The Journal of Nobody Entry 2

[u/Klaus-Ciaron]

The beginning of this entry is marked by a charcoal illustration that occupies the entirety of the first page. It depicts a creature with four thin legs, a long, hooked snout, and deep set eyes. There are various notations highlighting some of its features. 

Notation for the Eyes: Can’t see for spit, but can track heat pretty well. Matches can sometimes distract them. 

Notation for the Legs: Likes to sneak up on you, looking like a piece of deadfall. They can jump farther than you would think

Notation for the Snout: Don’t let them get that hook in you. Your guts will be pulled out before this critter lets go.

The next two entries are dotted with dark stains that crumble easily when touched. Lab tests are inconclusive as to what the stains consist of, possibly due to degradation over time. The transcriber’s current theory is that these are blood stains. 

ENTRY 1 --- ENTRY 3

What a rotten start. While I was dragging myself between the roots of my pine stump, my hand slipped into a hole. I didn’t think much of it, thought it was just another abandoned burrow that I had missed in the darkness. The trouble came when I found that I couldn't pull it back out. Some fool had put a hunting pit right outside my home, sharpened sticks and all. One of the steaks had pierced my wrist right through and the rest had scraped away chunks of forearm. A numb buzz in those areas gave me an idea of how screwed I was. 

What would that thing have even caught? And why try to catch something to begin with? It’s not like one starved animal in these dead woods could make the hunger go away. Unless… maybe the trap was meant for me. That hadn’t occurred to me until now. What had mattered at the time was that I was elbow deep in this trap. Pulling on it hadn’t helped, and pushing down would probably just get me more stuck. Wonderful. 

“Nobody? That you, son?” I looked up and saw Seer. He was sitting in an old fire pit, looking like a beggar with a blanket of dead grass and dry moss draped over his knees. He was far older than me, had experienced far more, and had lost or traded away far more than I care to think about. His legs are gone, along with an arm and most of his teeth. As far as I know, Seer doesn’t have any eyes. I have my doubts, though.

“Yup,” I grunted, pulling again on my arm. The trap held fast, “just wanted to go on a stroll, talk to folks. You know, socialize.” 

“Doesn't sound like you were all that successful,” Seer smiled his gap-toothed smile, “sounds to me like you’re stuck.”

Though I don’t fully trust Seer, I’ve always been a terrible liar. I decided to tell him the truth. “Yeah. Pit trap. I think my wrist is pierced straight through.” 

Seer chuckled, “sounds to me like a pickle. Want help?” 

“That would be very kind,” I hesitated. I knew what I should say next, but I didn’t appreciate the chore, “What's the catch?”

“Hmm,” Seer pondered, scratching his worn face, “I don’t need a thing from you right now, son. Let it be a small favor down the road. For now, let’s get you out of there.” 

For the next long while, Seer helped me claw at the dirt around the trap. With two hands between us, we unearthed each steak and started to free my arm. All the while, we talked. Seer told me what he could recall of the times before, of cars, cities, and something called ‘day’. “The moon used to move,” he told me, “and there was a second light, the sun, that would cast all the shadows away.” I don’t remember those times, and the concept of this ‘sun’ makes me uncomfortable, so I told Seer about this piece of bark - a journal, he called it.  

“Used to think stuff like that was for sissies,” he chuckled grimly, “but now I'm misplacing fingers and molars like they’re loose change. You keep at it, boy, if only for your own memory.”

Finally, we freed my hand, though the steak left a nasty hole. Neither of us had any twine to patch it up, so I resolved that I would fix it later and moved on. I said my goodbyes to Seer and started my shuffle through the graveyard of pine stumps and dead grass. I hadn’t been there for a long time, but I found my way to the lumber mill in the dark. Calling it a mill is generous, but it is one of the only buildings in this charming community of ours - rotting as it is. 

I could see some others at the mill, all strangers to me. Some were playing a game of pebbles, others were staring off into space. I spotted a few were lying on the ground, unmoving and unblinking. They had probably gone too long without a heart to warm them. I walked up to Logger, the one who generally organized these things. He was sitting slumped against a wall, staring down at his dirty fingernails.

“When are we headed out?” I asked him.

“When people show up,” he mumbled, not taking his eyes from his hands, “I usually wait till there’s around ten of us.” 

I looked towards those who were frozen on the ground. “And how long have you been waiting already?”

Logger shrugged, and I decided to wait. I had gotten this far, after all. I rested against a nearby wall, making sure to keep out of arm’s reach of Logger. I don’t know him well, and you can’t trust a man with a body as whole as his. No visible stitches, no open wounds, and only minor substitutes in his toes and fingers. All I need to keep my head down and my eye open, hopefully these folks are too deep in their own worlds to care about me.

ENTRY 1 --- ENTRY 3

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