Beware the City...

Whoever you are, listen to me carefully. I haven’t much time to spare. I think the City has it out for me, and you who have found this log are the only one I can tell. Hear now my warning, dear reader. There is a darkness here that peers from beneath the shining lights and festers like the drinking pools of subway vermin. Everywhere I turn, I can feel the taint of the streets around me, waiting for me to let down my guard. Waiting for an opening in which to strike.

Minions of the City lurk in every place imaginable. Disease ridden birds spread filth and bad omens. Rodents the size of cats wait in the dark places for the unsuspecting. Watching, always watching. Just the other day I saw a squirrel five times the size of its natural brothers. When it caught on to my gaze, the beast clamped down upon its meal and ran up the tree carrying a hunk of meat at least half its size. What it was eating, I cannot be certain, but I know I saw bone underneath the half masticated flaps of flesh.

It feels as though I cannot trust anyone, dear reader. I fear that the City’s cold touch has reached the people, and that I am surrounded by its emissaries. Day by day, I pass hundreds of zombified faces, creatures of weariness and death trudging through the motions of the living. The stench of the homeless as they rifle through the City’s refuse, feeding off of the darkness itself, is enough to turn my stomach. As I stifle my gags, the assimilated elite shuffle by in their identical suits, the veil of wealth blinding their senses, ignoring both myself and the pungent bottom feeders as though we don’t exist. Of the two, I know not which is worse. Both frighten me.

Two months have passed since I first arrived in this place. Time is strange here, but I am certain this is true. Isn’t it? It’s so easy to lose yourself here. There are parts of the City where the lights, the sounds, the zombies…they never rest.

Already I have been attacked by the City’s unyielding hand. Workings of the night got me lost underground in the subway system well into the learly hours. After a certain time, the tunnels become a labyrinth only the truly experienced can navigate safely. Somehow I managed to catch a summer cold. Summertime is not the time for such illness…clearly evil is at work here. Upon the steps and amidst the endless sea of half people, a force crushed my right knee. I have spent weeks in a splint and hobbling with a cane. Weight is added to my back every day I am here, but I cannot yet leave.

I’m weary, dear reader, but I am not beaten. During my daily travels, I have come upon others like myself. Their spirits remain, not intact but wholly human. Still, a fire burns inside their hearts strong enough to beat back the cold. There is warmth in their eyes and recognition of the impending darkness. If only there were more…

I am certain there are more. It must be so. There are those who yet resist the City’s tainted claws, and I must find them. Together, I think, we can survive.

You who reads these words: you are a carrier of light. The City’s beasts cannot read, and the elite care not. The bottom feeders have not the means, and the zombies have not the time. But you, dear reader, have it in you to save yourself.

Take this as my warning: the City will stop at nothing to pull you under. See it. Know it. Fear it and be sane.

And also as a calling: You are not alone in this fight. We who resist the City and its denizens grow stronger by the day. As surely as I have discovered the others, someone will come to you. Do not succumb to the City, and you shall be found.

There is a darkness here that reeks like the foul wind over a garbage dump and waits beneath the teeming streets. Look high, look low, look all around you, and there you will see its workings. Every day, more souls are broken and forced to feed off of scraps to survive. Every day, more souls are bought and assimilated into the blur of heartless suits. Its beasts fly and scurry, its horde of half men outnumber us 100 to 1, but still it seems unaware of our resistance.

Yes. There is a darkness here, dear reader, and it is not prepared.