The Barren

“There weren't always dragons in the Valley”. Not exactly the statement you expect to see carved into the wall inside a laboratory complex. This is the third facility in the Barren I have come across, and by far the largest and most promising. I know the answers are here, somewhere here, I know it. These are the Shin-Ro facility ruins where they conducted their god-awful experiments. There has to be answers here, there must be. Reading Thane’s dairy again, the poor man who I can only assume carved the message, I can’t help but feel I am missing something.

Thane’s diary.

April 7th, 0315 hrs:

I've been locked in this facility for what seems like weeks now... I haven't seen the sun in days, I haven't felt the cool rain on my face for weeks. I fear I will not make it to see them again. The creatures crawl and scrape at the doors and walls of my appointed prison. It's strange, to think that this place that keeps me physically safe is slowing suffocating me, my mind, my soul. I wonder, are the sounds I hear outside real? Or is it my sanity clawing desperately in my mind, slowly slipping away? Did we create these monstrosities, these hellish dragons, or are they illusions of a broken man’s mind?

April 7th, 0325 hrs:

The creatures are real, they are real! Thank God they are real! I have managed to secure myself in a room further in the facility but I do not know how long I can keep them at bay. You may wonder why I thanked God that my harbingers of death are real? The relief I suppose. That blissful joy of knowing that I have not gone mad. At the point where I was at the edge of losing my grip of myself, of reality. I was dragged back from that edge by the cold hand of the reaper we created, preparing me for my fate. Strange to think, that knowing my end is here, would make me, smile.

April 7th, 0335 hrs:

With the fog of madness faded and the sharp screeches of those infernal beasts at my gate, I am aware. Aware and alive! They know I am in here. What was before, an almost clumsy, random approach of these creatures has now evolved. They seem focused, concentrated, almost invigorated by the simple and sole knowledge that behind this steal door in front of them, hides the last human. The last of their prey. Well, I can only assume. I have not seen or heard from another human for longer than I can recall. A dozen full moons have come, have gone. Only to shine over the silence of the world. Silent, except for the screeching of beasts and the screaming of men which came before. But even the radios lay silent while those moons pass... am I the last? I must be. Is there another soul in a similar situation, thinking the same? Am I the last?

April 7th, 0345 hrs:

They are here...

I have always heard the rumours, the stories, the accounts of the creatures that almost wiped-out humanity. Coming from the furthest parts of the Barren, spreading like a virus across the world. Between accounts of a bio-engineering program gone wrong and stories of demonic rituals that went badly, the origins of the creatures have always been uncertain. Hell, even the very nature of them is a mystery. How they hunt, how they breed, how they do bloody anything is layered in half-truths and impossibilities. However, the sinking feeling that there is a supernatural aspect to these creatures is growing, along with the disturbing realisation of what they may be.

It was Frey’s letter I found in a Shin-Ro outpost bunker, on the outer edge of the Barren, that led me to this obscure facility complex, hidden in the Northern valleys. Though many miles apart, there are unnerving similarities in their writings, of their mental state. Confusion and delusion, the joy in realisation of the horrific reality. Though Fray speaks of something more, something far more disturbing, and a possibility that I do not wish to think of.

Fray’s letter:

I can hear them, I always can. I can feel them, constantly. Unfortunately, helplessly my mind wonders to unnerving thoughts. Can they sense me? Do they know I am here? Sometimes, sometimes I wonder if they are even real. Or just the creations of a crazy man trying to piece together a world from the shattered fragments of his mind. I have to grin at the idea of such silly thoughts. That the idea of being mad is somehow a more pleasant state, a dream, compared to this nightmare of a reality I cling to.

As I look down at my arm, the flesh, slowly turning black from hand to elbow. I am abruptly reminded that this is no dream, no delusion. Though cursed with this ever-growing affliction, I can almost admire its beauty, its ability. This obsidian sheen that now encompasses my arm, turning my flesh to a dark marble. It no longer senses touch, nor pain or heat. But now feels the pulse of every living thing I manage to gain contact with. Feeling the vibrations of every object I hold.

This is a small glimpse into how those creatures sense the world, and it is both astounding and yet, terrifying. At least I can be relieved that I now know how each day, it seems like there are more and more of those creatures out there, and less and less of us. We are them. Am I not one of them now? Becoming one of them? Suppose it’s not long before I think of “them” as “us”. And what then of the human race I wonder.