The Diary

I held my breath as Talia pried open the brittle cover of the diary, its spine crackling like dry bones. A strange weight settled over me, as if the book itself carried an unseen presence, something waiting—watching.

Would this ominous relic I had dragged out of the sewers amount to anything? Would it whisper the secrets we so desperately needed? Or was it just another meaningless remnant of a world long past? The questions gnawed at me, circling like vultures in my mind.

And then, her voice broke the silence.

"Hello, dear diary. My name is Andrew. I'm 11 years old, and today my parents gave me this notebook to practice my writing."

Tobias let out a sharp exhale beside me. "What the fuck?" His words, raw and unfiltered, snapped through the tension like a blade.

I turned to him, narrowing my eyes in warning. Shut up. The message was clear, unspoken but heavy. He got the hint. We couldn't afford reckless outbursts—not here, not now. If he wasn't careful, I'd make him disappear before The Watchers even had the chance to do it themselves.

Talia flipped another fragile page, her fingers careful, reverent. "The rest of this is just him describing his days in the city," she murmured, her brow furrowing as she scanned the faded ink. "I'll skim through it—see if there's anything useful."

The dim light caught the edges of the yellowed paper, the words written by a child long gone, his voice now reduced to ink and dust. I swallowed hard, an uneasy feeling creeping in. Somehow, this felt more disturbing than I had expected.

Talia's voice sliced through the silence, steady yet laced with something unreadable.

"Here's something… Today is my fourteenth birthday. Instead of a gift, my parents decided to kick me out of the house. I'm 'causing too much trouble for the family,' they said. When I tried to argue that the boy I beat up—Bradley—hit me first, they got so angry I barely had time to pack my things before I was already out the door."

A hush settled over us, the weight of those words pressing against the air like a held breath.

Tobias broke it first. "Who is this dude, and why was his diary under the Risen's camp?" he murmured, barely above a whisper, as if afraid the very walls might be listening.

Talia's sharp eyes flicked toward him, unimpressed. "Maybe if you stopped constantly interrupting me with your pointless remarks, I might actually get to that."

I exhaled, my patience thinning. "Stop arguing like a pack of morons and focus. This could be important." My voice carried across the room, edged with authority. Not a shout, not a plea—just firm, absolute. They knew better than to test it.

Tobias pressed his lips into a thin line. Talia gave a small, reluctant nod. At least they listened.

I leaned forward slightly, eyes locked onto the withered pages, as if willing them to give up their secrets. "Talia, please continue."

The pages rustled under her fingertips, the inked words waiting to speak again.

Talia's voice carried on, steady yet laced with an undercurrent of something I couldn't quite place.

"This marks half a year since the day my parents threw me out. After wandering the city streets for two months, scraping by on whatever scraps I could beg for, a couple of guards finally noticed me. Not with kindness. Not with pity. They grabbed me like a piece of trash someone had forgotten to throw away and tossed me into The Slums. And let me tell you—this place is hell. It's nothing like the city I used to know. There are no friendly faces, no kind strangers. Here, no one is your friend. Everybody wants something from you, and if you have nothing to offer, they discard you like a rag soaked in filth."

A chill passed through me as the words settled into the air, sinking into my skin like cold rain.

"But today… today, maybe the god of luck smiled at me. At the square, some strange old man stood on a crate, rambling about 'rising above the filth' or something. I didn't listen too closely, but when he finished his speech, he made an offer—to follow him. To receive food. Shelter. A way out of the hunger, the cold, the loneliness. So naturally, I went. And now I'm here. Inside the camp. I even got the chance to claim a tent of my own. The people here are… different. Strange, even. But it's probably just a cultural difference. Or something like that."

Tobias let out a dry, amused snort. "Cultural difference, he says."

I barely registered his comment. My gaze remained fixed on the fragile, timeworn pages of the diary, but my mind drifted elsewhere, tangled in the unspoken question gnawing at me.

This explains a lot… but what fate did this young man suffer? What horrors unfolded between the lines of this journal? And why, of all places, did I find its shattered remnants rotting in the depths of the sewers?

The thought sat heavy in my chest, a quiet weight pressing against my ribs.

Talia's voice remained steady as she continued reading, her fingers carefully tracing the fragile edges of the page.

"I think I fell in love. Today, while I was going about my chores, I saw her. And for a moment—just a moment—I forgot where I was. She looked like something out of a dream, an angel who had wandered too far and accidentally descended into our wretched world. Her smile… it could topple the mightiest of beasts, bring kings to their knees. I couldn't stop myself. I approached her, heart pounding like war drums, and struck up a conversation. Her name is Jenna. She's about my age. If I ever get the chance to marry someone… I hope it's her."

Tobias let out a groan, tossing his head back. "What are you even reading, Talia? I don't want to hear about some dude getting love-struck." His voice dripped with exaggerated disgust, as if romance was somehow more horrifying than the nightmares we lived in.

Talia didn't even look up. "Shut up, retard. You can do it yourself if you don't like something." She paused, then smirked. "Oh wait… you can't. You illiterate fuck."

Tobias flinched as if she had smacked him across the face. "Hey," he grumbled, crossing his arms like a sulking child, "that's a low blow, man."

I exhaled sharply, my patience fraying like the old, withered pages of the diary. "What did I tell you just a moment ago?" My voice cut through their bickering like a blade, sharp and cold. "If you want to act like children, do it somewhere else."

The tension in the room thickened, the weight of reality pressing down on us again. The jaws of death were already closing in, their teeth glinting in the darkness. If we didn't find a way out soon, they would snap shut. And we would be gone.

Talia gave a small nod, then turned her attention back to the crumbling pages, her fingers careful as if afraid the book might turn to dust beneath her touch. The dim light flickered over her face as she read aloud once more.

"Hello, it's me again. Things have been… different lately. Jenna and I have spent more time together these past few weeks, and I can feel it—our bond, deepening like roots pushing into the earth. But something's changed. She's changed. Lately, she's been spending more and more time with Father Gideon. I don't know why, but when she speaks of him now, there's something… off. A gleam in her eyes I can't quite understand. Today, she told me she's been chosen for something. She said it with such conviction, such certainty, that I almost envied her. I don't know what it means. But it has to be something good—it has to be. It's Father Gideon, after all. I owe that man my life. Without him, I'd still be rotting in the streets, starving, forgotten. I never would have met Jenna. And my existence would still be as miserable as it was before."

The room felt colder.

Talia inhaled sharply, her fingers twitching as she flipped through the pages, scanning hurriedly—until she stopped. Her breath hitched. Something in her posture stiffened. And when she spoke again, her voice trembled.

"DID THEY SEE ME? DID THEY SEE ME? DID THEY SEE ME? DID THEY SEE?

FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.

I shouldn't have followed them. I shouldn't have been curious. What the fuck—what the FUCK—

They slit her throat.

They slit her throat like she was nothing. Like she was never even here.

And then… they started chanting. Whispering in unison, reciting something I couldn't understand, their voices like a tide pulling me under. I don't know what I saw. I don't know what I heard. But I know this—I'll never unsee it. Never unhear it.

My beloved Jenna… WHY?"

A heavy silence followed, thick and suffocating, like the walls had closed in around us.

Talia's hands were shaking.

And I could feel it, deep in my gut—that whatever this boy had stumbled upon, whatever he had seen in the dark, it had shattered something inside him. Maybe beyond repair.

Tobias let out a breath, the usual sharp edge of his voice dulled into something almost hollow. "Well… that took a dark turn real quick. Almost made me forget what kind of world we live in, with all the lovey-dovey shit." But there was no humor in his words this time. Just a quiet acknowledgment of the grim reality we all shared.

No one responded.

Our gazes met in the dim light, shadows stretching long across the walls. I locked eyes with Talia, silently urging her to go on. She swallowed, nodded, and turned the page with a kind of reverence—like she was peeling back the last fragile layers of someone's soul.

Her voice was quieter this time.

"It happened yesterday. At least, I think it did. I prayed it was just a fever dream, some sick, twisted illusion. But when I woke up this morning and Jenna wasn't there—wasn't waiting for me with that smile that always made me feel like maybe, just maybe, there was still something good in this world—reality hit me harder than any punch ever could.

She's gone. And I know why.

I have to leave this place. I have to. Even the slums, with all their filth and cruelty, seem like a home in comparison to the horrors that lurk here.

So I searched. I searched every inch of this cursed camp, looking for a way out. The edges of the camp—the places where there weren't towering walls trapping me inside—were guarded. But not by men. Not by anything I could understand. Entities. Things that moved like shadows stretching too far, things that watched without eyes. I don't know anymore. I don't know what's real.

But then, deep into the night, I found it.

A hole. Not a natural one. Not something that should exist. It was hidden behind crates and rusted scraps, a wound in the earth leading downward. I don't know how long I stood there, staring into the yawning dark. But when I finally moved, my feet carried me forward as if some unseen force had already made the decision for me. The tunnel led to a sewer system, damp and reeking of things better left unknown. But at the very end, I saw it—my way out.

And yet… I couldn't shake the feeling.

That something was watching me. That something had always been watching me.

Talia hesitated, the flickering candlelight catching the tremor in her hands before she forced herself to continue.

"I planned my escape for the next night. I gathered whatever food and supplies I could carry, but the waiting—God, the waiting—was agony. The day dragged on, stretching endlessly, every second bloated with dread. My hands trembled with the weight of my own heartbeat. I knew I had to go. I knew I couldn't stay. But I also knew…

It wouldn't be that easy.

Then night fell.

I am inside the sewers now."

She paused, a stillness settling over us like a held breath before the plunge.

And then, barely above a whisper, she read the final words.

"THEY SAW. AND THEY KNEW."

Silence.

The diary ended there.

Talia slowly shut the book, her fingers lingering on the cracked spine as if she could somehow pull more words from its pages. But there was nothing left. Nothing except the unspoken truth hanging thick in the air.

We all knew what had happened after that last sentence.

No one said a word.