Day, whatever, who cares any more. The world's ended, at least for us it has, does anybody really care anymore if it's a Sunday or a Tuesday or a Thursday? If I'm coming off as nihilistic, it's hard not to these days. A lot's happened since I last updated this log.
We didn't do much for that first day; we spent it in shock. Hell, it wasn't just the first day, the first week was a void of sitting in the main hall, eating, sleeping, listening to the radio without ever daring to go out into the outside world, and see what had happened out there. We spent out time making sure that the ways in and out remained barricaded; both the one to the outside world and the one down to the place we had escaped. Not that it mattered; we had heard about Abraham, or rather whatever he became, escaping through some back entrance to the 'Deep Lab', as we've been calling it; about citizens in his presence turning into 'monsters' that attacked people on sight, about the fall of the police force, then the military, and finally we heard about the quarantining of the UK as a whole. The world had abandoned us, left us to die, just a shrinking handful of votes each day stopping us from being annihilated by every nuclear weapon in foreign government hands. We had been made into a prison for the 'Yellow King', and every other inmate had been condemned to die.
The next few weeks, we cannibalised every power source we could. The base was put onto emergency power, using only what we needed to survive. We gathered the bravery to go outside just lift enough to rip the batteries from our cars as spare power sources, we permanently switched off the teleport as it would waste too much power being on, we took the radio apart when every other accessible channel had died beyond static. We were cutting off every potential way of escape, true, but we'd also struggle to find anywhere safer than where we were right now. After all, there was food and thick walls here, and there isn't much else we could ask for.
Those weeks also began the slow process of moving the cryptids back to the main lab. True, they were moved with disgusting efficiency down to their cells by the Amber-Clad, but that was by a team of who knows how many people who seemed to be willing to lay down their life in some distant twisting of religious loyalty. Now there was five of us, in awful spirits, trying to move cryptids that had been shown the worst of humanity. The less dangerous ones we did first; Alexis, the Kasa Obake, Bruce. We also moved the ones that managed to breach containment down there, out of necessity before they caused too much damage to any of the other cryptids or themselves. Fortunately, only the Kappa and Deerman managed to breach. On average, we managed two or three cryptids moved back to their homes per day.
The outside didn't look too good in the brief moments we spent out there. We were the only things, human or otherwise, around. The birds didn't fly, the wind barely blew. It was hot, too, unbearably warm beneath the harsh sun. You wouldn't know that there were monsters out there, as the news called them, not from just standing outside. As far as we could see, there was nothing. Eva theorised that the day was too bright, too warm for the Carcosans to be out hunting, since that was almost definitely what we were dealing with from the brief news descriptions. If they were cave dwellers as we suspected, they'd likely be hiding in the now abandoned buildings by day, and hunting by night. That notion was only reinforced by the ghastly noises we heard when we tried to sleep. We didn't go out at night.
It was about the three week mark, maybe twenty five days in, where Eva began disappearing. Just a few days after we'd managed to move every cryptid back to the lab. The other four of us woke up one morning to find her gone. We scoured the lab; ensured that she hadn't left through the main entrance, to which she fortunately hadn't. It was Lucy who noticed that the desk had been moved away from the door, and Sid who found that the door had been re-barricaded from the other side. We spent that day without Eva, then practically that week; she'd return from the Deep Lab late at night and disappear back into there before we awoke. Sometimes she didn't even leave to sleep in the main lab with us. We'd notice things coming up from the Deep Lab too in the night. First a large whiteboard, then marker pens, then the mannequin. That last one was a little too upsetting for us, knowing what we knew, so Randy covered her with a sheet.
The first months, we tried to keep cheerful, and Randy was a big help in that for all of us. When it would have been so easy to succumb to misery, especially with Eva isolating herself, Randy, the resourceful guy as he is, brought out any and all books we had in the lab to keep our minds sharp. He helped us all keep occupied, distracted, he found ways for us all to pass the hours. We didn't use the whiteboard though, since apparently that was Eva's project, and how she communicated with us these days. It was headed 'Theories on Carcosan Transformation', and annotated with every theory she could come up with on what turned people into those things. Psychosis, a viral infection, bacteria, protozoa, fungus, biological mutilation, radiation, spontaneous mutation, possession, et al. But none of them seemed to be the answer she was looking for as days passed and each were slowly crossed off. Other occasional notes came through to us also, messages such as 'I've heard some worrying scratching in the roofing; can somebody please check it out' and 'I bothered to untie the rope only because it's a limited resource. Tie the door shut again and I will cut through the knot.' Those notes were infrequent, however. Eva rarely interacted with us at all in those weeks.
It was probably late afternoon when Sid finally broke.
"I can't do this anymore. I have to go outside or I'm going to lose it."
We were all sitting and reading in silence, when Sid made the comment, putting the book he was reading down and standing suddenly, head down. Randy put his own piece of reading material down, stood up, and followed him as he paced towards the front entrance.
"Sid, please sit back down. It's tough, I know, and yeah, Eva's not here right now. But we can't go outside until we know what we're dealing with. I'm sure that's what Eva's working on right now, so we... we have to sit tight, okay?"
This seemed to work, and Sid paced back to his chair, slumping down.
"I know you're trying to help, Randy." Sid sighed. "But I'm sick of everything. I'm already sick of sitting in the same room, reading the same book, having the same conversation. I've read the instruction manual for the microwave twelve times, for Pete's sake!"
Randy shook his head, and began to walk discontentedly towards the nearest room, slinging a backpack over his shoulder.
"What are you doing?" Lucy asked, confused.
"Sid's right." Randy admitted, a statement that even Sid seemed caught off guard by. "Gear up; we're going out."
"Where to?" I asked, standing up and stretching.
"First, we find an abandoned house; emphasis on abandoned. We look for cards, board games, whatever we can find to keep spirits up, maybe also some improved weapons if we need them. Then, there's a gym a short ways up the road. I say we hit there next, get as much equipment as we can carry back. Maybe hit up some other useful places along the way, assuming they're empty, get as much sharp stuff as we need. Everyone grab a backpack and a tranquilliser gun, and meet me at the elevator in five."
Spirits hadn't been higher in the lab for a very long time than they were preparing for this mission. I hadn't even realised how much I'd missed packing nets and darts into a backpack, and slinging it over my shoulder ready to head out.
"There's no way that Eva would approve of this, you know." I casually mentioned, jokingly.
"I'm not certain that we'd approve of whatever Eva's doing." Lucy responded, throwing a coil of rope at me from across the room. "Packing light?"
Sid's backpacks were mostly empty; he'd elected to bring two with him.
"I've got what I need. No reason for me to overburden myself now if I'm going to be dragging gym equipment back with me."
Seeing natural light highlighting Randy's figure as he stood at the entrance was a beautiful sight after so long in artificial dullness. It motivated us; left us confident and feeling refreshed.
"Team Cryptotrappers!" Randy announced, beaming, "Let's move!"
It was weird, patrolling the hot concrete streets of the city in which we used to live, as though it were an environment as hostile as any other we'd explored. Even though the sun was still high in the sky, we kept defensive positions just in case something was feeling brave.
"You know, in daylight, your hair's an absolute mess." Lucy teased, as we continued to move out. It's true that in the past month we'd been down there, I hadn't paid much attention to how I looked. Lucy's dyed streak was beginning to fade out, Randy had begun to grow a thick stubble, my hair had grown out beyond how I usually had it, and Sid... well Sid hadn't changed much at all. I guess if nothing else, this apocalypse confirmed that Sid's baldness was genetic.
"Well," I responded, as Randy gestured us towards one of the houses, seemingly at random, "that's a problem for us to solve if we get out hands on some scissors."
Gathering in front of this house, it definitely didn't seem like anybody was inside. But with the curtains drawn, we couldn't be sure.
"Do we knock?" Randy asked, unsure of how to handle the situation.
"I can kick it down, you know, if you need me to." Sid replied, eagerly.
"I think we'll stick to knocking, and then if needs be, a less conspicuous entrance." I smiled and nodded. "You know, just in case there is something inside, better that we have the advantage of surprise."
"Fair enough." Sid grunted, as Lucy knocked firmly on the door. Seconds passed with no response, and I jiggled the handle to no avail.
"Locked." I replied, signing. "Can anybody here pick a lock?"
Looking at the cast of blank faces, I finally relented.
"Alright, Sid, you're up. Give it your all."
Entering the building through the now open door, and hoping that it hadn't left too bad of a dent in the wall, we elected that moving as a unit would be safer. The foyer was first, and provided little except for some reusable shopping bags. The kitchen was far more useful.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven knives in the knifeblock." Sid noted, approaching them as Randy scoured the cupboards.
"Dried meat, tinned fish, all of this is useful cryptid food first for all, people food second of all." Randy noted. It was true; we were running reasonably low on specialised cryptid food, so restocking certainly couldn't hurt. I glanced to Lucy, stood at the kitchen door, who gave an affirmative nod that the coast was clear. All the same, I walked back into the living room and opened the curtains, just in case, letting natural light flood into the room.
"If any of those things are in this place, that should stop them." I noted as the rest of the team joined me. They grabbed cushions, alcohol, batteries, useful supplies whilst I loaded up from the board games cabinet.
"Any scary sounding noises?" I asked Lucy.
"None to report." Lucy replied, nodding.
Now more relaxed, we split up across the house, opening curtains as we went. Along the way we picked up some sewing supplies, scissors, and best of all...
"Jackpot!" Randy called from across the house, leaping into the living room with a toolkit in hand.
"Nice find!" I replied with a smile.
"We've got a hammer, a wrench, a screwdriver with screws, pliers, bolt cutter, a paint roller and scraper which I'm sure we'll use at some point, Allen keys, pretty much everything we could ask for!"
"How about we all grab something, just in case we have to use it." Lucy suggested.
"Good idea." I replied. "I'll just take one of the knives.
"Can't go wrong with a screwdriver." Lucy shrugged, giving a few practice stabs.
Randy equipped himself with some work gloves also in the kit before taking the wrench and giving it a swing. All of us were waiting on Sid, and when he entered the room, he made an entrance.
Sid was now wearing a zipped leather jacket, biker gloves and a new belt, complete with two knives holstered into it.
"Sid, what are you wearing?" Randy asked, trying to sound composed.
"What!" Sid replied, throwing his hand up defensively. "I'm not taking chances with being scratched and bitten, that's all! That, and this stuff was my size and style. Anyway, what did you find?"
Lucy reached into the toolbox and tossed Sid the hammer, who caught it and gave a dark chuckle.
"You three know me so well."
Looking confident, Randy began to head to the front door, the rest of us following behind.
"Then how about we hit the gym?"
Even before we entered the building, even just standing outside, we could tell that this place was inhabited.
"Right. There aren't any windows, because the place is meant to break your perception of time and keep you in longer." Randy explained. "I probably should have thought about that beforehand."
"So are we going back empty handed?" I asked with resolve, already knowing the answer. With a resounding nod, I turned to my most muscular ally. "Well in that case, Sid, if you'd do us the honours?"
Dust flew through the air as the doors flew open from Sid's kick, and light flooded into the room.
"Right, you know the drill." I confirmed. "Move as a unit, keep a watch on every possible choke point, attack anything that moves that isn't us. And don't die."
As we moved very slowly inside, the surroundings growing dimmer as we went and the light from the door becoming less effective, every sound alarmed us.
"Torches out." Randy ordered, as we illuminated our surroundings to reveal far more Carcosans than we were anticipating. Standing in a circle facing outwards, we took defensive positions.
"Carcosans at nine til three o'clock. Probably four to five and seven to nine as well. Chance of light showers at seven thirty."
"I... really don't think you understand how that clock metaphor works." Sid disputed, clutching his hammer tight. One of the Carcosans snarled, jumping down. And then the onslaught began. Randy swiped first, hitting one in the jaw as I was forced to react defensively to another; dark blood spraying down my shirt. No matter how many we injured or worse, more seemed to jump at us as it occurred to us how dire the situation was.
"What's the plan?" Lucy shouted over the sounds of the skirmish.
"I don't know about you, but my plan is to keep swinging!" Sid answered, throwing a small crowd aside to create a path.
"Grab what you can, don't put yourself in too much danger." Randy ordered, as Lucy and I progressed forwards. I cut down a punching bag as Lucy stabbed a Carcosan in the jaw before it landed a strike on me; Lucy loaded her backpack with dumbbells as I sliced at a pair that launched themselves at us. Gathering with the rest of the group, we began to fight our way to the door, hauling it shut on the surviving monsters as we finally took the time to pant in the late afternoon sun.
"Any injuries?" I asked, looking again at my blood covered colleagues. With any luck, none of the blood would be ours.
"Scratches, nothing more, skin is unbroken." Randy confirmed.
"Same here." Sid replied, sticking his hammer in his jeans.
"Small tooth scratch, but again, no blood." Lucy followed, cheerfully. Slinging my newly obtain punching bag over my shoulder, I looked up at the sky.
"It's getting late. We should get back to base." I sighed, taking the lead and hoping that we'd be back before sundown. As the sky grew slowly duller, we hoped that we'd given ourselves enough time to get into the base before the sun completely set and we were once again at the mercy of the Carcosans. As the last of the red began to leave the sky, and the long-necked monolith that concealed our locations grew nearer, hope stirred inside of us.
Eva wasn't back, not when we moved all of the gear into the base. Each of us was still covered in blood, but we promised to clear that up tomorrow. As we hung the punchbag and put away our new gains, Eva finally returned from her work, and our eyes met hers as she stood, staring at us, as we stared back.
"You should see the other guys." Sid smirked, breaking the tension, as Eva turned back around and returned back to the Deep Lab. Throwing our bloody clothes aside, we barely managed to clean ourselves off before collapsing into sleep. We thought that would be the start of a new era of positivity for us, even in our situation. And, in a way, it was, at least for a while. Over the next few days, our routine became less, well, routine. We enjoyed comfort, games, and we managed to successfully ignore the woes that we could be killed any day, either by a rogue Carcosan, or by a foreign weapon. At this point, Eva barely left the Deep Lab at all; we never saw her at any rate. We didn't know if she was eating, we didn't know if she even still felt the need to. But we hoped she was alright, as doubtful as that idea may have seemed.
It was ten days after we'd gone out on our mission, maybe eleven, when we saw Eva again. The day had begun as was to be expected. Eva was still in the Deep Lab, Sid rose with the sun and spent the morning keeping in shape. Lucy woke after, followed shortly after by me, as we did the morning cryptid care routines. Randy woke up last, joining us for the last rounds to help with some of the more careful units. We entertained ourselves for a while in the main room, before we ate, then Sid left to do the afternoon rounds on the cryptids. It had to have just been minutes after he left when the wall slammed open, and Eva poured out from it, collapsing to the floor.
"Slam the door, now!" Eva hoarsely shouted, as we rushed over; Randy supporting her head as Sid slammed the wall shut, and as Lucy and I tried to hold her up. Her breathing was laboured, and veins on her neck and arms were popping out. She held in her one remaining hand the now bandaged wrist of her other hand, as both limbs involuntarily shook.
"Eva, speak to me, what happened?" Randy asked, with deep, genuine concern and fear.
"I m-miscalculated." Eva shakily responded. With a nod from Randy, we lifted her as a group, and laid her down on the cushions as she continued to hyperventilate. That day, we barred the wall shut. Eva was back with us, injured, but for the first time in a long time, we were together as a team.