Jack's Diary - Day 23, October 9th 2013

     This morning, I woke to the sound of music. I could tell it was folk, but I only recognized it as being  a Bob Dylan song until I opened the window. There was a man sitting on a pile of stuff that he probably accumulated there during the night. He was playing a guitar decently and singing the song "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". There must not have been any soulless around when he started the song because by the time I opened the window and looked out, he was already on the third set of verses and the soulless were beginning to approach the pile. As he continued to sing and the soulless drew ever closer, his demeanor and voice didn't change at all. It was as if he wasn't scared at all. I knew even before the end came that this was a swam song, quite literally. As the soulless were nearly on top of him, he stood up and kicked them down the pile while still playing the guitar and singing. I suppose he wanted to finish the song. Others were looking out their windows and doorways at him as the amount of soulless grew with each chord he strummed. Eventually, kicking did little to nothing since the soulless behind the ones kicked acted as cushions, keeping them on the pile. He was nearly done with the song when he put down the guitar, now completely surrounded and about to be eaten/trampled when he pulled out a grenade and pulled the clip, at which point I brought my head back into the room and closed the window. The explosion was loud, but so sad. I took one more peek before unbarricading the door. The pile of stuff was still there for the most part, some pieces scattered, but now a menacing art piece made the street its canvas. I suppose the name "Suicide or Sacrifice?" would be a pretty accurate description. The crowd of people were no longer watching the street, but I thought I could hear the faint sound of crying.
     After unbarricading my door, I knocked on Duke's door and waited for him to come out. He greeted me with the question, "What was that noise?"
     I told him it was nothing and we moved on. The explosion took care of a large portion of soulless in the area, but that was the least of my concerns. I wasn't planning on having a companion with me since I only packed enough food for myself for 4 weeks. In a few days, we would run out of food so we needed to find more. I lead the way into the forest on our way to the next and last town. The forest has an abundance of unspoiled nutrition (as tasteless as it might be). I decided to gather edible plants, berries, and roots while I told Duke to gather up any insects, reptiles, fish, birds, small game, or basically any living creature that we could eat (I gave him a butterfly net I picked up on our way out of town). He complained, "Why would I catch bugs? I'm not eating them."
I said, "Because I told you too! Do I need to give you a reason! Insects are a good source of protein and we can use them as bait to catch bigger things. Now go!"
He walked away mumbling under his breath. After about two hours of gathering and washing the picking in the same general area, I went to look for Duke, remembering that I never told him not to get lost. I found him a distance off with a bag filled with a bunch of insects, worms, slugs, crayfish, and a few toads and frogs. I said, "Good."
     As it turns out, Duke isn't completely useless. I took out the worms, put them in a separate container, and then sealed up the bug to cut of the air supply to kill everything else. After this, we continued traveling to the final city, Saint Angeles, still walking through the forest area, picking and eating what looked edible. It would be a few days before we reached Saint Angeles since it was far off. Luckily, Duke kept his mouth shut so it was a peaceful hike and there were no soulless in sight. After about an entire day of uninterrupted peace, from midday to midday, we began to get tired and as much as I hated the idea, set up camp in the forest. I made a small fire to cook the stuff Duke had caught so prevent it from going bad too quickly and when night came, I climbed up a tree and slept safely among the tree branches while Duke slept on the ground. I honestly didn't think I cared if he got eaten or mauled, but for some reason, I spent a good part of night making sure he was safe. I suppose there's still some humanity left in me to care about a stranger.

- Jack's Diary