Date: 09.19.2224
Location: Sulphur, Louisiana
Status: Cautious | Observing | Moving Forward
The smell reached me before the building did.
Sulfur.
It hangs in the air like the land itself is trying to warn you away.
The supermarket sits at the edge of town, its sign barely holding on. The windows are broken. The doors are open. Dust has claimed the aisles where people once searched for bread, milk, medicine, and whatever small comforts they could still afford.
Places like this are strange.
They look abandoned.
But they never really are.
Someone always leaves something behind.
A memory.
A warning.
A piece of themselves.
Inside, I found an old terminal.
The screen flickered several times before it remembered how to work.
The first name on the screen was:
T. Myles.
T. Myles' Initial Entry
01.15.2078
"The Sulphur Market was once a bustling hub, a refuge in the midst of chaos. Despite the growing panic of war echoing through the land and the looming threat of nuclear fallout, we managed to keep our doors open."
"Oddly enough, the bombs never hit Sulphur. Instead, we faced the consequences of radiation and flooding that decimated our community."
I stopped reading for a moment.
A refuge.
That word stood out.
Not a fortress.
Not a bunker.
Not a stronghold.
A refuge.
Someone looked at this place and saw somewhere people could come when the world outside became too uncertain.
A place with lights.
Shelves.
Conversations.
A place where someone could walk in carrying fear and walk out carrying groceries.
The world ended slowly for some people.
Not with a flash.
With empty parking lots.
Dark windows.
And fewer voices each year.
T. Myles' Mid-Entry
04.03.2078
"Five months after the bombs dropped, everything began to change. The sulfur that had lain hidden beneath the earth started to emerge, drawing scavengers like moths to a flame."
"They descended upon us, stealing supplies and harvesting the sulfur, blind to the lurking dangers."
"Bloodworms soon emerged from underground, drawn by the sulfur and radiation. They began to attack anyone foolish enough to linger too long in their territory."
Myles did not write like someone describing a battlefield.
He wrote like someone watching his home become unfamiliar.
That might be the hardest part.
Not losing a place.
Watching it become something you no longer recognize.
T. Myles' Final Entry
04.30.2078
"I was waiting for a delivery of brahmin milk, a small comfort in these dark times, when everything changed."
"A truck rolled in, but before I could greet the driver, a monstrous super mutant appeared, dismantling the vehicle like it was nothing."
"In a panic, I locked myself in my office, hoping the beast would lose interest."
"The chaos outside—the sounds of bloodworms and scavengers—mingled into a haunting symphony."
"In this moment, I realize that the bloodworms weren't the true threat; it was the super mutant."
"They have claimed this land, driving the last vestiges of life into the shadows."
The terminal went quiet.
I read the last line again.
Not because I missed it.
Because I understood it.
Myles was not afraid of dying.
He was afraid of being the last person who remembered what this place was.
That is a different kind of fear.
The kind that comes when a building remains standing after everyone who gave it meaning is gone.
I looked through the market.
The shelves were empty.
The walls were cracked.
The lights were dead.
But for a moment, I could almost see it.
A worker behind the counter.
A customer asking if the next shipment came in.
Someone complaining about prices.
Someone laughing.
Life does not disappear all at once.
Sometimes it leaves one piece at a time.
A voice.
A name.
A terminal message waiting two centuries for someone to listen.
I gathered what sulfur I could carry.
Useful material.
Necessary.
But I left the rest.
Some things belong to the place that created them.
Before leaving, I looked back once.
Sulphur Market was not a grave.
Not yet.
Graves are places where nothing remains.
This place still had a story.
And stories have a way of surviving longer than the people who tell them.
I stepped back onto the road.
The sulfur smell followed.
So did the memory.
— Big Chief Mike Marcel
No comments:
Post a Comment