Journal 4
…
Entry: Journal #4
It's the 50th day- by this place's standards; I have finalized my thoughts that this planet's cycles are approximately 6 hours longer in length. It's been 1500 hours rounded; back home, that would have been 62 days.
50th seems shorter, and I want to be stranded as shortly as possible. So we'll go with that.
-I. I will go with that. Sometimes I forget I'm alone.
This place is so full of solitude. I have seen no signs of life outside of… animals… non terrestrial animals. None I'd find back home, nowhere on earth, except maybe gravity falls; but I'm not there. So it's my belief and hypothesis that I am indeed beyond earth, if I truly am in not only another dimension, and perhaps any combination or singularity of the two.
The only other life sans these animals, and these strange plants, seems to be Bill. Despite passing through the portal, I do not seem to be in his dimension, much to his anger. It appears that while my device… took me somewhere, it had failed to take me to the place I had been trying in bad faith to reach.
Should I be glad the portal won't help him and his plans? Or should I be angry I failed to achieve what was supposed to be my life's work? Well, I'm both.
I'm keeping this journal and another now. Journal 5, will be my studies. There seem to be a lot of plants and animals, and it'd be best to study them. I have many notes already; trying to figure out what is edible and what could be deadly. This I am writing in, however, is journal 4.
Journal 4 will be different.
I have never kept a 'diary' form of journal. But I have read my peers' in collage who were in the studies of Psychology's works, and I can't ignore a truth; As… unsocial as I am considered, Humans are a social species. I will not do well out here for long alone, my only conversations being in the dreamscape with the likes of Cipher. The best I can do is try to carry out one sided interaction, and what better have I proven at then writing journals?
Onward, to write what I have been up to these last 15 thousand hours.
While there seems to be no sign of intelligent life in this place I have been deposited, portal nowhere in sight when I woke- does that mean Stanley closed it to lock me in? Did it break? I'd rather it broken, at least then it wouldn't ever be opened again; that'd keep home much safer for Stanley and the whole planet at that. While there are no signs of those intelligent creatures or people, I have discovered evidence that there were, perhaps still are somewhere on this planet. I doubt they are human, from what I have found consisting of a skeletal body; I buried it at the top of the cliff if only because moving it seemed disrespectful and god only knows the last thing I need right now is more demons after me, but I didn't want to live with a skeleton lying on the floor of the place I had found.
I discovered a dug in cave at the cliff, 6 miles up a river and 2 miles further north is the place I initially woke. The cave is cemented on the inside; a sort of dome. The whole thing's walls and roof are growing with mass amounts of a sort of iridescent moss- I have my concerns if its radioactive or dangerous, but it is certainly safer in here then outside. The rain on this planet seems highly acidic, burning to my skin though seemingly harmless to other life here. Also, after trying to sleep in one of the gargantuan trees (I will call them trees, but they are more like… coral, with bushes of 'leaves' quite like dandelions, though much harder.) to try and avoid the large carnivorous, this place seems much safer than a chance encounter with something looking for a snack in the night while asleep.
The door locks with three latches, the light from the moss is about as strong as a sunset (bright enough to read, for example, but soft and a pale green that doesn't keep one awake while trying to sleep). There's a sort of soft bean bag like object about the size of a king bed with an old blanket that really needed a wash in the water of the river; its much better for sleeping than the 'trees', if I do say. There's evidence this place would have once had electricity, too, though not anymore; a panel with some wiring that was perhaps akin to a breaker, and a large… screen? Perhaps a TV or Computer or something of the sort. I have plans to try and dismantle it and see if I can make something useful, but there is no power source out here. I'm contemplating trying to find a way to make either a windmill, or even a magnet-based generator… There is also a desk with an oil lamp- sadly out of oil- and what looks to be many books on a couple bookshelves; most of which hand-written and others looking very wordy judging from thickness and the size of the characters, but I can't seem to find any way to read this 'alien' writing. Better yet, I found clean notebooks. Two of which became Journal 4 and 5. Thankfully while there were a lot of things in that desk I can't seem to find a use for, there appeared to be plenty of pens as close to the ones of earth that I could use it.
After living here for 17 of this planets days, I found a compartment hatch toward the back. It once opened electronically, but after trying for a while to pry it open, I have been rewarded. Weapons. A sort of Plasma gun or Laser gun that I decided to leave in there; I imagine something like that would need charging, best not use it unless I need it. But also, a much easier weapon—an electrical pair of gloves that I find to be made of solar chargeable absorbers within the cloth. The sun here, double the size than earth's, is finally useful for something other than making it hot as the Sahara. There was also a long spear, much more primitive and wooden with a metal sharp tip at the end, and a few smaller throwing knives. I'm not very good with the latter in the least, but they are useful to at least cut things. There were other things in there, but none I have yet to figure out or understand how to use.
I did start carrying the plasma gun in case of emergency recently, after I suppose a night with bill really got under my skin, and the gloves may not charge enough energy to power anything but themselves, but they are still useful; I can shock the water of the river, and their electricity is strong enough that fish near enough rise to the surface, stunned or dead. I'm practicing with the spear, but not much luck yet.
…I don't have much else to write in here. The days are long and slow, this place is dangerous, Bill is insufferable and without him on the every few nights that he doesn't show up to torment me in the dreamscape, I wake with nightmares.
That's all for now, I guess. I'm scared, but that's nothing new.
I can survive this; I'm supposed to be a genius after all, right?
…
With a deep breath as Ford quietly read over that last line, once, twice, a third time, he leaned back against the sloping wall of the dome behind him. He didn't have any more words to write, but there felt like there were, and it was irritating. He normally wrote science, but fact didn't fill the paper as much as he wanted it to this time. Diaries were supposed to be personal, but he wasn't good with that.
6-fingered hands flexed over paper, and after a second, eyes opened again. Ford read the line over again, once more, then twice more, and with pen in hand, he drew a sharp, neat, straight line.
He folded the cover back over the first page again, and climbed down from his crossed-legged seat on top of the desk; no chairs in this odd room. He sunk into the strange bed and curled into the blanket tight against the cold air, untouched by sunlight which had vanished from the sky hours ago.
He descended into disturbed sleep at the mercy of his triangular tormentor a while later.
That's all for now, I guess. I'm scared, but that's nothing new.
I can survive this; I'm supposed to be a genius after all, right?