2175 C.E.

IX: 4:25 AM

11:58 PM

I've decided to try fire against this thing. It had some way of tracking us exactly before, and I'm sure it can do it again. No clue if fire will work, but something has to, I suppose. I write this in case things get out of hand and large tracks of this forest suffer.

07/24/2175 12:05 AM

Cynthia woke up as I got the fire started. She says her head hurts but otherwise she thinks she's fine. She asked about Brent but I couldn't give her a good answer; I haven't seen him in over an hour. She's pretty shaken and keeps talking about that thing; she says it was saying something and she almost understood it, but not quite. She also says she feels dizzy and a touch nauseous. Her leg is still painful and the burn looks pretty bad. I've put moss on it, but she needs medical attention badly. I think it was only a glancing hit; that laser destroyed a pretty thick tree stump, but it's just burned her.

I'm having us keep moving; I don't know where it is, but I don't want to be caught off guard. I'm ripping off my sleeve and wrapping it around the end of my spear and setting it on fire; hopefully that will have some effect on this thing.

12:29 AM

We've made it about a mile, maybe two, without incident. We found a small stream and stopped by it for a drink; risky, I know, but neither of us have drunk anything for close to three hours. I'm afraid the chase is wearing me out, and Cynthia is clearly exhausted. I'm keeping my torch lit as best I can, but it's going to run out of fuel.

12:55 AM

Brent stumbled over out of the undergrowth suddenly. We tried to shut him up, but it had already noticed and attacked. It burst out of the bushes very close to where we were and shot its laser at him. Brent dodged, but only just. Cynthia ran. It still went after her. I rushed it with my torch and stabbed it in the side. I think I hurt it, because it yelled something; I didn't understand it, but it made me feel horrible. I froze. It threw me again and went after Cynthia. Brent was frozen in his tracks. I managed to get up and charged the thing, but it turned and shot wildly. I ducked and kept going, and got one good thrust into its knee with my stick. I don't know if I actually injured it, but it lost balance and fell to its knees. That was the first time I'd gotten really close. The smell of its blood from the eyes was horrible, like something dead or rotten. Then I hit it in the face. It snatched the stick and extinguished the flame with its fist. Then I ran, roughly trying to follow Cynthia. Brent followed. We heard the thing behind us; it's really mad now, and it was running full speed. I would have caught us, but it slowed down; I think I heard it limping.

We ran into Cynthia again about five minutes out. She had collapsed from exhaustion and the pain from her leg. Brent and I helped her up and we kept moving for some time. We've hit the banks of a lake and we're hiding in the nearby branches. We're keeping quiet, but it's only a matter of time before it finds us again, so we'll have to keep moving.

1:10 AM

What if it's tracking the Interlinks? It didn't find us when Cynthia was blacked out.

2:15 AM

It took some doing, but I managed to convince Brent and Cynthia to turn off their Interlinks. Brent almost started freaking out again, but Cynthia was easier to convince, maybe because hers isn't working quite right. I've heard the things try to keep people from turning off. Once she did, Brent did the same thing. I ditched my handheld in a small raft and sent it off on the lake in case that was traceable too. Strangely, when Cynthia's was off, she gave me an odd look and whispered, "you don't smell like fish," like she was surprised. I haven't been near fish in over a week.