I am awake… I can’t tell if it is night or day… time stretches on… and yet it is as though it has stopped altogether.

We heard rumours at first…whispers here and there. No one believed them… the government would step in… their sole purpose was to protect us… they wouldn’t abandon us… we were to be rewarded for our loyalty…

That’s what people would say…

Yet here we are… I say we… but, in reality there is only me.

They reached too far, and control slipped from their fingers. They were greedy, and now the world must pay the price… at least I think it is the world. I cannot hope for the alternative. That only the continent was affected… how could the others leave us to die like this. It must be global… It has to be…

I am beginning to forget, and so I write. My hope is that someone will find my story. If there is anyone left.

My father was a paranoid man… he built this bunker… stocked it with food… iodine tablets…fresh water.

I am safe for now… but what does it matter, for I am also alone.

In my mind I think of them as dead… I hope they are dead… the alternative is too much to bear… I can’t…

They are dead… I will be dead soon… at least that is my hope.

I have never been religious, yet I find myself praying to god, any god… anything to escape from this hell…

I must tell my story… someone will find this journal… at least that is what I tell myself…

It came in waves at first… the source was unknown. Some said it was foreign government… some said it was our government… I suppose it no longer matters… everyone is just as dead.

The radio worked at first… now there is nothing but static... I leave it playing in hopes that someone out there will say something… that I may find a wayward signal…

I have nothing but this journal… this story… my story…

Until tomorrow… for all its good for…

T.S.

This is the first of three hundred entries from the diary of the mysterious T.S. Their journal was discovered in a bunker near what was once an old farm site along the river. There was no body in the bunker, we can only hope that the mysterious T.S. escaped and found a better life. The entries were not dated. As the first discovered written account of the event, The Swill will be publishing each entry on a weekly basis.

Republished from The Swill print edition, Volume 107, Issue 27, March 28, 2017.