AN: "…And I grimly smiled at the words he wrote, as my eyes scanned his story, thankful-thankful that he had never heard the sound of breaking glass, nor see the blood being spilled, thankful he would never know what had happened, or what took place after. …and he would hate my memory in peace. I was already gone from the world. Life meant nothing. The cabinet's accidentally broken glass represented a broken promise- a promise broken by accident." ~ Blood Covenant, Prologue.

Disregard title "Blood Covenant". I found out that it's supposed to mean marriage, instead of a close friendship forged by blood.

Code: Ascension- Dead Men Walking- Prologue

December 2

Day: The day after yesterday
Time: Approximately 20:05
Length I've been in the military: Too long

To the person that will probably come across this journal in the future:

I have not thought of keeping a journal until a few weeks ago, where I figured that if the war is going to make some sort of history if the humans won, then there might be as well one accurate depiction of it.

It has been months since the disaster. I have recovered since then, but the wounds are still present. I often wonder how Aelita is doing, now that she's dead and all. …I wonder what the afterlife is like. …I guess I'll find out sooner than I think. Charlie says that somebody's coming to the camp today to train the forest sector- aka the "newbies", or "greens". He says that he or she has a very short fuse, and Sergeant Towser had the misfortune of setting off his or her temper. I said that I was glad that I didn't have to deal with it. Charlie laughed and said that I would have to deal with him or her anyway, since he or she's going to be staying in our camp for a long time.

…My apologies. You probably have no idea about the people I am talking about. First Lieutenant Charlie Stevenson, or Charlie for short, was one of the first people I befriended in this army. Sergeant Towser is the resident martinet- he seems to like yelling at people a lot. Are you still going to ask about Aelita? Well, I don't really want to talk about her, or the disaster. It would be too… I can't find the words to express the loss I feel. I suppose she would have told me to carry on, but the truth is that I simply can't let go. I just have this feeling that she isn't completely gone from the world, as if the connection Aelita and I forged early in our lives still remains alive, despite what had happened.

I have two wonderful kids named Waldo and Antea, which I let Aelita name them after her parents. Antea… she looks strikingly like Aelita, except that she has my eyes… I guess the reason I'm thinking about Aelita a lot nowadays is that Antea's birthday is coming up in about two weeks. I still do not know what to gift her- there isn't many things one can give to his children during wartime, since we're supposed to conserve and save up the remaining resources available in the world.

The sky has been red for a long time, with black clouds dominating the sky… It seems as if the sun will never break through the gloom and shine upon us. Sergeant Towser says that it's red because it foretells the ultimate victory of his plan. The plan is stupid. It seems like a great way how to kill people for the simple title of being courageous, or something along the lines like that. Charlie joked that the sky's red color reflects the blood Sergeant Towser's spilled since the start of this war due to his half-baked schemes.

My conversation with Sergeant Towser went a little like this-

"This plan is the plan to end all plans!"
"How many times did you say that already?"
"Silence, Belpois! In the interest in time…"
"Time's not interested."
"I think you just lost your last neuron, Belpois…"
"Who says you had any in the first place?"

End conversation.

I ended up having to clean the latrines so well that "we could eat off of them".

"I don't think people are going to eat off of them, I think they're going to pee in them." ~Waldo, 9 years of age, when I told him about the incident with Sergeant Towser.

I took the brush and did minimal work- that's about as clean as it would get.

Since Mid-July last year, XANA had begun its ultimate plan in exterminating the human race. Slowly but surely, electronic items were taken over as his control expanded. Little inconsistencies sometimes happened, but nothing major really happened until he began his offensive in August. That's when things really went to hell in a hand basket. Please excuse my language, whoever is reading this in the future- the military is, unfortunately, a place to pick up on ways of using expletives. Agent Simmons, one of the higher ranking officials within the administration that dealt with the national security of France, approached us and led us to a government building where we tried to anticipate what XANA would try to do. We agreed and went with him into the administration he worked at in order to formulate a defense strategy. We had exhausted nearly all our resources trying to stave off the inevitable. In short- our efforts only saved a few million people instead of the several billions people we hoped to save.

Planes began falling out of the sky as XANA scrambled their feed of programmed directives… security systems failed as XANA's virus activated- instantly rewriting their codes and changing their original directives. XANA began using fighter planes as his aerial striking fleet- bombing everything that he considered to be helpful to the remaining humans within his sight. Nuclear Bombs were launched worldwide, wiping out the majority of the human race from the blasts, as well as devastating a vast amount of the world's vegetation due to the the radiation released upon the blast. The humans' systems they had created to defend them had turned against them- they were utterly defenseless and helpless, wandering around until they banded together to form a squad dedicated towards the resistance of XANA's rule.

This Regiment was created by some of those aforementioned wandering humans- a group of humans that each were specialized in a job sector beneficial to the well being of the other members of the group. As a defensive group at the time, we had created a group within our Regiment called the Carthaginians, and I am their leader. The group's purpose is to continue to develop technology with enough safeguards to deter XANA from taking over the systems- a tough job, considering the limited amount of technology left untainted by XANA's viruses. If he found a way to break through the barrier protecting our tails from the worst of XANA's attacks, we'd all be dead within nanoseconds.

Only a few countries remain free at this moment- America, China, Russia, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Italy, India, and a few other scattered nations around the world, remote and unwilling to communicate with us for fear of having their location being revealed to XANA. I don't blame them- France was easily conquered due to XANA having easier access to the military's weapons there. Perhaps it is a useless gesture- one the first mechanical objects that XANA had taken over were extremely powerful GPS satellites that the humans had created in order to help them navigate their way in the world. XANA could easily spot defenseless humans and send out the appropriate number of his monsters in order to wipe them out.

The Regiment I'm in… it's one of the last resistance forces in France- most of the population in this country was wiped out from nuclear weapons. We have retreated to the mountains- the French Alps to be precise. I can't disclose much, I am afraid that XANA's more advanced minions will read what I just wrote. XANA seems to have been busy creating new monsters since this month started- even making those that are able to hear and read all types of languages that humans used throughout history. However, he has not been able to completely figure out our codes, since we constantly switch them to keep XANA from intercepting them and prevent the rebellious forces from sabotaging his efforts to win the war.

Somewhere in the world, however, there are other forces that are assisting XANA. Those are the humans that had willingly chosen to help XANA exterminate the rest of their fellow humans. There are two sides to every coin- those humans had crawled over to XANA and joined in, in hopes that he would spare their lives if they had surrendered to him. What makes it more difficult for us is that XANA has possessed some of the survivors of his nuclear raids, mainly people that he found would be beneficial to us. That being said, it takes a long amount of time for our plans to take place- XANA used their knowledge to counter our attempts to free the world from his grasp, and we can't exactly go around killing humans without any sense of morality.

… I'm running out of room. I'll find another scrap of paper to write on- probably borrowing another few sheets from Charlie's old notebook he doesn't use anymore. Also, I think I'm forgetting how to write as well as I should.

Jeremie Belpois, Private First Class, head of the Carthaginians.

The actual first chapter for this story is being revised. I didn't like introducing all of the characters mentioned in the Introduction in one chapter.