805. Conatus and telos, 5
(Temee)
I left.
I didn’t trust that thing that spoke to me in a dream.
Even if it didn’t try to attack me in the end, I wouldn’t have trusted it.
But Ran had been right.
Worse than monsters even, there are demons, those who can speak. Because unlike beasts, they can lie and mislead...
How can things like that exist? How could things without real body come to speak?
I’m becoming insane...
But at least, I’m returning to my journey along the road and river that returned to wilderness.
The past rain made the river turn muddy and strong. There is no way I could navigate over these strong streams.
But at least I can continue to follow it downstream, walking over roads and paths long abandoned in another time.
Glasgow’s head, I couldn’t resolve myself to burning it.
I considered it after this awful night.
There is something horrible attached to her...
But there is also a brain left inside. I saw it before. She’s still somewhere in there, my sister. And if the infections of the new world prevent her rotting, then...
There still is a small chance to save her.
Even if the absence of body will clearly be a problem...
I hang to what I can still cling to.
Her head. And that minuscule chance still, to save her...
I’m crying a little, not entirely fooled by the futility.
But I need her to move forward.
~
Along the river that gradually drops in altitude and slithers gently around the landscape, I progress.
The forests that cover the cities in ruins are not centuries old I think.
The country I’m going across bears the traces of a very populous civilisation, which disappeared a long time before my birth.
Some roads are still quite clean and easy to progress over, while dirt is burying them gently. However not much grows over them yet.
In the distance, I notice foxes and dogs sometimes. Not many enough to worry me though.
Since I don’t think I’ll find another inhabited city ever again, I’m a little more cautious with wilderness encounters now. I’m also a little more worried along each meal as my supplies dwindle.
I eat first everything I can pick along my way. My dry cereals I keep for last.
And Glasgow already wasn’t eating a lot before, but now...
I must push forward.
~
On the other river bank, there is a road in better condition to progress, but unfortunately I don’t find any bridge that would allow me to cross over.
Nor do I find any port with a floating ship or rowing boat that would allow me to navigate.
So I progress rather slowly, as the road often becomes an uneven field of ruins.
But I’m not slowing down.
And as much as I can allow, I now keep some lights around me during the night.
To protect myself from I don’t know what...
The glass dust I scatter around like salt marks my camping points as the days go by.
Days go by and I reach another city in ruins, this one sunken so much in muds it makes me think of a mangrove plant of a weird kind that would have grown there, out of this swampy river channel.
As I get near there, I hear a noise I recognise.
The helicopter in the sky... I go to hide by reflex, worried.
Noisily but distant, it follows the river and the road like I am, and disappears away.
Some optical and colourful effects scatter in the sky along its path.
Something is stagnating in the air and at that height, and it begins to glow for a while after being disturbed by this machine.
I don’t stay in awe before that sight and continue along my way in this perilous lands.
I go to camp in a cave of buildings that fell over each other into a mountain of rubble. The mud that mixed with them sculpted a network of caves.
I don’t notice any sign of predators around, so I settle in a corner of them for the night.
I burn old furniture I could find to warm up the night.
I dream again that salvation will come from the west, and that my friend will hear it as well.
And I have bad dreams again about the shapeless and dark thing preying on us.
I wake up in sweat, terrified by the end of the dream and the tremors reaching my current refuge subtly.
I rapidly begin to flee toward the exit that has sight over the river, and discover the origin of the tremors I felt.
Now it’s with the clear noise of a caravan of vehicles rolling along the road on the other river bank.
The vehicles are varied, but there are many trucks...
I’m a little stunned by the show they are.
While something ominous caught back civilised lands and cities from the East, another road gradually appeared in the west. Not just for me.
However my blood helped...
I’m altogether a little terrified and excited at the same time.
They’re not giving up either.
And they even manage to pass in front of me now.
I would have expected for them to settle along Gsatrong and to hibernate with the inhabitants of that strange country we’re discovering. But they instead decided to continue their road to find another territory further down the river.
I’m touched by their determination, that reminds me a little of mine under a more honourable light.
They are attempting this risky journey for more than just themselves, even though all is vain and the species is already condemned...
No...
They are just like me with Glasgow.
They move forward along the unlikely hope that a solution remains possible, as fearful and unreal the odd might be.
There still is a chance that the realities of the nature that poisoned humanity also would have the resources to bring its salvation.
And so long this chance will exist, them too will continue to push forth. To the last of the mad scientists, and last human breath...
Whether it requires sacrifices, murder, rape or poisoning...
Humanity will never let go...
I too must continue, even if it’s just for my sole self.
~
