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YOU'RE ON: Zacharie's Journal
| BATTEUR___
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You were searching through the rubble of an old safehouse. With a nostalgic half-smile on your face, you pick out old knick-knacks and junk that you had to leave behind when you left in a hurry that fateful night. Suddenly, you feel a sharp pain in your hand. Wincing and removing the appendage from the offending pile of rubbish, you peer down in shock at the perpetrator to your newly-found papercut. Digging out an old leather book from underneath the remains of a chair, you curiously flip open to the first page. In almost unreadable chickenscratch, you make out a hastily scrawled note on the inside front cover of the leather-bound journal...
A NOTE
Journal property of Zacharie Batteur. If found, I am most likely dead. No need to worry about going out of your way to find me. Stay safe, whoever you are, dear reader.
<3,
Zacharie
August 17th
Dear Journal,
Today was my birthday! Hugo gave me this really nice journal, and so I'm writing in it for him.
(There are some scribbles here, entirely unreadable.)
Hugo wrote that. He says that it says a really funny joke, but won't tell me what it is. Well, I think that's very mean of Hugo for not letting me know what it says.
(More scribbles.)
Thank you, Hugo. That's beautiful. Oh, he's asking for his Papa to write a note in the journal now. But I thought it was my journal?
Hugo told me "not to get so possessive of my stuffs." I wonder when he learned that word? Oh, handing it over to Papa now I gu
(The handwriting is much neater this time, in very straight, sharp lettering.) Zacharie told me to write something. Something.
Very funny. Well, that's al
(Scribbles)
And we love you too, Hugo. I think I'm supposed to sign this now.
<3,
Zacharie, Philip, (scribbles)
DAY ONE
When Hugo gave me this journal for my birthday last August, I was certain that I would probably only use the thing once, just to make him happy (if at all). Well, here I am now, barricaded in my own home, with nothing to do but write by the dim, flickering light of a candle I dug up from our basement.
I watch the shadows dance across the walls, setting an eerie mood about the whole place. I suppose I should be lamenting over the pain of what I saw; the tragedy of all those lives lost in that panic, but instead I just feel sad.
I suppose that writing this journal may serve as my security blanket. What with all the shit I've just been through, and what I am most certain is to come, I feel it necessary to have some sort of a normal habit by which to maintain my sanity and humanity.
I suppose it's time to talk about what happened today.
Per a normal Thursday afternoon, I was out and about in the city. Philip was at work, Hugo daycare, and me enjoying the nice fall day from up on top of an old, crumbling, abandoned library.
As a (relatively) new and jobless father, I had gotten myself into a bit of a: "Shit! Life as I knew it is over! I have to do fatherly, responsible stuff now-- no more free running or urban exploration or back-alley deals on counterfeit/stolen goods!" (Okay, so maybe I didn't miss that last bit quite that much.)
So, naturally, I often found myself in places a younger me would have frequented, such as rooftops and decaying homes and tunnels. What else was I supposed to do while my family was out? Read? Clean? That made me feel like some dull old mother, so, no.
As I took another thoughtful bite of my tuna salad sandwich that I had brought along for the journey, I spied some odd sort of commotion all the way down on the pavement. Cautiously inching forward, I peered over the rooftop to get a better view of what was the matter.
Interrupting the violent flow of traffic down below the library was an unfamiliar woman. Of course, from 4 stories up, I couldn't make out her face too well, but it was clear to me that something was quite wrong with her. The strange woman swayed slowly, back and forth from her stationary position in the middle of the road. A busy, city road at that! I felt employed to do something, help her, however from my perch there was no way I could have reached there in time to pull her out of the street.
I remember thinking something along the lines of "Is she sick? What the hell is wrong with her?!" No sane person would stand in the street without knowing it was a death wish. Suddenly, her demeanor shifted from vacant to absolutely barbaric, as she threw her heavy body on top of a honking taxi and began pummeling the windshield with her bare arms.
Eyes frozen wide in horror, I watched as the woman rained her flesh down upon the poor cab. The flow and ebb around the two came to a gradual stop, gapers gathering left and right. None tried to stop the woman or help the old cabbie unlock his door and get out. Then, the glass shattered.
Silvery shards flew all around the madwoman and the cabbie. I saw bright red liquid, presumably blood, running down the arms of the lady. The screams of the cabbie and the people around the two pierced my eardrums, even upon the rooftop it almost sounded as if they were right next to me. Horrified, I watched as the bloody woman yanked the fully-grown man out of his metal shell and threw him onto the pavement. Hard.
Finally, someone launched into action. A man in a peculiar black and white ski jacket came racing around the corner of a building a block down, holding onto his hood to keep it up. He smashed through the gaping crowd, sending people crashing into one another. He swept onto the ground in front of the woman, who was now straddling the old man and snarling him, blood and saliva dribbling down her face and out of her mouth and onto the poor fellow. The hero, arms held out defensively, said something I couldn't quite make out, and suddenly her focus was on him instead. He scrambled onto his feet and stumbled backwards as she prepared to swipe at him. Out of nowhere, the jacketed man procured a rifle. Was it a rifle? I couldn't really tell for certain.
This was when people began screaming. The old man backed away and melded into the surging crowd. Give a group of people a mentally unstable woman and they treat her like a show, but give them a man with a gun…
I sighed. This was like TV, only real. And less realistic. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. All of a sudden, someone jumped in between the crazy lady and the man with a gun. He motioned for the person to get out of the way with the tip of his rifle, but then quickly recoiled as the woman grabbed a hold of the person’s neck and sank her teeth into it.
Screaming. Commotion. People were running about like mice trapped in a crematorium. There were fists and teeth and blood flying this way and that, and I closed my eyes and backed up into the center of the roof, away from the horrors that I had just witnessed. I tried to mute out the crying; tried to calm my thundering heart.
Then there were the gunshots.
I ran home and locked myself in the bedroom, curling onto the bed with my clothes on. Shivering, I clutched at the sheets wrapped around me with wide, fearful eyes.
Then, I passed out.
I can't write any more tonight. I'm sorry, I just... can't. Stay safe, Philip... Hugo... stay safe.
<3
Zacharie
DAY TWO
I'm so f**cked. So. Royally. F**cked.
I'm normally not one to use such vulgarities, but today I feel like I very well have the f**cking right.
I'm sorry... let me just...
Okay. I need to write about what's going on now, though it doesn't even matter anymore.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
DAY THREE
(to be continued)
 __________ __________
BATTEUR
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