Location: 12°05'11.53"N 84°45'01.67"W

Time since asteroid impact: 3 Years 3 months 3 weeks 4 days


Nothing stood in their way upwards to the northern border, and everything looked brighter now that they were more complete. Buck, Libby and Ida. Even if it was only half of the family together, they felt more at peace than they had for the last three years- more so upon arriving at the final border. There, they stocked up on food and enough water to last them up at least halfway to Clawtooth, and were given directions to the final city they could arrive at before entering the exclusion zone around the infamous mountain range. But it wasn't those that made the three apatosaurs feel the way they were feeling. What truly earned their self-relief was the newfound hope they had found. Hope, that even through all the time and distance, they would eventually all be together.

Something about these new terrains, even if no one could understand why, felt wrong. By the time they had made it to the other coast; the only other path that could take them north, just the general landscape felt wrong with no way to reason it. There were no more towns in the surrounding area, at least none that were currently populated. Every town had been abandoned from here on upwards, and it felt like they were approaching a danger not yet conceivable.


Location: 19°16'46.82"N 88°37'46.38"W

Time since asteroid impact: 3 Years 4 months 1 week 2 days


"Ramsey, Nash, for the tenth time will you two stop messing around?" Russel raised his voice once more. Having to deviate from the rugged coast inland they had recently become blinded by a thick cloud of fog that, with no wind, hung in the air until their movement forced the fog to create little eddies around their bodies. As the fog wouldn't allow them to see even their own tails, concentrating on where everyone else was of the upmost importance, and the last thing Russel needed was for Ramsey and Nash to play-fight amongst themselves.

An audible growl came from his left, "We don't need to stick to you all the time, there's a thing called smelling where you are. You should try it sometime." Russel rolled his eyes at Ramsey's remark. instead ignoring the last sentence. "Unfortunately for you two, we don't have near sensitive noses. It would be the best for all of us if we all knew where everyone was. You wouldn't want us to worry where you two are when danger approaches."

Russel was stopped by Ethine, "You're forgetting that I'm not straying anywhere. You can leave them to dilly dally while someone much more competent is by your side."

"Hey!" Nash and Ramsey called out, pacing over to the confrontation. While the bickering had begun to rise up once more, Libby, Buck and Ida only spectated. "This is going to take forever, if none of them knows how to grow up for once then we might as well be the only ones grown up here." Libby muttered to herself.

"Seems a bit ironic when you think about it." Buck caught onto what Libby was saying, but had spoken too loud for no one else to hear. "You're one to talk Buck." Ida reminded, before gazing again at the commotion. "I find hard to believe sometimes that Russel is Henry's brother."

By this time the commotion had already died off, leaving Russel enough room to hear Ida's words. "l see where Buck's passive aggressiveness comes from. Anyways, we need to stick together whether any of you like it or not. This fog doesn't appear to be lifting anytime soon."

"Might I make a suggestion not to walk into a wall?" Nash asked, provoking everyone's attention.

"What wall?" Ethine questioned, right before bumping into the side of a cliff face. "That wall." Ramsey answered. Here the wind became apparent, allowing the fog to lift enough for them to see just how large the cliff was; even if all of them were to stand on top of one another, they wouldn't reach nearly a quarter of the way up the cliff. Fortunately, many parts of said cliff had collapsed, allowing an ease of access, albeit slow access, to the land that was at the top. Upon arrival, they all gazed in awe at the sight that was bestowed upon them all. Up here, the fog was no more, leaving a clear view of the battered landscape.

Cliffs and crevasses littered the landscape, still fresh from the force that had created them. All the features increased in intensity with distance from the group, but there was a direction. Every last feature seemed to point inwards, all of them, towards the biggest feature of them all. Out on the horizon, a mountain range not on the map towered too far away to possibly be visible, but there it was nonetheless. It was so wide that there was barely a way to be able to get them all in sight, but they knew what they were looking at.

It was a rim, and not just any rim. The rim of a crater produced by what could only be the mountain that fell down almost 3 and a half years ago. This was ground zero, and the mere presence of the mountains so far away produced a fear more stronger than any false fear of Clawtooth could ever produce. It was within reason that they all went back down the cliff, as those mountains represented everything that had happened to them all since the moment the mountain came to emerge. Not a single word was spoken between them all, quite possibly from the overwhelming shock, or it was by coincidence that they thought everyone else was thinking the same thing. It doesn't matter what drove them to not speak a word, but it was finally broken, not before making sure that they could never see those mountains again.

"So, are we able to establish what we saw ju-"

"I think we all understand the severity of the situation Ida!" Ethine interrupted, and she wasn't wrong either; everyone knew what they saw, but to think of anything else was a challenge at best.

That was however, until Russel thought harder, "Interesting. " It may had only been a mutter, but it was said so late after the short conversation before that it startled everyone else.

"What is?" Nash asked, everyone else clearly had the same thought.

Russel spoke up this time, making sure everyone heard him. By this point they had all sat down, the sun setting and Ramsey starting a small campfire. "You mentioned Clawtooth was next to completely destroyed by the events of Falltain, right Buck?"

Nash, Ramsey and Ethine glanced over to Buck, who only nodded in response. The central fire had become self-maintaining, growing high enough to provide everyone warmth. "And yet despite how far Clawtooth is from Falltain's Crater, it took us to nearly being next to those damn mountains to find terrain that would result from such event. It's almost as if..." Russel went into deep thought, but everyone had started to finish the sentence for him.

"Falltain hit from an angle, not from directly above. " Ida finished.

"Exactly!" Russel flared up in curious excitement. "It wasn't falling at all. It's like it was already moving in a certain direction, but the land we live on caused it to come downward whilst still moving in that direction."

"That is interesting, though how does this effect us in any way? It's not exactly like this new information is going to help us." Ramsey pointed out, however Russel didn't seemed to be phased at all. "Perhaps not, but doesn't it help understand what exactly happened."

"What happened has already passed. There's nothing one can do to change that."

"And? Figuring out past problems helps me exercise for any future problems. 'Adaptation is the key to survival' as my father once told me..." Libby and Buck looked straight towards Russel upon hearing that, and it almost sounded like the fire also lowered its voice. Russel seemed to stare in disbelief, as if he wasn't sure whether he even said what he heard. "I uh... lets get some rest, shall we?" Though everyone else agreed to the idea of resting, Ida was especially intrigued by what Russel said. Not wanting to disturb him though, she decided to also sleep the night off, perhaps a later date she would ask.


Audio Message #30: Subject Members 4, 5 and 6 - aka Ida, Buck and Libby - have traveled 1,268 miles (2,040 Km's). Now moving away from Ground Zero, it appears that the short experience has shaken up certain relationships between most of the group, I wonder however whether or not this will make a large difference or not, though a large difference would certainly be more than interesting to see. Survival ratings are at a 4.5, 4.6 and 4.4 out of 5 respectively.

End of message.


A/N: If I'm posting these everyday, then there won't be much going on down here.

Next chapter: Critical Mass

Fun Facts: N/A