＄03-00-03-00-1-0 [soundStopAll] [charaSet H 98115000 1 Effect] [scene 53800] [fadein black 2.0] [se ad135] [seVolume ad135 0 0] [wt 0.5] [seVolume ad135 1.5 0.2] [wait fade] [seVolume ad135 1.0 0.2] [wt 3.0] [se ad324] [seVolume ad324 0 0.1] [wt 0.1] [seVolume ad324 2.0 0.5] [wt 2.5] ＠ How long has it been since I left the colony of survivors? [k] ＠ I managed to keep a log for the first thirty days, but now it just feels like I've lost the ability to keep track of time. [k] ＠ In my defense, it's hard to count the days when we don't have nights anymore. It all blurs together. [k] ＠ I still have no idea how things got to this point, but what I can say for sure is that somehow the sun is shining on every corner of the world at once. [k] ＠ With everything bleached white as far as the eye can see, you get numb to time as well as distance. [k] ＠ My food and water are starting to run out.[sr]Once they do, that'll be it for me. [k] ＠ At least my old motorcycle is still purring like a kitten. [k] ＠ I never expected this solar generator[sr]to work this well or for this long. [k] ＠ It proved you can ride an old motorcycle from Australia to North America as long as you have a surface to ride on and a solid engine. [k] [messageOff] [effect bit_talk_lens_flare] [seVolume ad135 2.0 1.0] [seVolume ad324 2.0 1.0] [wt 3.0] [seVolume ad135 1.0 0.2] [seVolume ad324 1.0 0.2] [wt 2.0] [bgm BGM_EVENT_79 0.1] ＠ All I drive over seems to be endless white wasteland. No...maybe wasteland isn't the right word. [k] ＠ It's more like...pavement without so much as a single crack or seam to be seen. [k] ＠ It's nothing like a desert, either. There's just...nothing here. I don't even get that natural sort of austerity wastelands give off. [k] ＠ It's not so much that it seems like life's died[sr]out as that it never existed to begin with. [k] ＠ Case in point, I've not seen even a single[sr]sign of death or decay this whole time. [k] ＠ Not a single corpse. No plants. No animals.[sr]No insects. Not so much as a microbe. [k] ＠ This isn't a dead world. It's an empty one. There's...nothing. Not even bacteria to make food spoil.[sr]It feels clean. Too clean. [k] ＠ ...Never mind that last bit. I must be more tired than I thought. I'm getting overly sensitive. [k] ＠ I can see an unnatural shape just up ahead.[sr]Probably more remnants. [k] ＠ I think I'll rest there today.[sr]Maybe there'll even be some food left, if I'm lucky. [k] [messageOff] [fadeout black 1.0] [effectStop bit_talk_lens_flare] [bgm BGM_EVENT_79 1.0 0.2] [wait fade] [seStop ad135 1.0] [seStop ad324 1.0] [scene 53802] [wt 0.5] [se ad159] [seVolume ad159 0 0.3] [wt 1.5] [fadein black 1.0] [bgm BGM_EVENT_79 1.0 1.0] [wait fade] ＠ Remnants, in this case, are areas that somehow escaped the reset. Or, well, more places that remained in part despite being reset. [k] ＠ The colony I left behind was[sr]situated in one such remnant. [k] ＠ If any satellites were still intact, we might have even been able to find and connect with other survivors. [k] ＠ Not that it would have made us any[sr]less powerless to fix all this. [k] ＠ After all, if that tree were to attack again,[sr]humanity would be well and truly gone. [k] [messageOff] [fadeout black 1.0] [bgmStop BGM_EVENT_79 1.0] [wait fade] [scene 60500] [wt 1.0] [fadein black 1.0] [wait fade] [bgm BGM_EVENT_81 0.1] ＠ Survivors...zero. Signs of people having[sr]been here...one. A single message. [k] ＠ No food, sadly, but...any port in a storm. [k] ＠ Besides, just seeing artifacts of civilization like this again does wonders for my morale, even if it is gutted ruins from a brutal invasion. [k] ＠David [image berserker_language_3], [wt 0.4][image berserker_language_4]. [k] ＠ I shrug my shoulders as I sit[sr]down on what used to be a sofa. [k] ＠ The shrug is just a desperate ploy to convince myself I'm calm, but strangely, it still helped. [k] [messageOff] [bgm BGM_EVENT_81 1.0 0.5] [wt 1.0] [se ade158] [wt 0.3] [se ad31] [seVolume ad31 0 0.1] [wt 0.1] [seVolume ad31 0.5 1.0] [wt 1.0] [seVolume ad31 1.0 0.5] ＠ I play back the only message data to be found...[sr]It is essentially the same as all the others out there. [k] ＠ “I'm scared.” “I'm scared.” “I'm scared.”[sr]“Run away.” “Run away.” “Run away.” [k] ＠ “It hurts.” “It hurts.” “It hurts.”[sr]“Why?” “Why?” “Why?” [k] ＠ “No.” “No.” “No.”[sr]“Help me.”“Help me.”“Help me.” [k] ＠ ...“Please, forgive me.” [k] [messageOff] [se ad539] [seStop ad31 0.5] [wt 0.5] [bgm BGM_EVENT_81 1.0 1.0] [wt 1.5] ＠ There it is again: “Why?” Why were these people attacked? Why were they erased? [k] ＠ ...I did my best to recall that day calmly and objectively. The year when Earth fell to invaders from another world. [k] [messageOff] [fadeout black 1.5] [bgmStop BGM_EVENT_81 1.5] [wait fade] [wipeFilter cinema 0.5 0] [cameraFilter gray] [wt 2.0] [scene 57400] [fadein black 1.0] [wait fade] [bgm BGM_EVENT_79 0.1] ＠ Truth be told, we had time to prepare. [k] ＠ Maybe it was only twelve hours,[sr]but it was still time we could have used. [k] ＠ On that New Year's Eve, we lost every satellite around the world in an instant. [k] ＠ In consequence, we were not able to observe a single cosmic ray even as the whole world was reduced to a blank, dust gray sphere. [k] ＠ I know now that it was a membrane in the sky...a dome of sorts made by the tree's branches that was placed over the entire world... [k] ＠ ...but we weren't exactly in a position to sit down and take stock of what happened on that day, not with all the crazy things going on. [k] ＠ Twelve hours later...Armageddon. [k] ＠ A total slaughter.[sr]A massacre on an unimaginable scale. [k] ＠ Uncountable...tree-things descended on the earth,[sr]like so many tentacles from space. [k] ＠ They crawled across the world, finding and exterminating all forms of life with unerring accuracy and unnerving tenacity, killing almost every human on the planet over the course of three months. [k] ＠ After that, the trees just...disappeared, returning to the sky and leaving behind a blank, desolate world. [k] ＠ ...Even now, thinking about it makes me tremble. [k] ＠ Not at the revelation that aliens really did exist. Not even the realization that our world, our civilization, had been erased and would never return. [k] ＠ No, what scared me was those trees' tenacity. The way they extended their branches to destroy a person's heart with a single stab. [k] ＠ Upon their death, people would instantly turn to dust, their agonizing screams still echoing around them. [k] ＠ There were no exceptions. [k] ＠ Even though these aliens possessed weapons of mass destruction large enough to blot out the sky, they chose not to use them. [k] ＠ Instead, they went out of their way to erase billions upon billions of people one at a time. [k] ＠ They were like...some kind of twisted artisan burning with perverse passion for their craft. [k] ＠ Those of us who did survive, like myself, only managed to do so by being in hidden underground facilities at the time. [k] [messageOff] [fadeout black 1.0] [bgm BGM_EVENT_79 1.0 0.2] [wait fade] [wipeOff] [cameraFilter normal] [wt 1.0] [scene 60500] [fadein black 1.0] [bgm BGM_EVENT_79 1.0 1.0] [wait fade] ＠ ...Dizziness starts to overwhelm me. Maybe I've been under a bit more strain than I realized. I'll just rest up here for today. [k] ＠ Tomorrow, I'll set back off on[sr]my journey of wishful thinking. [k] ＠ I may not have much food left, but assuming I've stayed on track, I should be at my destination soon. [k] ＠ It's the last place any of our satellites caught on camera. [k] ＠ The only place in this whole world that hasn't been wiped clean... An area in southern Nevada. [k] ＠ That's right. My destination is the[sr]Air Force base known as Area 51. [k] ＠ [s 255] [sr]　　　　　　　　　　　[s 16]Signed, David Bluebook [k] [messageOff] [fadeout black 2.0] [bgmStop BGM_EVENT_79 2.0] [wait fade] [wt 0.5] [soundStopAll] [end]