The Atlas

Different

Day: 1,784

The ticking of the clock has robbed me of my sanity. I can always hear it, even through the glass that separates me from the display of our everlasting march through time. I hear it always ticking, eternally changing me. It never rests. Its batteries have been depleted of their juice long before I began to hear the ticking. I'm unsure of why I am always hearing it or why it bothers me to begin with. Maybe it is the fact that it is always interrupting any other thoughts that may begin to come into my head. Maybe it's because I know that the clock I somehow hear isn't even running any longer. Or maybe It's because it is always subtly reminding me that time is always passing, awaiting my inevitable death. Perhaps I'll never know the origins of why I began to hear it in the first place. Several years ago, I was never able to hear it before it stopped working. I wish it would end. Perhaps the Atlas is real? Regardless, there has to be a way to change things. It has been this way for far too long, and I can't live like this any longer. There has to be some way that I can set the world right again. I cannot continue to log these thoughts. I must allow my drowsiness to take over, so that I can wake up and do it all again tomorrow. 

Day: 1,785

The ticking always continues to grow louder with each passing day. Today was no different than yesterday. But that is a lie. Today was much worse. Something has changed. The world has shifted slightly. Perhaps the freeze is ending? The change is almost unspeakable, for the magnitude at which it has occurred is unfathomable in comparison to the last 1,784 days. The clock skipped a tick. At that moment, I sensed that perhaps something grave was amidst my near future. I have no place to turn, as they cannot hear the ticking. They do not know of the clock. Their minds are broken, twisted far worse than that of my own. I am different. There is a disturbance in my own mind. I feel as though my mind is changing as well. Maybe I'm starting to become one of them... The missed tick of the clock must have been a sign. Something is happening. Perhaps their minds still have the capability to understand the world around them, or perhaps there is a greater force at work. It is late. I should have been asleep hours ago. I cannot rest. My mind will not allow it. No thoughts can enter my head for more than a few seconds before they are taken over by the thought of the missed tick. Did I imagine it? Could my mind be corrupted already? No. It is too soon. I have to know what it was. I'm not crazy. I am only deprived of what reality used to be. I have not forgotten. 

Day: 1,788

I have not yet slept since my last entry. I have learned something. They are aware. They have been aware the entire time. They are different now. I can see it in their eyes. They must know something useful. It is only a matter of finding a way to contact them. They can not speak. Their minds and its ability to sense the outside world have been fading for far too long now. I can not possibly know what they feel. I only hope that I do not become like one of them. For so long, I thought myself immune to the freeze...but I see differently now. I have only just noticed a small, yet prominent change in my own ability to interact with what little reality there is left. I may not have as much time as I initially thought. The Atlas must exist. I can feel it. It tears away at every one of my thoughts, be they small and insignificant, or great and important in restoring reality to what it once was.

I must leave my outpost. I have to take a journey that no other has completed. I have to go back to the place it all started. I do not know where this is, but I can feel something of an omnipotent presence that seems to be almost...guiding me... I will give myself a small dose of pain relievers and antihistamines, so that I may sleep. I will need large amounts of energy. I will pack a large bag full of supplies. Food, water, a blanket, and a torch with extra batteries. I will face several dangers that have been brought by the freeze. I feel a great sense of unease in the path to the Atlas. I fear that this journey may change me, that it may make me like one of them. I have no time to waste. I can already feel the corruption setting in. I may not have much time left. I will set way for the Atlas as soon as I awaken tomorrow. It may be several days, or even weeks before my next journal entry.

Day: 1,797

The trip was a bad Idea. The mountains of this mental agony are growing. I can feel the anxiety and tension building up with each moment passed. I am no longer the person I used to be. I have changed so much in such little time. The corruption is worsening. My consciousness and sentience are fading faster than ever before when I was at the outpost. It is like a radiation that grows stronger the closer I get to the Atlas. I can not turn back. I have to find the source of the corruption and the freeze. I can not allow my mind to break. I am all that is left of the world once a reality. If I fall on the way, they will feel my absence. They will know of my failure to bring life back to their immovable bodies again.

Day: 1800

I have realized something. The ticking has stopped. I do not remember when it stopped, for I have only just noticed it. I no longer hear the constant reminder of our inevitable end. The corruption seems to be speeding up. I can sense that my own mind, as well as the world around me, grows more wicked with each step. I am having terrible thoughts. My memories have begun to fade. It is getting increasingly difficult to think. The Atlas is powerful. It knows of my strength. It knows of my resistance to its will. It knows that I journ in search for it. Its influence grows on my mind the closer I get. Its presence acts as my compass, ever guiding me towards its source. Its very existence will be its own undoing. Oh, how I do love the irony of it. It gives me a small boost to the small, diminishing sense of humanity that I have left.

The ticking has not only kept me on my toes, but it has made me just what I have become, no more and no less. Now that it is stopped, I can finally think freely again. I can now begin to restore my mind to its original, beautiful state that it once was. The trip will now be just slightly easier, both on my body and my mind, to make. I now have true confidence that I will find the Atlas, and seek its answers to all of my mind's endless questions that now flow through me without the disturbance of the dreaded ticking of our universal clock. My progress has been ever throttled by it, but now I know that I will push myself beyond all its previous limits, for they no longer hold me back from my goal.

I have no time to waste. I must continue my travels.