February 20th
It's been six months since I last wrote in this thing. I guess I didn't have time, during the chaos and emotions I felt while walking through what felt like the abyss. But I went back. To the Valley. I don't know why I went. I had a feeling that if I went back, I would feel some closure. But it made it worse. It was around 5:00 in the morning, and I had been walking for what felt like a lifetime. But my world lit up like a Christmas tree as I saw that I was approaching the hill surrounding my valley. We used to put one up. Every year at the same time. The Christmas tree, not the hill. It felt like I was ascending to heaven as I walked up the hill to my valley.
Before I go any further, I should probably write what I saw while I was out there. There was nothing but death. Everything was black and… dead. There was nothing out there. As the realisation of what happened to all these people and all the animals hit, I broke. Remembering what happened back at the valley, the hot tears broke like a dam too full of water, streamed down, before dampening the fabric inside the radiation suit, but drying very quickly in the cool air filtered by the tank on my back. I cried at night. I cried whenever I started to hurt from the walking. My feet must have been the same colour as Santa Clauses suit. Red with white ribbons on the edge. All the transformation I went through in the valley. Growing up, everything. It shattered as if it was a glass window that just had a rock thrown it. Gone like my parents and Faro. Never to be seen again. I didn't want to live anymore. But then I realised. I had to do it. I had to keep going. For my parents. I believed, at that moment, that they were watching down on me, proud of the young women that had taken over at the valley. I saw several cars while I was walking. I didn't have the strength to look in them. What if my parents were in one of them? I saw a car identical to the one my family left in. I couldn't tell if it was their car by just looking at it. And I couldn't remember their registration on the number plates. I turned away from that one. I just couldn't do it.
I went west. There were no birds. No animals. No green grass or trees. Maybe they didn't realise that they couldn't leave a specific zone. I saw nothing that looked like a safe area. If there ever was one. Maybe Loomis had been telling the truth. Maybe there had been a safe area. It would be possible after what I saw at the valley. I guess that's another mystery to add to my list. I went north from the westerly position I was at, for a bit. But then my mind pushed the decision of going back to the valley to the front of my brain, so I turned towards the direction of the valley and started walking. Why shouldn't I have gone back to the valley? There was obviously nobody alive out in the world.
As I walked up the hill surrounding my valley, and got the first glimpse of the valley, my smile turned upside down. There was something definitely wrong. The brownish-blackish colour of the grass continued over the point at the top of the hill, where it usually stopped. Not just a little bit over the point. The dead grass continued to nearly touch the back of the nearest building which was still a far way away. The whole valley seemed to be encased in a circle of the dead grass, with a few bumps here and there, making it look like some traced a circle from the bottom of a disfigured flower. A tree was chopped in half. Half dead, half alive although the leaves on the alive side had started to get brown dots and a few holes on them, and a few of the leaves were as shrivelled up as an old women's face, having just eaten a lemon. The forest surrounding the forest had withered up, making the illusion that the trees had faces and the trees had arms that pointed towards the shrinking safe area of the valley. The cave, that had once been hidden and my safe spot, was revealed to the world. I turned my back to the cave and forest and headed down the hill to the valley.
As I walked towards the house, where I figured Loomis would be, I could smell what I thought was burnt wood. And when I turned the corner, my sense of smell was proven. The Klein families store was on the floor, in a mixture of char grilled wood, soot and roof tiles. The church was still standing, perfectly untouched. The store had been purposefully burnt down. But Loomis wouldn't have done that, would he? I picked up a few tins of canned food that had survived the inferno, and put them next to the wall to collect them later. I then started walking towards my house. When I was passing the crop field, I noticed that there was not a single crop planted. This was unusual, as if the store had burnt down, then he would have to survive on fresh fruit and vegetables. As I walked closer, I noticed that the water looked like it had not been watered in a couple of weeks. I looked around quickly and noticed that the tractor was sitting where it usually sat, but it had a flat tyre. This was also unusual, as I had told Loomis where the spare tyres were, and that the equipment needed was in a shed near the house. There was also a broken jerry can and tape sitting not that far away from the tractor. This started to make me worry about Loomis, and what he had been doing.
I walked the final steps to the house quickly. As I started to get closer, I noticed a foul smell, fouler than anything I had ever smelt before. It got stronger as I got closer. What was Loomis doing? And as I pushed open the door, I realised that Loomis wasn't doing anything. He hasn't been for some time. Loomis was lying in a dry pool of his own blood which was a blackish-reddish colour and as dry as a towel just pulled out of a dryer. Lying in the pool next to him was a gun, pointing the opposite way to the hole that went straight through his head. A bullet was indented in the wall next to him, which was covered in dry blood, with part of his brain on the floor below it. I lost it. I ran out the door while grasping of the clasp's of my helmet. I found them and ripped it off, ran to the nearest bush, and bought up everything left I had left to bring up.
I don't know what to do now. I'm the last person alive. This valley is rightfully mine. I'll look after it while I can. But that might not be long. It might be a while. I guess only time will tell.