Journal Entry, Dated 10/02
Jasmine
Metadata
Reference Number: BICI/SSP/CRJ1004/002
Title: Journal Entry, Dated 10/02
Author: Jasmine
Date: Written approximately 10/02, Year 5607 A. o. W.
Extent: One journal entry, three pages long
10/02
I might die tonight.
I hope I don’t, but hope hasn’t been a friend of mine for many years.
Based on the sliver of moonlight I can see through the treeline, it must be about midnight. That leaves me with roughly six more hours to suffer until sunrise. I’m no stranger to willing my nights to pass by faster, but those were born of impatience. Tonight? The faster the sun rises, the more likely I am to survive.
Aberrations are terrible, twisted abominations. I knew this, but it’s one thing to know something and an entirely other thing to see it up close. Leathery gray skin, like a dried out corpse. The way they move is just so… wrong, like a human’s lopsided imitation of a sprinting dog. And their cries are horrifying. I grew up hearing them wail from beyond our walls, but only ever from a distance. Most nights, the roar of the ride would drown them out. Like Nothingness itself grew tired of hearing their screams.
Up close, the sound is ear-splitting — a terrible mix of a baby’s cry and a dying animal screech. Just a brush of their awful flesh leaves me with strange, icy burns. That’s not even to mention their jagged teeth and claws, which can slice through skin like paper. I was able to get away before one did me any permanent damage, but my shitty bandages will only do so much. I’m fucked if it gets infected.
The worst thing about aberrations is that I’m nearly defenseless before them. One lunged at me earlier. I shoved my knife into the thing’s shoulder, but my attack didn’t slow it down at all. It didn’t even bleed. That I managed to get my knife back at all was a miracle. I was able to ward it away with a makeshift torch by lighting a stick with my lantern, but even that hardly did any damage.
The Undying Embers always said that weapons forged by His Eternal Warmth are the only things that can kill aberrations. I used to think that was religious nonsense. Now, I know they were undercutting themselves; those weapons are the only things that can touch an aberration at all. But it’s not like I could have gotten my hands on one before I left. No one would give a holy weapon to some village girl. What would I even give in exchange? Oil? Seaglass? A fucking fish? Please.
I’ve made camp for the night, or something close enough to it. I have a bedroll next to me, but my back is firmly pressed against a tree. I’m exhausted, but the fire blazing in front of me is the only thing protecting me. If I don’t tend to it, I’ll die. It wards away the aberrations, though I can still hear their screams echoing through the rest of the woods.
I didn’t want to make camp. I have to keep moving. But torchlight isn’t enough to protect me in the darkness. My back is far too open. It’ll be easier once I get out of these damned woods, but the aberrations chased me off the main path. I have no idea where I am. The fishers could orient themselves by starlight, and Mom once offered to teach me, but I never bothered to learn. Thought it was a pointless skill. I regret that now.
According to my map, the eastern path out of Seabreeze Shoal should have led me to the Tending Grounds. The village of Stonesworth is further north, by the river. Come morning, I don’t know if I can make it back to the eastern path safely, but I can likely stumble my way towards the river. If I end up at Stonesworth, then all I’ll need to do is follow the river south.
I should have grabbed more supplies before I left. The map is indispensable, but I need more bandages. I need more food. Dried fish, pickled vegetables, and stale bread will only last so long. I need a fucking compass.
I’m so tired. But I can’t let myself sleep. What else can I write about…
Oh…
Once, when Blossom was still a baby, Mom showed me an injured fish she caught the night before. It had clearly been attacked — half of its back was nothing but a gaping hole — and yet it still flopped and floundered like every other fish in her cramped bucket. I asked Mom how it could still be alive, and she told me that a strong enough spirit can keep moving a broken body.
I didn’t think of that fish for years. But now, I can’t stop thinking of it. A piece of me is gone regardless, but more and more of me would have sloughed off had I stayed in the lighthouse. Until I was nothing more than one of the ghosts haunting the place.
Ugh. The scratches on my leg hurt…
I’m used to burns, not scratches. It was worse when I first started tending the lighthouse. Blossom would see me trying to bring bread up to my mouth with just my palms during breakfast and ask why I was doing that, or she’d see my burnt fingers and ask why they were so red and puffy. I’d snap at her that I got burned. She didn’t understand that fire could hurt. She thought it only warmed and protected us.
The lantern room was sweltering. I can tolerate the heat now, but I couldn’t stand it when I first started. Blossom never understood that; she was used to cool winds and gentle fires. The lighthouse was her greatest refuge. When I told her that it was awful, she told me that I was wrong. She screamed that the lighthouse was a good place. That I was stupid and wrong. And that maybe if I could hear the songs that lived in the walls, I’d stop being so stupid and wrong.
Her and her stupid songs.
I’ll never hear one of her stupid songs again.
I didn’t cry when I realized Mom was never coming back. The hole she left me with took my tears away. I cried when I realized Dad had gone after her, but not because I missed him. I cried because I was so angry at him.
Now Blossom’s dead. And this hole is bigger than it’s ever been.