Entry #1 – March 7, 2098
The storm took everything. Power, communication, even the sky. For three days, I huddled in a wrecked metro tunnel. No voices. No signals. Just static. I scavenged a working solar drone and now record my days.

Entry #2 – March 14, 2098
Today, I found an old supermarket, half-submerged. The air inside smelled of mold and memory. I cried when I found a box of powdered milk. It reminded me of my sister. I left a mark on the wall: “Still breathing.”

Entry #3 – March 25, 2098
I followed a radio ping to what used to be Denver. I think someone’s out there. A child’s voice played on loop: “I see you.” Could be a trap. Could be hope.

Entry #4 – March 30, 2098
I fixed the solar drone’s antenna. The signal was real. A garbled voice, male, repeating coordinates: “Sector 7... shelter... oxygen...” My heart is racing. I haven’t spoken to anyone in 74 days. Could be bait. Could be real. I’ve packed what little I have. At dawn, I’ll head northeast. If you find this journal and it ends here... I didn’t make it.

Entry #5 – April 3, 2098
I crossed the dead zone today. The air was thick, bitter. Ash rained like snow. I wore a mask stitched from plastic and wire. My boots melted a little from the ground heat. There was a house buried halfway in soot—inside, a child’s room, untouched. I left one of my glowsticks on the window sill. A beacon... or maybe a goodbye.

Entry #6 – April 9, 2098
I reached the crater. The earth is glass here. Trees twist like frozen screams. There’s no birdsong. Only wind and the static from my radio. I saw footprints—fresh ones. Not mine. Smaller. Barefoot. I called out. No answer. Just... silence.

Entry #7 – April 12, 2098
It exists. I found Oasis 9. Or what’s left of it. A solar array still works. Clean water. Someone scrawled a warning on the tank: “THEY COME AT NIGHT.” I don’t know who “they” are. But I’m staying here tonight. I’ve set traps. Loaded the flare gun. Just in case.

Entry #8 – April 14, 2098
I heard them. Footsteps. Not human. Something scraped the door around 2 a.m. I didn't sleep. I held my breath for hours. Morning came, and it was gone. But claw marks were etched into the wall. Not an animal. Something thinking, testing. I don’t know what kind of world I’m surviving in anymore.

Entry #9 – April 18, 2098
I keep seeing a red balloon. It shows up. Disappears. No string, no wind. Just… floating. It feels like a joke. Or a test. I laughed the first time. I cried the second. Today I followed it. It led me to a buried vault door. I’m going in tomorrow.

Entry #10 – April 19, 2098
The vault wasn’t empty. It was… prepared. Shelves of canned food, solar batteries, even working filtration. It looked abandoned in a hurry—mugs still on the table, one chair knocked over. There were drawings taped to the wall. Crayon pictures. One showed stick figures holding hands under a red sky. The last one showed only one figure. I slept there last night. It was the first time I didn’t dream of screaming.

Entry #11 – April 22, 2098
I heard a voice in the vent. Whispering. Not the radio this time. It said my name—just once. I froze. Waited. Nothing else. I checked the system—it’s old, analog. No speakers. I don’t know what’s real anymore. But I left that place. I took what I could carry and sealed it behind me.

Entry #12 – April 28, 2098
It rained today. Acid rain. Burned through my coat in minutes. I found shelter in a burnt-out museum. The fossils are still there. Bones older than memory. They survived their apocalypse. I wonder if someone will dig me up one day and wonder the same. I scratched a message into the floor with a rusted coin: “We tried.”

Entry #13 – May 1, 2098
I’m in the spire now. It used to be a broadcast tower, once bright with signals and songs. Now it’s a hollow shell. But it’s high. I can see everything—the crater, the river, the black forest. Smoke in the north. Someone’s burning something. Or someone’s alive.