thewolfwilliams

[thewolfwilliams]

I miss you Riley

I remember the first time we met. I was getting beaten up by some random bullies after arriving at the Boston quarantine zone. You showed up, threatened to stomp their balls, and made them run away.

It was later that day that I saw you pickpocket my Walkman.

When I came to get back what you stole, you showed me how to get out of the QZ. Then, we went to what would become our favorite place: Winston's abandoned mall. I’ll never forget how you asked him to teach me to ride a horse. That was awesome.

It’s such an irony that our favorite place became the site of such a mess. Going back to that mall was the beginning of the end for you. That’s where we got bitten. And where I abandoned you forever.

I’ll always hate myself for not being able to end your misery. I hope you’ll forgive me.

[thewolfwilliams]

I miss you Cat

I feel a little nostalgic thinking of you, Cat. I wonder what you're doing now in Jackson. I remember when you saw my arm, which I had purposely burned to cover my infected bite mark from the others. You were full of questions about how I got so badly burned. So, you came up with the idea of covering everything with tattoos to make it more attractive than a “big ugly scar.”

I was kinda surprised by your idea, inspired by the moth on the guitar Joel gave me and the ferns growing around my place. You told me moths were always flying around my head when I played music around the campfires with Jesse and the others.

I have to admit, you surprised me again when you kissed me the first time. I wasn’t expecting a tattoo session to end with you leaping on me. Since I hadn’t kissed anyone since I was bitten, I was terrified I might infect you. That was the worst, longest night of my life, waiting to see if you would turn in your sleep because of me. It was such a relief to see you wake up all rested and uninfected. It’s still one of my worst/best rollercoaster memories.

[thewolfwilliams]

Abby

I can't believe we've gone from trying to kill each other to working together. I'm glad I let her go… After all, we all want this pandemic to end once and for all.

Lev is actually a really smart kid. He was pretty sweet with JJ back in Jackson. Under different circumstances, they could've been good friends.

I hope Dina will forgive me for leaving them again. I know it was difficult for her to stay in Jackson with Jesse's parents, but I'm sure she'll be safe with them. And JJ is still too young to join us on this kind of adventure. He still needs one of us with him.

[thewolfwilliams]

Santa Catalina

I never expected it to be easy when I got to Santa Catalina with Lev. He may be Abby’s protege, but he’s more mature than I initially thought. If it wasn’t for him coming to Jackson to ask for my help, I wouldn’t have joined them. I may have let Abby live back on Santa Barbara’s Island, and I may be trying to forgive her for what she did to Joel, but the only reason I came was to help their team develop a cure for the CBI, giving my immunity a real purpose once and for all.

When I arrived at their home base, Abby was nowhere to be found, and I felt worried. After all, coming to a Firefly base alone with her protege was a dangerous idea. When I met the Doc and the others, I started to feel more comfortable working with them. They even gave me my own cabin.

At first, I wasn’t comfortable with having free time while the main focus was finding a cure for the CBI. I tried to be useful by taking notes in this journal about our progress and findings, but their resources were more limited than what I was used to in Jackson. I kinda miss my small garage behind Joel’s house now.

[thewolfwilliams]

Dr Ethan and the Research

Dr. Ethan did an incredible job. Over the years, he was able to collect more information about the CBI. While the Fireflies were searching for a way to create a vaccine, the Doc and his team already knew a vaccine wouldn’t work against cordyceps. He was quite surprised to see me, as some of his men knew my mother. It turns out, she worked with them before joining the Fireflies with Marlene. Me being immune wasn’t a surprise to him.

As their research evolved, we learned where the cordyceps came from. Some cultures from South America were infected by this parasite without anyone noticing in time. When the FDA sent a team to Seattle to analyze coffee and cocoa bean samples, it was already too late.

Abby told us she fought an infected in Seattle Hospital, which was considered Patient Zero. Ethan had to send a team back there to collect missing data. That Rat King, as she called it, was mostly made up of the FDA analysis team, whose members had merged together over the years… That’s gross.

[thewolfwilliams]

Seasonal Migrations

Tommy was right. The infected do make seasonal migrations across the country—about twice a year.

Dr. Ethan warned us to be careful when searching for fungus samples each season. Even if winter is a dead season for spores, the hordes are deadlier. There are more runners due to the cold weather. Those bastards still outrun us on snow patrols!

In summer, we have to wear our masks during research. Lev isn't afraid to come with me with his mask on, but Abby stays at the base. Everyone knows I'm immune, but they would prefer I wore a mask anyway. But I usually don’t—the fresh air reminds me of our farm in Jackson.

I discovered that fungi are more present in the fall. There are fewer spores in the air, but the infected are harder to spot from a distance. After everything we've been through, Abby and Lev have developed some sort of limb armor to protect everyone from infected bites. I guess I'll need it too. I have enough bite marks already.

[thewolfwilliams]

If you’re reading this, it means I’m gone.

I’ve had a lot of time to think about things lately—about all the choices I’ve made, the people I’ve hurt, and the people I’ve lost. It’s funny, really. I’ve spent so long running from death, fighting to survive, but maybe this was always the end of the road for me. Maybe I was always meant to die for something bigger than myself. I’ve been told my immunity might mean hope—a cure. And if that’s true, then maybe my death can finally mean something.

I know I’ve made mistakes. I’ve let anger guide me, let hatred consume me. But somewhere along the way, I started to see things differently. I started to see her differently. Abby. I still don’t know how we got here—how we went from enemies to… whatever this is. But I guess that doesn’t matter now. What matters is that this journal might be all that’s left of me when this is over.

I’m not afraid of dying anymore. Not if it means there’s a chance to fix things, to make this world a little less broken. I just hope this book finds its way to you, Abby. I hope you find the answers you’re looking for, and maybe, just maybe, you find a way to forgive me… and yourself.

If there’s any chance that this story ends with a cure, then I’ll take it. And if it doesn’t… well, at least I tried. At least I didn’t give up.

So, here it is—the story of my last days, my last choices, my last breath. Maybe there’s some meaning in these pages. Maybe there’s something worth holding on to. Or maybe it’s just a lot of words from a girl who thought she knew what she was doing. Either way, this is all I have left to give.

Good luck, Abby. I hope you find what you’re looking for.

— Ellie

[thewolfwilliams]

Infected Monkeys

Last week, while I was taking notes and eating lunch, Lev came and sat with me. He asked me questions about Joel and how we traveled across the country together. I kinda wished he hadn’t asked, since it always brings back painful memories of him.

Lev was especially curious about us meeting infected monkeys back in Colorado, which caught me off guard. I sometimes forget Lev grew up in that strange cult in Seattle. Still, he was right in a way he didn’t even know. Even if he never saw infected animals, I can't remember if those monkeys at the Fireflies' lab were infected or not.

I had to bring this up with Ethan. From what he could retrieve from his personal notes and Dr. Ibu Ratna’s research on ophiocordyceps, there was initially a distinction between parasite bearers and the infected. The possibility that some animals could now be infected by the CBI would make the pandemic even deadlier than it was at the beginning.

[thewolfwilliams]

The Airport

I've been feeling really hurt lately. I was patrolling alone, looking for an infected corpse for Dr. Ethan to experiment on when I came across the island's airport. I knew it existed but had never taken the time to stop there. It was a pretty small airport and only had a few clicker corpses left from a previous patrol—perfect for the mushroom bloom the Doc was looking for.

I went to the main garage, seeking shade and taking a moment to catch my breath. Inside, I found some useful supplies we had missed on our first trip, as well as a few grounded planes. Then I saw a guitar behind one of them, barely visible. The strings were in bad condition, but still playable—at least for what I could still manage with two missing fingers.

I haven't really tried playing since my last trip to our farm in Jackson. It still hurts to think that I will never be able to play Joel's song again. But in that moment, I didn’t care. I heard a noise, something creeping towards me. I felt comforted by my switchblade in my pocket and my Beretta in my hand. I just hoped it wasn’t a stalker—those bastards don’t hunt alone.

[thewolfwilliams]

A New Challenge

After my trip to the airport’s garage, I tried to find the source of that cracking noise but couldn’t. When I got back to base camp, accompanied by what seemed to be the corpse of a clicker, I went to Ethan's lab. When he saw me, he was as cheerful as always. His positivity still freaks me out, even after a year with him and his team.

After dealing with the corpse, the Doc asked if I was interested in a new challenge during my patrols. Curious, I told him nothing could scare me after all I had already seen. He laughed, rummaged through the shelves in his office, and said I wouldn’t have to be afraid of this idea. Then he came back with what looked like a camera.

When I asked him about it, Ethan explained that Abby had come to him an hour earlier, asking how I could help with his research in a more artistic way. He thought of the camera, saying images of different evolutionary states of fungi would help improve his research. He was right. Most of our most interesting discoveries couldn’t be moved anyway.

[thewolfwilliams]

A new hobby

The Doc was right; it’s easier to work with a camera than to try to relearn the guitar with two missing fingers. I wonder if I'll still be able to teach JJ how to play. He loves the sound of the instrument so much; he kinda reminds me of Joel. Joel would be so proud of him.

I feel like Ethan's positivity is contagious. He sees hope in everything. I hope he'll be able to find what we're searching for.

[thewolfwilliams]

I'll miss you Dina

Today is another bad day. While working with the Fireflies wasn’t as bad as I imagined, being away from JJ and Dina was the hardest part. I knew it might take a few months, maybe a year, or even longer before I could get back to them in Jackson. Sending letters was comforting. I couldn’t have imagined that, after everything we had been through, I would one day receive this letter from Jesse’s parents.

“Dear Ellie, There is no easy way for us to share this news with you, especially by letter.

Ever since you left Jackson, we’ve been hoping Dina would find the courage to write to you about it. We have a lot of respect for what you did in Jackson, helping Maria and Tommy rebuild the town and raising our grandson.

That’s why we decided to let you know that Dina met someone after you left, and she recently had his son.

Please forgive us, and may your search for a cure be successful. We all wish you good luck.

Love, Robin”

Dina was pregnant with another baby boy. She met someone in Jackson just days after I left. That explains why Dina's letters were so vague, only talking about JJ and not herself. Like she always did when Jesse was still around, she didn’t expect me to come back to her, so she had already started a new life without thinking about ours.

I was so angry reading this letter, I couldn’t finish my sandwich. I blamed Abby again for my life falling apart. In my rage, I got up from the common room and punched Abby right in the face.

[thewolfwilliams]

I found you... Abby

Immediately after hitting her, Abby stood up and stopped me from striking again. As I struggled to free myself, she ushered me out of the common room. I had forgotten how strong she still was, even after her capture by the Rattlers. Trying to hit her again was useless—she blocked my other hand and pushed me against the hallway wall, locking my arm.

I fought to escape, yelling at her with all the hate I felt, until I finally shouted that Dina had left me. Abby let go of me when I started crying. Instead of going back to eat, she stayed. She said she was sorry.

I turned around, looked at her, and said it was all her fault—that none of this would have happened if she hadn’t sent Lev to get me. I tried to punch her again, but she blocked me. As she held me back, she apologized again. She wouldn’t move, so I finally stopped, slid down the wall, and cried.

[thewolfwilliams]

The Day Everything Changed

I was woken up by a lot of noise in our camp this morning. It was still dark outside, but I didn’t bother finding a watch to check the time. I left my cabin, like many others, to see what was happening. It didn’t look good.

Some men were helping another to walk. He looked really sick, with several open wounds visible under the camp lights. Everyone seemed terrified by these injuries, and I couldn’t agree more: from a distance, they looked suspiciously like bite marks.

It turned out that a small group of ex-Fireflies, calling themselves the Coyotes, were based in Canada. They had been communicating with us for months, seeking a cure for the CBI. The injured man was part of their group and had come to show us some dead animals they’d found. They weren’t sure if the animals were infected with cordyceps or not, so they needed Ethan’s expertise. On their way here, they were attacked by coyotes, and it was likely those coyotes were infected with something.

How ironic...

[thewolfwilliams]

A New Mission

While Ethan analyzed the animal corpses for ophiocordyceps infections, the other researchers and doctors took the injured man to a quarantine area. It was the safest decision until they determined if he had developed CBI. Until then, my schedule was now empty.

Instead of staying at camp, I decided to grab my bag and weapons and go hiking. Everyone was busy with scientific tasks, where I wasn’t much help. I brought my new camera with me, just in case I found something interesting.

[thewolfwilliams]

This girl is something else

I didn’t know if anyone else was on patrol today or if this part of the island was currently inhabited by other survivors. I moved cautiously, searching for answers as I crept toward some distant cries.

Walking silently in the forest is never easy. I didn’t know if I’d run into an infected, a stalker, or another human, and it didn’t matter. I don’t know what I felt when I saw a woman’s back before she suddenly turned toward me, pointing her gun straight at my face.

She shouted something at me, but I was too stunned to move. She shouted again, and even though I didn’t understand her words, I knew I had to lower my bow and raise my hands to show it was just me. Abby quickly wiped her cheeks and lowered her gun. It was the first time I’d seen her cry, and I noticed she was standing beside a handmade grave.

[thewolfwilliams]

The Confrontation at the Grave

It was the only time I had come face to face with Abby without her trying to kill me. I didn't mind seeing her cry, but I was still confused by the scene. Abby turned her back to me and sat in front of the grave. It was a flat rock with a cross made of two small old wooden planks on it. It was small, but I could feel the sadness that surrounded it.

I don't remember how long I stood there, staring at Abby’s back as she placed hand-picked flowers on the grave. When she asked me why I was following her, I snapped out of it a little. She saw my camera and, jumping up, furiously accused me of following her to take advantage of her sadness and mock her behind her back. It was like Seattle all over again—her so close, looking like she could strangle me with her bare hands in a second.

Instinctively, my right hand reached for the knife in my back pocket, but I didn’t grab it. I stammered that I was sorry and that it was an accident that I found her here, but she seemed unimpressed. Abby started to calm down, tightening her jaw, and asked me to leave. I felt really sorry for disrupting this moment. As I retraced my steps, I think I heard her holding back a tear.