text: Dear Diary, I am writing to you, against my own interest, because I no longer have anyone else to speak with. Not that you are able to speak with me, but nevertheless - here we are. This exercise is rather ridiculous, if you ask me, and I’d prefer another human being for company, but it’s too late for that. No longer an option; there are no others left. I am alone now. I’ve never been the type to keep a journal, and it seems as though I’m speaking to myself, because a record of my thoughts is unnecessary, and speaking to myself is insane. Well, I guess it’s as insane as thinking thoughts. It appears that I’ve placed myself in a moral juxtaposition - I can’t justify writing my thoughts down, but I can justify thinking my thoughts. Quite the paradox, for lack of a more suitable term. Seeing as I can’t imagine that I’ve lost my mind (although a crazy person can’t understand that they’re crazy..), I will continue writing to you, Diary. So - the idea of writing a log of my thoughts and feelings was brought to me by my father first, and I understand why he thought it important. My father was a researcher with a team of scientists and engineers, and he kept meticulous notes, extensive journals filled with tens of millions of words of findings, theories and data of various types. He loved what he did and he did it well, right up to the moment he died. My father was the first of us - the first of five to die in this chamber. Next to encourage my keeping a diary was my mother. She always hoped I’d follow in my father’s path, but I didn’t care much for the massive amount of time and effort that was required of a scientist, and I believed that I’d be bored to tears just sitting in place reading all of those letters and numbers. I never once feigned interest in my father’s work. Regardless, my mother suggested I write my thoughts down on a regular basis. Another thing to add to my list of disinterests - I never once wrote in a journal. That is until today. Mother died last night, peacefully while she slept. Perhaps it wasn’t peaceful. She had suffered for months from a blood infection that father couldn’t prevent from entering her brain. And then father died before he could attempt to remedy mother’s condition from there. Once father died, the rest of us went into panic mode, and my brother and sister cried more than anything else. Mother cried as well, but she also spent a lot of time trying to crack father’s code to the door lock - a keypad that required a thirteen-digit number to unlock the door. She clearly failed in her thousands of attempts. Now I sit here alone, writing to a notebook about things that no longer matter, and that can’t be changed or fixed. I’m trailing off now. My younger siblings both died from malnutrition, starvation, or something related to either or both. Father apparently thought that mother was maintaining the food supply; mother apparently thought that father was maintaining the food supply. Both brother and sister suffered terribly for weeks before neither of them woke up suddenly. Mother cried for days. That is, she cried until madness overcame her and, after days of holding both of them tightly, sobbing and moaning, she decided that starvation wouldn’t be what killed her. I caught mother chewing brother’s ear, or at least what remained of it. I hadn’t been paying much attention - spinning out in my own spat with starving to death - and I wasn’t able to stop her before she’d nearly finished her meal. Disgusted by her lack of self-control, and rather taken aback by her utter lack of compassion for her own child, I stuffed my siblings’ corpses into a corner, sat diligently in front of them for months. Mother had lost her mind long before she lost her life, and I made sure not to let my guard down until after she could no longer move from her bed. For so long I’ve been waiting for her to not wake up. Although I despised her, I only wanted her suffering to end, and that would only happen if she died. Mother’s breathing had become weak, wheezing and whistling, and I knew that she’d stopped suffering as soon I no longer heard that agony issuing from her lungs. I waited awhile - five days, to be exact - before I checked her pulse. I couldn’t force myself to touch my mother’s neck, place my ear to her lifeless lips. She’d been dead, and I knew it to be true, but I waited, and I would’ve waited longer had I not tripped over sister’s femur, stumbling right on top of mother. When I checked mother’s pulse, she felt cold, stiff. Dead. Still I placed my face close to hers, an ear pressed against her mouth just enough to hear and feel that no air remained in her body. Sleepless through the night, I decided to have a little snack, and then I drank the final bottled water. I couldn’t seem to stomach more than a few nibbles, and the rot caused me to gag until I vomited the last sips of the last water. Oh well. I’d only been delaying the inevitable anyhow. The bunker probably smelled horrendous, for more than one reason. The septic system malfunctioned months ago, and the corpses of my family - what remained of them - had long been rotting. And now we’ve arrived at our current destination - I’ve decided that, with literally nothing else to do, I should write my thoughts in this old notebook. These pages mostly filled with father’s data. Every single piece of information that he could produce concerning mother’s condition. Disorganized scribblings of an intelligent man gone mad. I’ve taken my parents’ advice, and now I’m writing to you, Diary. I’m finally recording my thoughts. The last of us now on the brink of death. No more water. No more food (although I could give another try at the leftovers..). I’ve decided now, three-hundred-and-sixty-six days since father trapped us down here, to “take up journaling”. My first, and my last, on this seventh day of March in the year of two-thousand-and-twenty-eight. Oh, Diary - don’t be so silent now. You are the only one that I have to speak with. The rest are gone, and I too shall join them soon. Who, then, will YOU have to speak with, Diary? Reluctantly Yours, Me