Journal Entry: March 23, 2030

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Have you ever seen someone not just spittin'mad, but full on Insane Clown Posse, Biblical mad?

That was Donnie when he found out she was gone.

I didn't have the heart — or the balls — to tell him.

It wasn't just that it took her. It was that Eve let it take her.

She went with that thing. Willingly.

She grabbed me about 20 minutes before it happened and gave me a key on a chain and took me down to a safe in the forever place.

She said those were all her journals, going back to when she was younger than me.

She told me to keep them, read them, to never take them out of the bunker — she hated when I called it that for some reason, but that's what it is — and to put them back in the safe as soon as I was done reading.

"That's my life," she said of the volumes of binders and leather-bound journals. "That's my proof that I existed, that I did things, that I thought things and felt things and learned things. Don't fuck them up."

She told me not to share them, with anyone, not even Donnie, until the time was right.

"I should be back long before that time ever comes," Eve said. "If, not, trust your gut. You'll know when the time is right. Until then, and until I get back, you will literally have my life in your hands. And if for any reason this place is in trouble or you gotta leave, if I'm not here, you take them with you. Okay? Promise me that. Until it's time, you guard them like it's your life."

I nodded and she saw that I understood.

"And one more thing," she said. "You have to start writing your own life. You have to, every day or two, write something down. Anything. Whatever comes to your mind. Starting tonight. And you keep those in that safe, too."

She had encouraged everyone here to keep a journal, but this was different. She made me promise.

It scared me.

—L.M.

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