by survivors as a way to thank us. It was a Humvee, which is the perfect vehicle to have in our situation. Lenny drove us down until we hit Greensboro, NC and then we started setting up camp for the night.

July 14, 2510

When morning came we refilled our water jugs, siphoned gas from nearby cars for our Humvee, and charged our electric weapons with anything we could find. Slowly made our way to Raleigh, NC to only be stopped at the city line by a gang demanding a toll of half of everything we had. They wore army and navy garb and carried military grade guns, so instead of giving up what we worked for years to get, we just backed out without any hesitation. Once free from their line of sight we put together a plan to infiltrate their stronghold with Leslie as a decoy since he was a paramedic. We left all our projectile weapons at the vehicle; only carried our blades without a charge and some of our handheld explosives. Alice brought our last resort weapon if we get into a situation we have no way out from.

Leslie took to the front gates unarmed while Alice and I infiltrated the camp from the west side and Lenny and Rose came at it from the east. Once inside it was basically a labyrinth; every few feet was another gate with a sentinel walking around with some type of attack Tibetan Mastiff dog or an attack Irish Wolfhound. After 5 gates we finally reached the main stronghold and realized the entire camp was hiding inside the remnants of the Agriculture Building. The bottom 2 floors have caved in and it was the last 2 top floors resting on top of the rubble with a bunch of huts surrounding it. We’re able to all get around the camp without being spotted and grab the locket, but on our way out, trying to get Leslie, we alerted the entire gang of our presence.

We started fighting back as hard as we could, but in no time, gunfire started whizzing by us like hornets. Pinned down and Leslie suffering from a bullet wound to his right thigh, I see no way out of this safely. I then instruct Alice to use our Last Resort Weapon, a dog whistle; we found out years ago that for some reason they rush to the location that they hear the whistle coming from. This is the second time we used this as a method to escape a situation because Goblins will kill anything they see moving, so we always have to make sure we have an exit strategy before doing it. The Goblins came in a stampede of probably more than 20. Amidst the chaos we were able to get free from the gangs’ gunfire and away from the teeth of Goblins and back to the Humvee.

Once inside Lenny drove us back to Greensboro since it would be safer there. During that ride back to Greensboro we realized that Leslie got shot near his Femoral Artery. Even though he was in excruciating pain he did everything he could to try and talk us through an operation. We tried our best, but after 30 minutes of operating that is when Leslie just smiled and started to tear up. We all couldn’t hold our tears despite Leslie trying to make us laugh with some more of his stories. In his final moments, he reassured us of our original mission to rid the Earth of the True Beginners by returning the locket. He died with a smile on his face, happy, and holding our hands; the first peaceful death we have seen since this all started.

July 15, 2510

Today started with the funeral for Leslie at the Greensboro Survivors Nest we previously helped. The new leader was saddened to hear of the death of the man that helped save their camp from extinction and allowed us to bury Leslie right beside their deceased leader on holy ground. She even gave a few words on his behalf as a sign of respect; “no matter where the world may end up, Leslie will always be with us, fighting the good fight.” We couldn’t fight, move, or do anything today, so we decided to stay in the Survivors Camp one last time before leaving.

July 16, 2510

This morning Lenny and I talked about how to get the locket back into the hands of the True Beginners. We had no idea where they were when they weren’t standing over the planet looking down on us. That is when I took the locket out of my pocket and examine it to see if there were any clues on it that could help us. Could not open it for the life of me but saw some strange writing on the back of it; asked the leader for any dead language books that they might have in their library, but they didn’t have any. Oddly enough though, that strange writing then turned to English as if it recognized the language I was speaking and transformed itself for better understanding. It then read, ‘Speak into me and we will be reunited once again.”, so I did.

I tried to introduce myself but was instantly cut off by one of them. The True Beginners voices we inside our head again; everyone inside the camp was screaming while gripping the heads from the pain. They were furious with us thinking that we were the people who stole the locket and decided to keep it. We fought our side and tried to prove our innocence, but they didn’t believe us and sent a horde of Goblins to attack us and retrieve the locket. There voices stopped and the screams of people outside bellowed through the camp. The Goblins had been sent to us almost instantaneously like they were teleported. Everyone who could fight took up weapons and started fighting back. Rose had stayed to protect the kid’s while Lenny, Alice, and I went straight to the front line and helped to hold back the Goblins.

Not even 5 minutes into fighting everyone in my group was teleported. We had no idea where, but it was an oddly peaceful place. Not a Goblin in sight, mountains and valleys as far as the eye could see, waterfalls that flowed right off the edge, and creatures that looked like they could have been from other worlds as well. We are frozen in awe until Alice looks off into the distance and spots the True Beginners sitting on a throne. In a blink of an eye, we teleport again, only a few feet away from the faces of the True Beginners. “Welcome To Our Eden!’, one of them had said, but this time through one of the creatures that was on Eden because they explained if they talked telepathically to us while we were this close, we would die instantly.

Before taking the locket back, they had explained everything that has led up to this point. They had said that before this dimension even saw its first light, they were here watching over everything. Their father had brought all 3 of them to this dimension to show them the beginning of a universe. A similar locket was then thrown into their mother and that was the birth of the 5th dimension. Their bodies start out as empty vessels, complete darkness, until they reach the age of maturity and are instructed to watch over and keep guard of a dimension. That is when they are bestowed their locket and it is thrown inside their void of a body and it starts to grow. Instantaneously their bodies will show peak maturity of the dimension, but inside it would have been ions of human years that has passed by.

That is when they explain how they lost this locket in our dimension. Each locket has a name, and that name coincides with the name of the next True Beginning. LISA is also the name of the True Beginner in charge of our dimension. Before leaving she had accidently dropped the locket into the darkness; the locket had reached maturity and started the dimension we are in now. An unnatural, unprotected birth is how they see it and ever since then they’ve been trying to get back here to retrieve it. Since in their dimension time moves very different than what we know, what took them 10 Earth minutes took eons on our side.

All shocked, we all just sat down to try and collect our thoughts, except for Rose. She demanded to know what happened to the people of the Survivors Nest we were protecting. Without an ounce of sympathy Lisa had stated that they were all slaughtered by the Goblins, even the kids. Rose began cursing them with everything she had, shooting off every weapon, tossing every explosive at them, and even tried to cut them with her blades. They allowed it because they knew nothing worldly could penetrate or hurt them.

Lisa grabbed the locket and proceeded to push it inside of her, in an instant we see stars, galaxies, constellations and celestial bodies we’ve never seen before form from that one locket. We watch excitedly, eager to return to our families, but that was shut down instantly. Lisa had told us that the world we knew is no more; she had reset and therefore created a completely new dimension then the one we grew up in. It was because of this that she had granted us the privilege to live the remainder of our lives in their dimension on their Eden. Everyone distraught and overflowing with emotion I just decided to stay seated and think of my next move.

I thought long and hard about what I was going to do. I decided to write this last paragraph for the next person that reads this and to throw the journal into Lisa. Listen, you are not alone in the universe, and luckily you are protected, so another dimension won’t wreak havoc. Live life outside your comfort zone and don’t take the small things for granted. Lastly, if you ever meet a Gene and Martha Ruthers in New York City, tell them I said hi, and to always love each other like it was the first time.