Oliver's Diary
Dear Diary, Nothing ever happens in this town. I'm ready to go to the Gate. If Mother won't let me, I'll run away myself. She says my lungs are too weak for the smoke. But how am I living at all, when all I do is milk the rothe? Ha, a strange fog is descending over our own tow. Hasn't left in days. Getting hard to breathe. Mother is eating her words, saying we should head out to the city to stay for a while until it lifts. We go at dawn. Day 14: We tried to leave, but there are creatures from beyond the grave, skulking around the outskirts of our land. It's too late. Day 21: The rothe are all possessed, knocking down their fence, battling and bashing one another to death... Dying then fighting again. The shadows are everyone... right outside our window. I can't see more than a few strides out. Day 28: I'm not dead yet. But I'm going to die here, aren't I? I can hardly breathe. Why does it not get into our house? Why doesn't the curse take us already. Day 35: I can't stand this. I've been trying to write a memoir of myself but it's still no good. I'm too weak to pen fine words. I am going to die unremembered, be what may. It's getting pointless to cower in here. There is nothing we can do about this all-encroaching dark. Tomorrow, I will walk out into the fog, and I will laugh. With love, a farmhand, forever to be unknown.