Excerpts from Cathy's Journal

Six months since the war ended.

Now seems to be about the right time to start writing things down. Not just cuz I have more free time on my hands but I feel like I have better things to write about now.

That's probably the reason why I never kept a journal in the past decade. I would've had ten books documenting nothing but all the terrible things that happened to me and my family. That sounds miserable.

Honestly, it's also kinda sad since I don't really remember much about my parents. Or my school. Or my city. Or even just my home.

But things may change. I sometimes get glimpses of my past when I sleep. All of them aren't all that dismal.

I guess that's a sort of improvement. I'll take what little hope I can find. I don't wanna be sad forever.

***

Okay, so where do I even begin? The past six months have been...really something. Let's start with Erik and Gemma.

The siblings are back together! I am happy for them. It's a lucky thing to have a family. I'm glad they cherish it.

We also heard from the Harrises. Apparently, they made it out of Kingsville just fine. Clint became Eli Hodges' favorite doctor somehow and helped them wait out the war at some secret safehouse of his.

I met with them before we came back to Mathesdale. They were with another woman named Daisy and her daughter Aaria. They said they were gonna stay at the safehouse for a while longer till the after effects of this war start to wear off. Good for them, they found a place where they felt safe. I can understand why they'd wanna be there as long as they could till everything became stable.

***

Okay, that's all for the "good" stuff that happened. This is where things get serious now. We had our first general elections in the past decade.

We rigged it.

I know it sounds shady but none of the more knowledgeable people among us (Luce, Erik, Command, Watcher, Lisa) could trust the commoners with selecting the leader because the last time we had elections, they elected Julien Varon. And we all know how that went.

Gemma was against that opinion. But she was also massively outvoted. We wanted to make sure she got in the Seat of Authority no matter what. So we got a dummy opposition. Watcher ran for the election against her. (Also I learnt Watcher's real name is Warren Astor. I think that's a much cooler name than his codename).

The strategy was pretty simple. Watcher won't campaign too hard. And we'll really sell Gemma's kind heartedness and her work in Mathesdale to convince everyone she is such an awesome leader.

The citizens of Mathesdale helped a lot in spreading the word about how cool she is. She even got help from her cousin Eva Koehlwin.

Also the fact that she had convinced Leo Albrecht to keep peace with her played a big role in her getting elected.

So yeah she won the elections. There was some deceit involved. But it wasn't anything as messed up as the lies that Julien Varon fed us for the past decade.

But that's about it. Once Gemma was in the office, she didn't let anyone interfere with her work as the First Leader.

The first thing she did was sign the peace treaty with Moudrin and pass a retreating order to the troops that had been occupying Moudrin throughout the war. Then she got Ardvenia into the International Peace Forum. That certainly helped with better trade and a much needed economic boost.

It allowed her to announce the "Resettlement Agenda." All the people who had been living in sectorized states are now gonna be relocated to a place with cleaner air and drinkable water and no infected.

It's no surprise that a lot more people love Gemma now. It's not all fun and games, however. There are still some ardent followers of Julien Varon who hate the new administration. I'm worried someone might try to hurt Germaine. But I also shouldn't worry since Erik and Command are her personal security now. You gotta be really, really stupid to go up against them.

***

Another serious thing happened. We announced Eli Hodges' death. People already loved the spokesperson a lot more than the First Leader himself so when it came out how he died, the national grief went even higher.

As if that wasn't enough, Eli's personal bodyguard, Larson, made another announcement. It was Eli's testimony against Julien and all the bad things he had done throughout the war. (Apparently the old man left behind a long hand-written letter right before he went to shoot the First Leader. That's...really badass)

That letter was also the only official document that explicitly stated Julien's secret friendship with premier Ozaan of Vardin.

So it wasn't a surprise when Gemma used it as evidence in the IPF and Vardin was put in the blacklist for several national and international crimes, including the misuse of the weapon of mass destruction called the Deus Fragment. Ardvenia almost took the same fall Vardin did. But that's when Leo Albrecht came for our defense. Moudrin basically did to Vardin what Vardin had been doing to them for the past decade. I still think an entire nation taking the fall for the actions of one shitty person is unfair. But then again, so is war.

Yann Atron testified to the Deus Fragment and the 'hybrid-quartet' being the same substances, further solidifying the evidence of Ozaan and Varon's backroom trading of the Fragment. Not to mention, Dahlia Esker confessing to being a direct member of the trio didn't help Ozaan make a strong argument in his own defense. He later confessed that the initial three tons of Fragment they'd acquired from the Torqua was what they traded with Julien Varon in exchange of feigning political tension caused by the war and invasion.

I believe the common people of Moudrin, Ardvenia and Vardin will be reeling from the shock of the ten year war being nothing but an elaborate hoax. It might take several years for them to actually accept such a thing being possible.

After the Deus Fragment was revealed to be so hazardous and dangerous, IPF passed several laws against its use in warfare or even in trade. So its true ownership went back to the Torquas.

It's interesting that even the Torqua aren't too excited about possessing the Fragment after finding out how it was used. They told the IPF to take it back.

So I think the Fragment is now in some high security radiation-proof vault in an undisclosed location. Let's hope no idiot goes to raid that vault and make more weapons out of the Fragment. It would be a real chore to go through the trouble of stopping that idiot. I'm certainly not gonna go chasing that idiot if that ever happens.

#

Nine months since the war ended.

I've been really busy these past couple of months. I volunteered with the relocation team. Brendan is our leader. So obviously it's a lot of fun. There isn't a dull moment with him. And he brings a lot of fun to a job as backbreaking as guiding a hundred or so people to temporary shelters.

We still haven't made the trains available to the sectors to make the process of relocation easier. But it's in the works. Once the trains start running in sectorized states, the process will be a lot smoother. But we are managing just fine.

Lisa has been spending most of the time with Oriana. Nobody is mad at her though. I'd even say it was about damn time she gave some attention to the baby. It would really suck if the child said her first actual word and her mom wasn't even around to listen.

The reason she stated for not leaving the sector was that she won't let me toil away on my own while she kicked back in some big city with clean air. Lord, am I grateful to that woman? I would've died of envy if they were having fun by themselves while I was guiding some old woman to the airport for the umpteenth time. Haha, there's a feeling of deja vu in there, for sure.

These past three months have been better than most I've had in the sectors. Maybe it's cuz the tension of the war is finally off my shoulders.

I don't mind living a month or two, one day at a time. At least I don't have to worry about a nation blowing up in the middle of the night anymore.

Anyway, that's all I had to put down here. I was just checking in to write something about what I've been feeling. This whole journalling thing is growing on me. I might do more of it later.

***

Okay, I gotta write this really quick. Oriana said her first word today! She said "Cat".

Ha! Lisa's expression was memorable. She has been sulking around since then. It's so much more fun to tease her now. She is just jealous that Ana's first word wasn't "Mom".

She can pout all she wants. It's only gonna be more hilarious each time.

***

It's been close to ten months since the war ended. Gemma and Erik came back to Mathesdale. The town was empty except for us since Brendan and I just relocated the last ten citizens today.

The siblings took a long, leisurely walk around the entire town. The way Gemma took in every building and street was heart-breaking. The way she looked at the mansion was worse.

I can understand what she might've been feeling. But maybe, not quite. If I hadn't had my memories all over the place, I would've known what was going on in Gemma's mind.

But I got that similar feeling today. The one that I've been getting since I woke up with the EpiFreeze in me. That feeling of knowing something without actually feeling it.

I don't like to dwell on that particular thought. I find it scary to live like that. To exist without feeling.

I still have Milo's skull with me. And he still hasn't talked. I think I should visit Sector 22 one last time.

Maybe I'll actually feel what Gemma felt today.

***

Erik came along with me when I said I was gonna visit Sector 22. He was mostly quiet. He kept making light of some things like he usually does but he wasn't talking a lot.

That allowed me to think things over. By the time we got to Sector 22, I'd already come to a conclusion. But I wasn't ready to see what I saw.

***

I had to take a break before I could write this part. The thing is...there isn't much to write about it.

All I knew was that the rain had washed away the entire city. I didn't know it would be this...terrifying. There was nothing left.

Just a desert of ash. Something might've been here at some point. Now it wasn't.

However, I wasn't gonna let it break me. Not again. I had a purpose to be here. I wasn't gonna go back without finishing it.

Erik and I went down what was left of the road. We stopped at the place that might've been my home. I wasn't sure. Not that it mattered anymore.

I crouched down and pulled out a trowel from my backpack. I started to dig a hole into the ground. Erik asked me what I was doing. "Something very important," I said as I kept digging.

After digging a big enough hole, I took Milo's skull off my chain. I gently laid it down into the small grave. I touched his beak lightly before I reached into my backpack again. I pulled out a flower of rosemary. I laid it by the skull and smothered Milo with the soil again.

On our way back, Erik said to me, "Cathy, I'd told you to remind me about something after the war is over."

I simply nodded.

"Well, aren't you curious what it was about?" he asked.

"I guess I am." I kinda already knew what he was gonna talk about.

"Cathy, I lied to you. I lied about the EpiFreeze giving you these weird side effects. I lied about Milo's voice not being something your mind made up on its own. Not just that, I lied to Clint and Marie and their son and I lied to Germaine. I recruited you all because Gemma was too protective of the other citizens of Mathedale. I chose you because you were all perfect for an entirely different cause. You all were wronged by the government in some way. It was easy to get you all on board as revolutionaries. And since you all were strangers that Gemma wasn't too attached to, it was easy to convince her to let me recruit you as well as her at the same time. I lied to you all."

I just quietly nodded, processing everything he'd told me. Then I asked, "You explained the recruitment part. But why did you lie to me about the EpiFreeze?"

"Because you had been through too much. You'd lost too much. You were hurt too much. Throughout my life, I've been hurt by a million things myself but at least I had Gemma on my side. She kept me sane. But in your case, you were just alone. Surviving on your own. I couldn't bring myself to tell you that the pressure of it all was getting to you. I took the only way I had. But I don't wanna keep lying to you, Cat."

That's when I remembered my Dad's words for some reason: "No matter what I become, I'll never hurt you, Cat."

I couldn't stop the tears that came after that. I put my arms around Erik and cried for I don't know how long. But I felt safe when he held me.

I pulled away and wiped my tears. Erik was looking at me with guilt all over his face. I told him that I wasn't crying because he had lied to me for so long. I honestly don't know why I cried. But it felt real. I felt real.

I can't remember the last time I felt this real. Maybe before I lost my parents.

Maybe this is what it means to be human--you just let yourself feel things when they happen.