Hope

Hey Journal,

It’s been…maybe a couple of days?

A lot has happened. I’ve met some people. Actual people. And they’ve told me a lot. But every answer I get about what’s going on only leads to more questions.

So, the person came back and they had a friend with them. A tall, kind of lanky sort of guy that wore jeans so tight I had to wonder how he could bend his knees. He wore a hoodie that was too big for him and was armed with a claw hammer and he had what looked like an old revolver tucked in his waist band.

As for the person from before I was able to get a better look at them. Their makeshift armor seemed to be a patch work of riot gear and what looked like…paper? Bound together tightly with duct tape. They were way shorter then their lanky friend but seemed to have a confident posture.

They knocked on the door and I was getting ready for a fight. But the short one called out to me.

“Hey,” they said in a feminine voice. “You still in there?”

I shouted back that I was. The two of them looked at each other then back at the door. The tall one swore.

We had a bit of back and forth. I was relieved to actually talk to someone. Someone who didn’t speak in that broken way those things did.

I found out their names were Maricel and Ethan. Shorty being Maricel and lanky being Ethan. I told them mine and I could hear this lingering unease in their voices that bordered between suspicion and hope. I imagine I sounded much the same.

They asked to come in. I moved the barricade and cracked the door open. My 870 at the ready. The second they saw I was packing something fairly serious they kept their hands up.

Maricel spoke with a bit of an accent I couldn’t quite place. Which I later learned was Filipino. They assured me they were no threat. That they weren’t like them.

I told them that I’d like to believe them and they assured me that, as far as they know, those things can never talk properly. The fact that we could talk back and forth and have a coherent conversation was a dead ringer.

I let them come into the living room and had them sit on the third generated couch. Since I had used the others to barricade the front and back doors.

I kept my shotgun trained on them and talked with them some more. They took off the masks they wore and I could finally see that Maricel was a woman in her early twenties and Ethan was caucasian around the same age. I decided to relax a little. As far as I could see. They were legitimately normal.

I got to talking with them some more and I discovered that they had been the ones that drew the old lady and her friends away from my front door. They had been exploring the area looking for supplies when they encountered the large group and decided to lure them away.

According to them, they were stricken curious by my house as they had never seen one in their travels so far and wanted to check it out.

I asked them how they got “here” and they said they had stopped by Ethan’s dorm for a minute before heading out to go clubbing with a couple of friends when suddenly they opened the door to leave and, instead of the dormitory, they were presented with a shopping mall.

Maricel recalled they had been attacked right away by those things. With one of their friends being killed by what they initially thought was a Security Guard but when he turned to face them his torso was upside down.

They apparently ran and the last of their friends broke a window to try and get outside but they were met with the same…screams…that I did and their friend disappeared into the darkness.

Maricel then said her and Ethan ran through another door that was supposed to be a fire exit but instead lead them to a gigantic warehouse. They had been wandering between “buildings” ever since. Scavenging supplies wherever they could.

Their story cut short as Maricel was mentioning something about encountering an old man when the reset happened. I wasn’t affected but they freaked out and asked what happened. I explained to them what I knew about the reset and they were ecstatic. They had never encountered this but if what I said was true this was an absolute Godsend.

I gave them food and water. Ethan got a kick out of my pet squirrel who opted to name “Chip”. I got the reference but Chip was a chipmunk, not a squirrel. I didn’t argue.

I told them my story. About how I got here. The encounters I had so far. They didn’t seem to surprised. And understood why I was uneasy. But then they told me something that gave me more hope than I could have ever imagined.

Maricel got to talking about the old man encounter. From what I understand they ran across some hermit fellow who seemed on the level and he told them there was a way out. When Maricel had pressed him about it, he started speaking cryptically. Mentioning that “you leave when it’s your time,” and “Look for your father.”

He also mentioned something about finding the right door. So Maricel and Ethan assumed that—eventually—the doors that connect these different buildings eventually leads to the way out.

Although they don’t exactly trust the old guy, they can’t help but hope to believe.

So, we’ve come up with a plan. We’re going to try and find this “door”. Using the reset in my house we’ll garner the supplies we need and we’ll venture out. Between the three of us, we’ll have more security and more capability to navigate any obstacles that come our way.

I’m unsure about leaving the house. But Maricel assures me they can mark the doors we go through and come back if things get really rough.

I hope she’s right.

So, I’m writing in you before we head out. We’ve got lots of supplies now, weapons and ammunition as well as other things for our journey. I’ve been able to sleep half decent. So that’s a plus.

I’ll write as soon as we stop to rest.

Wish me luck.