Everwinter: The Forerunner Archives (31 page)

September 17th, 2085

Jonathan is dead.

He's been dead for over a year now.

Skin cancer. 

A lot of us get it during the light half of the year.

I found this journal among some old things of his that never got thrown out. I started reading it and thought I'd pick it up where he left off.

I don't know why.

Nobody's gonna read this stuff anyway.

Well, it helps to get things out, I guess.

The colony is surviving. Barely.

We call it Pacific Floor. Funny, right?

Our current population is somewhere in the range of five thousand, but it’s hardly stable. It's declining slowly.

Winter's are
brutal, but there's a silver lining–if you can call it that.

They're getting shorter.

Time is so erratic now.

We don't even use
months to count the passage of time anymore, only hours and days. There's twenty-five hours in a day, though the sun never leaves the sky. We call each hour by its numbered designate. 

Right now, it's the tenth hour of the day.

The few scientists we have left figure that the Earth is settling into an orbit around the sun much like the moon revolves around us. We only ever see one side of the moon. Pretty soon, there's gonna be one permanently dark side of the Earth and one permanently light side.

And they figure we're gonna be on the light side.

I'll take that any day over eternal night.

It still messes with
our biological clocks, but we're adapting.

We're the lucky ones, I guess.

It's the people who are gonna end up on the dark side that concerns me. What's gonna happen to them?

We still get stragglers from out that way, making their
way toward Pacific Floor. They tell us there are still a lot of people over there.

Thousands. Maybe more.

If they stay there, they've got a lot of adapting to do...

3015

I found this journal in my Mother's things.

Just like she found it in my
Father's.

She barely knew him.
 

They hooked up briefly after he came to Pacific Floor.

He died just over a year later.

She made it up until last year.

Over thirty years she lived here.

She saw it all, right from the beginning.

Me, I haven't known anything else.

All I have are tales of how great the world was before it stopped spinning. Humanity was on the right track. We were finally figuring out how to use our knowledge and technology for the greater good. War was all but a memory in most countries. Same with sickness. We were living very long lives. Renewable energy was making things easier in every way. There were restrictions on breeding, b
ut nobody said Paradise came without a cost. It's even said that we were stretching our wings, getting ready to colonize other planets.

I can’t
even imagine that we ever flew at all.

Aerop
lanes they called them.

I've seen the remains of a few.

Pacific Floor is nearing twenty thousand in population now.

There's talk of expanding southward.

Who would have thought that was possible thirty years ago?

Certainly not my
Mother.

There are other colonies out there, rumors of war over resources. We've had a few attempted raids here, but thank god the wall was built before they got really bad.

Pacific Floor has a lot of forward thinkers.

We have agriculture.

Trees are starting to sprout in the fertile soil around us.

There's talk of changing the name of our town.

Pacific Floor doesn't really have a lot of meaning anymore.

There's only two oceans now, north and south, and the world has only one continent
–a strip of land circling the equator.

We're on the northern coast.

We pull up a lot of two headed fish from the northern ocean, and our scientists say it's ‘cause there were a lot of atomic factories in that part of the world before it went underwater.

I don't know what to believe.

I can't imagine that old world. 

Even though my
Mother was one of them, I find myself further and further withdrawn from the world of our forerunners.

3020

I'm pregnant and terrified.

Remember those two headed fish I was telling you about?

Well, it's starting to happen to people now.

There's not a lot of wind in our world
–seasonal, mostly. But when the winds do come, they're powerful and from the north, carrying that atomic poison with them. People are saying we're gonna have to all move south if it gets any worse.

There's no way I see that happening.

Not with twenty-five thousand people settled here.

And that's not even the worst part.

A body washed ashore the other day.

That's not out of the ordinary, in and of itself.

It does happen now and again.

But this one was different.

It had pale skin, almost blue, with reddish eyes. I've heard the term albino used, but I don't know exactly what it means. It's unnatural, whatever it was, and it came from the direction of Everwinter. That's what they're calling the dark side of the world now.

And we're Eversummer.

Kind of cool, right?

Anyway, nobody's been over to Everwinter in decades now. There's no reason to. We have no idea what's going on over there
–who's alive–if anybody. But if this albino body really did come from that side of the world, it's got a lot of people scared. It means that the people there are evolving.

And not naturally.

I know about evolution; it's supposed to take millions of years. It's been less than fifty since we lost contact with Everwinter. Are they manipulating their genes somehow, making it easier to survive in a harsh climate?

It hardly seems possible given the primitive conditions we live
in here, in Krakelyn. But there's a theory that a colony of our forerunner ancestors survived the Great Cataclysm in Everwinter and that they still have all the old technology and stuff.

I don't know what to believe.
 

But I do know one thing.

I'm scared.

3051

The mutants are growing bolder.

A half dozen got over the wall yesterday before the Peacekeepers were able to push them back. They were trying to get the gates open. Juhani Navaro, the High Deacon, figures they had a whole army hiding out in the
forest surrounding Krakelyn, though nobody actually saw anything.

What do they want from us?

These mutants are unlike any we've ever encountered before. They’re HUGE, for one thing–twice the size of a normal man, with bluish-white skin, hair to match, and red, penetrating eyes. I saw the corpse of the one the Peacekeepers managed to kill. It triggered something in me. I went home immediately and found Mom's old diary. I'd read it before as a child, but there was something about the appearance of the Everwinter mutants that gnawed me about it.

Sure enough, I found it.

A body washed ashore in Krakelyn, thirty years ago.

My
Mother's description of it had always been etched vividly in my mind. An albino, they called it.

A precursor to the Everwinter strain of mutant.

This has been happening for a long time.

There's talk of mounting an expedition to Everwinter, just to see what the hells is going on over there. The southern cities have reports of raids too, but communication is sparse
. It takes weeks to travel because of the Bleaklands.

People are scared.

They're starting to take solace in a new faith that's sprung up. It's centered on a hatred for mutants. All mutants. I guess I can't blame them for it, but I cannot be a part of it. I shudder to think what would happen if they found out Solari has only three toes on each foot.

I heard a new saying the other day: "Thou shalt not suffer a mutant to live."

Gods, I hope it doesn't catch on.

3063

Solari's Journal

I started training today.

This army will be unlike anything the world has ever seen!

An amalgamation of Krakelyn, Apollyon, and the other southern cities.

Everwinter won't know what hit it!

Thou shalt not suffer a mutant to live!

I remember first reading that quote in my father's journal when I was young. He wasn't happy when I enlisted, especially considering I'm a mutant and all, but I know it's the right thing to do. 

Nobody knows about my toes.
 

I just want to do my part.

If we don't fight back, there will be no Eversummer left for any of us.

I want to be an Assassin.

Just watching them in the training yard, with their swords and their throwing stars…it's unbelievable!

There's a new technology out there now too. They call them shooters, or i
rons, and gods they can be devastating!

Everwinter won't know what hit it!

I should go though. There's a Judgment scheduled at the sixth hour, and I have to be there for it. All recruits have to attend Judgments now. It reminds us of why we're doing this.

Thou shalt not suffer a mutant to live.

3065

Solari's
Journal

It's over! It's finally over!

It's taken two years of brutal, relentless fighting, but we've finally pushed the mutants back into Everwinter!

I'd like to say that it was our training, coupled with the shooting irons and Assassins that brought us here, but that wouldn't be the truth.

It was the numbers.

In the end, there
were just way more of us than them.

One Everwinter mutant
equates to ten human soldiers.

We learned that lesson the hard way in the beginning. I lost a lot of friends that first year. But the people of Eversummer banded together. They saw what would happen if they didn't.

Enlistment swelled. Our armies grew.

Most of the recruits we sent out
there were pretty raw, but again, the numbers prevailed. 

We still have to be
vigilant, but the worst is over.

Thou sh
alt not suffer a mutant to live!

Long live the True Body Plan.

3066

Solari's
Journal

How did it come to this?

Who was it that betrayed me?

I've kept this secret hidden for twenty-one years!

Gods! I fought beside these people in the mutant wars!

I'm one of them, can't they see that?

So I have three toes?

So what?

Are they upset because I got past them?

That I was able to keep it a secret?

No one will tell me anything.

I'm to be Judged on the morrow.

How could I have been so stupid? So blind?

Thou shalt not suffer a mutant to live. Ha!

The True Body Plan has infected their minds!

I should have moved south after the war. I hear they're not so intolerant down there. They can't be.
The southern cities are huge, and policing mutations is a little trickier than up here in Krakelyn.

Well, it's too late now.

All I have is the pages of this journal, and the knowledge that I will live on through my words. Father is coming to collect my things soon. When the time is right, he'll pass them on to Jonas.

My son will know me through my words.

My biggest regret is that I will not live to see him grow up.

But my love for him will never die.

3078

Grandpa gave me this journal today.

He said that it's time I knew the truth.

I know about my
Mother, of course.

A decorated war hero, murdered for a flaw she couldn't help.