Written by:

B.R.L.F.

Description:

Terra and her squadron get pushed back from Denver through the rocky mountains. They get attacked in Salt Lake City, and she gets stranded in the Nevada desert with no hope of rescue.

Prologue

My name is Terra Claudia Longa. I'm a 16 year old soldier in the United Republic of America, and I'm fighting against the world's most powerful army which already took over and destroyed the old United States back in 2016. Tough shit.

If you found this notebook somehow, and you're from whatever year you may be from that can still understand English, let me start you from the beginning.

In 1984 there wasn't three powerful nations controlling the minds of its individuals, and there wasn't a nuclear apocalypse which ended in the world being overrun by robots. There was an alien attack.

The aliens started over the Hawaiian Islands, and made their way to Japan and China, then America and Canada. No one on either side of the Pacific knew what to do to stop these things from coming inland.

Except the Americans. The air force on the golden coast had their Elite Ace squadron of fliers take down hundreds of their minion ships over Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Union City. But one flier went above and beyond to take down the "mothership" over the Pacific ocean.

He flew into Space, right into the side of the cone shaped ship centered over the Hawaiian Islands. It blew up the entire ship in one blow. People hailed the unknown soldier for saving the world from an unprecedented alien attack.

But that's not the end of this. People used the scrapped technology from the aliens crashed around the world to recreate their weapons and vehicles. This was the cause of the Inimicus Alliance, and the Unified World Order.

Those fucking aliens started this shit. They wanted to destroy us but we just ended up destroying each other.

You see nobody sleeps anymore. When you're a child soldier on the frontlines against the world's most powerful army in a surrounded city, the last thing you'd worry about is how many hours of sleep you get.

No one understands pain like this. Sure theres people going through worse, but this is a different life experience that no one should have to feel. I wish I could just live an easier life.

You see I'm not one to pray to a god, but right now I'm stuck in a surrounded city, half my squadron is dead, and I'm running out of options. So amen jesus. Save my ass.

Denver

August 12th, 2019

I didn't think that the day after my birthday would be the worst day of my life. Yeah I know everyone has their bad days, but hear me out and sympathise with me.

I've already lost half of my squadron, and now I've lost my best friend. Now there's only two other people in my squadron and we've lost our position in Denver. Let me explain.

My birthday was on August 10th, and as a gift from my Sarge, Michael, he gives me a notebook, which is what I'm writing in. It's a nice gift, because I want a way to record my recollections of war. I spend the rest of my birthday cooped up in our sector hideout writing the prologue. Sarge eventually tells me it's late and to give it up, so I do.

Next morning we're being bombed. All border sectors of Denver are under attack and the city is being surrounded. Ground troops and tanks are moving into the city, and planes are flying above bombing anything that moves. This puts everyone in the squad on high alert because there's no way out of the city if we're caught and captured.

Sarge sends me and my friend Kale across the street to keep lookout for incoming Inimicus soldiers. I guard the hallway, Kale watches the street. This is important to know later.

Soon enough, 20 men start marching down the street. Kale signals to Sergeant Michael across the street, and Michael gives the signal back. Kale starts shooting people down on the street, and in this mess of gunfire Michael gets hit in the shoulder. Then a grenade gets thrown up through our window.

Now mind you in all of this upcoming, I only had less than five seconds to react. I really wish I didn't do what I did. I shut the door to the hallway. Kale is inside the room with a live grenade, and I'm in the hallway behind the door I shut.

I hear the explosion from inside the room, and I feel my heart sink.

I killed Kale Terbac. I killed my only friend.

When I went into the room I found Kale in the corner huddled up like an armadillo. I moved her body on the floor and her face expresses how horrified she was in the moment. She didn't know how to save herself.

Kale I'm sorry. Words can't describe how sorry I feel.

Michael signals to me from across the street and tells me to get over there. I tell him that Kale died, and he tells us we need to move farther into the city. So we burn our hideout, and move on.

In downtown Denver, planes were circling the skies and no one could run anywhere without being shot and killed. Mind you, by this point I was all for killing myself, and I wanted to run out into the open area unexposed and blow myself up. Michael held me back, then I reminded myself that spite is always the best motivation. So we took it slow and barricaded ourselves inside of the Denver capitol building. Turns out a few other squadrons got the same command, and we got to socialize a little bit before we all died.

I was positioned near the wall, and this would eventually save my life. Michael was getting patched up in the makeshift infirmary, so that left me and Harper to guard the windows. The 30 something people left inside the city called in an airlift to get them out before they were killed. There was 40 thousand soldiers in the city when we started. 30 people survived less than an hour of intense battling.

And then the side of the building I was guarding blew up. I was about ten feet away from the explosion, and when all the dust cleared I saw soldiers rushing inside. The helicopter was a minute away, soldiers are rushing inside, and Harper is out unconscious. I had to shoot down five people with a 100 kilo man on my back, while trying to find Sarge and the lift pad. And I thought losing a friend was bad.

More and more soldiers kept storming in, Michael is dying, Harper is getting more heavy, and I'm running and gunning like the Doom Marine. Someone should make a video game based on this bullshit. The part where I almost died is when I'm trying to run up the steps to the helicopter on the roof and someone almost shoots my foot. If my foot got shot I could've been put down like a horse, but the bullet went into the step I had my foot on and the stairs almost collapsed under the weight of both me and Harper. But I managed to keep going and get to the waiting helicopter. Once enough people were on board we took off and flew into the Rockies.

Harper got a gash in his head from the explosion in the capitol building, Michael has a bullet in his shoulder, and I lost my best friend. We lost not just Denver, but a friend or two.

August 14th, 2019

The helicopter got fucking shot down. Harper died in the crash, which is really a shame because he woke up about five minutes before we got shot. Sarge survived the crash, and five other people did as well. Denver went from having a population of 40 thousand, to seven. We're now walking through the mountains of Colorado, going from town to town looking for any help we can get from the locals, or maybe find another military outpost.

August 17th, 2019

Can't really write much because we're spending all of our time marching through the mountains. Other than that nothing too much is happening. It's just really tiring without any food. There's water, plenty of it. It's just its hard to find food. Wish me luck.

Grand Junction

August 20th, 2019

After about six days of marching through the mountains, we finally reached the military outpost in Grand Junction. Someone died on the way here and it's a shame we couldn't save her or bury her properly.

One person died because she got caught in a bear trap and we couldn't save her foot. When we managed to pull her out she already lost too much blood. That's gotta be a scary way to die. Rest in peace Jaques.

When we got into the city we stopped at the barracks to restock on supplies and wait for orders. The other soldiers stationed we're asking us a lot of questions, because we were all the only survivors of the Denver attack. All of the questions I got were the same, I answered all of the questions the same way.

"How did you survive?"

"By losing a friend or two."

August 22nd, 2019

Got rested up, and I felt a lot better. Michael made a stable recovery and got some real medicine, now he's allowed to use low recoil guns. Which comes into great use because the Union caught up and got to Grand Junction. Our alliance is doing a good job keeping them out of roads so far, because we have men positioned up in the mountains shooting down on the roads leading into the city. It's like a giant game of Bloons Tower Defense.

August 23rd, 2019

The Union is closing into Grand Junction, and today we got reinforcements from the Cascadian Army, coming in from the state of Cascadia in the north. They're all a bunch of hippies and vegans. We're joking with each other about them only being able to throw rocks, but turns out they're extremely skilled and some of the snipers have gotten upwards of a thousand kills. They're doing an impressive job and thank god they came into the mountains to save us. Pretty sure jesus is among this army division because most of them have long braided hair and scruffy beards. These people are the kind of people you'd meet at a bar that serves craft beer and veggie burgers.

Michael seems to get along with these people nicely, mostly because his parents were in the hippie movement of the 70's and it brushed off on him as a kid. These Cascadians brought Californian weed with them, and they treat the stuff like its champagne. This isn't your average weed, this is high class stuff. It's actually really good.

Which brings us to the story of my first trip. I'm going to say now, it was pretty boring. My expectations were low but holy shit. Basically I rolled and smoked a joint, and I lied down in my bed staring at the ceiling. The ceiling just went through a color and pattern kaleidoscope effect for about two hours until the stuff wore off. Other people are seeing dragons and monsters, but I see my past. The good times before the Germans invaded the mainland.

I was born and raised in Minnesota. I spent a lot of my childhood in the backseat of my moms car, looking at all of the neon and led lights and signs lining the highways and the city where I lived. Now mind you I had a DS, but it made me carsick, so I grew up with more of a connection to my city than my games. Sure, the game were fun, but I enjoyed looking at the lights in the city. The lights in the city remind me of easier times. Late night drives from my moms workplace and back is where I really grew up.

August 26th, 2019

This is quite the idea, so bear with me. Michael is a spy for the union.

The day after I wrote in my notebook about the men in the mountains shooting the Union on the roads like Bloons Tower Defense, they got airstruck and destroyed. Now you might be thinking that could've been the result of them staying in the mountains for quite some time and getting caught, but Michael didn't know about the men in the mountains until he ironically started reading over my shoulder as I was writing the part about Bloons.

But here's the part where I had to do real detectives work. Why would Michael get shot and shoot back at people he worked with? Michael was with Harper, so he had to do this without revealing to him about his plans. Maybe the guy didn't know Michael was a spy and the guy who threw the grenade didn't know about him.

And before we ran inside of the capitol building in Denver I noticed Michael plant something near a wall, I thought it was a sensor mine to get people away from the wall, but after all it might've been the bomb that got the Union inside of the building.

I'd have to do more research to get enough solid evidence, but for now I have to hide my notebook on me to make sure Michael doesn't read this. Wish me luck.

August 30th, 2019

We lost Grand Junction. And let me tell you the story of woe, vegan warriors, and incredible lost and misfortune.

The union has something new in the sky. Not just a plane or a helicopter, something people only dream of in comic books and video games. A sky fortress. They have a miniaturized helicarrier that can suspend itself in the air with engines. It carries hundreds of men inside, and they all dropped on top of us and took over the city from the inside out. Nothing of this likeness was in Denver.

The morning started out as the ones the past ten days have started. I get up, I eat rations, I do paperwork, I post myself in the city, and then normally nothing happens so I sit in the building looking into the sky. Aroma of weed is constantly in the air, so no one is really doing their jobs. The vegans were all having themselves a good time smoking the classic weed, the stuff you can buy in a drugstore. They saved the californian weed for special events, because that stuff was good and expensive. I had to pay $250 to get a since ounce of that stuff, but believe me it was worth every penny.

Then a quiet humming, that progressively got louder. No one knew where it was coming from because it sounded like it was coming from everywhere. Everyone was looking around for the source, thinking the union was playing mind games with us. I was chilling in the apartment where I was posted, and I happened to look towards the mountains. There it was.

The Stinging Bee, we ended up calling it. It flew over the mountains, and over the city. Planes were circling it like bees, then they split up and started bombing and shooting the city. Then the Stinging Bee starting dropping soldiers off the sides and down into the city. Nearly a hundred of their men dropped from that thing into the city.

Two men tried breaking into my apartment post by kicking the windows down by grappling down a rope. I shot both of them, but one fell down into the street. They knew where I was hiding, and I had to get out of there. I ran down the stairs and into the street, only to find a plane about to start shooting. I ran back inside to just miss the first round of bullets, a hippie who sniped the plane out of the sky got his brains blown all over the sidewalk. It's a disgustingly interesting fate, but I ran back to the barracks to make sure I didn't share something similar.

When I got there I was told that we were going to fall back to Provo, and I should grab everything immediately. I got my bag and this book, and got on the plane. Then we took off, and I got to watch the Grand Junction go up in a giant flame.

War is horrible. I wish I could describe the gruesome detail so people don't romanticize this setting, but when I tried to write this I always had to cut to the end, cut the details, get to the good stuff. This is my war experience through my eyes, I don't get the worst of the action. And I only write down the important details only, because my pen is running dry and I'm only about ten pages in. I won't be writing for awhile.

Provo

September 2nd, 2019

Happy Labor Day! Today is my break day so I have a lot to write.

I got to Provo yesterday, after a four hour plane ride over the mountains. The mountains really are beautiful from above, it helps take my mind off the war for a little bit. The issue is the war is going to leave more of an impression on me than the experiences in between the places I go.

Someone may be thinking by this point, where are the smartphones? The original iPhone came out in 2007, and now its 2019, so these things should be everywhere right? They do exist, but people in the military aren't allowed to have personal smartphones. Civilians in either alliance are allowed to have smartphones. I remember by first phone being a Motorola flip phone back in 2010, I was seven years old. The reason I needed a phone when I was seven was because I was out of the house a lot. My mom worked a lengthy day, and my dad wasn't really my fatherly figure, so I was with my friends a lot. I need to be able to call my mom if I went over to my friends.

Which brings up my mom and dad. My mom was my real parent, the one I looked up to. Its not like my parents were ever separate, they loved each other very much, its just I never liked to be around my dad. My dad wasn't my fatherly figure, I gave that role to my friends dad. He treated me better because he knew I was disconnected from my real dad. I thank him for being there.

After I got to Provo I set up my bunk, I got some rest, and I woke up the next morning with nothing to do. Michael was still trying to make his recovery from getting shot, but with all of the moving around and falling back its making his arm worse. I had nothing assigned to me for the day so I got to know a few of the people who were on the same post as me. One of them was a older fella named Charles, but everyone called him Dish. Dish is probably the result of being insulted during basic, but it's a funny name and he likes to be called that.

Dish is a sniper like me. He has about fifty confirmed kills, but always claims that he has well over a hundred. Sure, old man, tell me your lies.

September 3rd, 2019

I got my first series of jobs today at Provo. I basically do paperwork, then I go to the warehouse to deliver ammo to the men on the frontlines before finding my post. These people dug covered trenches around the city and positioned themselves around. They obviously didn't think through the idea of the stinging bee coming over the city.

Something really impressive about this city is how much you can see from the top of the buildings. I can see the lake and the mountains. It's really a beautiful sight, like something out of a Bob Ross painting. If Bob Ross was here today, I'm sure he would be sad to see how the world is. 2016 forward was really the worst the world had seen yet.

Unfortunately, but yet at the same time thank the gods, the Union didn't attack the town.

September 5th, 2019

The Stinging Bee got shot down! Hell motherfucking yeah bitch, we got em! They got nothing on us now! Oh you wont realize how exciting this is to everyone and me right now.

Okay here's the weird part I've been thinking about. Why would two people go in through the window where I was positioned during the attack of Grand Junction? Maybe Michael sent those guys in there. Why would a plane be going down my street and kill another sniper that looked like me? Because Michael said that's where I was positioned. This is all a big conspiracy and I don't know why Michael would try to kill me.

Oh my god he found the book.

In Grand Junction when I had to go back to the barracks he found the book and read it hoping to find information about military assaults but found speculation on himself.

Now I really have to hide the book.

September 6th, 2019

Word around the camp is we're going to Salt Lake City to defend the capital. I've never been to the capital of the U.R.A., or the city in general. So this should be fun. If we've gotten so desperate that we need to defend the capital, I don't see us getting out of this war alive.

September 8th, 2019

It happened. I'm on the plane to Salt Lake City as we speak. I'm making sure to stay away from Michael so he doesn't try to read over my shoulder, just in case. We didn't spend as much time as I expected in Provo. I was thinking the Union would arrive and we would have a battle, then fall back but I guess not.

There's about fifty people on the plane with me right now, but there are over a dozen planes flying into Salt Lake City based on rumors I've been hearing. Salt Lake City is really stocking up for a huge battle against the Union, and they're holding off everything in the mountains to keep them out.

Taking the plane was a stupid idea, we could get shot out of the sky. Taking a truck or a bus would've been faster, easier, and safer. Maybe they're showing the union that we're gonna put up a fight in the capital. It might be more psychological than practical. I might be busy setting up base around the city so I wont be able to write for awhile.

Salt Lake City

September 12th, 2019

It would've been Harper's 17th birthday today. Happy Birthday lad, from six above you.

Between the 8th and today we've been stocking up the city to the gills with reinforcements, soldiers, supplies, ammo, and artillery. If only we stocked up Denver the same way, we could've saved the city, and Kale.

Another Cascadian Army Division came in from the north to reinforce the city, and with them came another batch of sweet Californian Weed. You'd think this stuff is like average weed, but they put something in it to make it special. They grow something in the ground with it to make it better than everything else like it.

Everyone the past few days have been enjoying themselves smoking the good stuff and moving containers around the city. We drew up sectors in the city and sent equal amounts of soldiers to post in each sector, like in Denver but on steroids, and weed.

This is a funny thought, Colorado was the first state in the old United States where you can buy and smoke recreational weed and do it legally, but California has the best weed in the world. You'd think that title would've gone to Colorado, but California was growing the stuff before it became legal, even in the United Republic.

You see, the United Republic was formed only in 2016. They joined the Inimicus Alliance because the Union, which its leadership is in Germany, took over and destroyed the east coast of American and crumbled the nation. The West coast set up their borders in the rocky mountains, and called themselves the United Republic of America. The Inimicus was happy to serve the U.R.A. and help them keep the spirit of America alive, but we were struggling economically. Weed was the way to go.

Everyone in prison who was charged with possession of Marijuana was released on parole and offered job opportunities in the field of Marijuana cultivation and distribution. It was a good tactic. It lowered crime rates, decreased unemployment rates, boosted the economy, and raised civilian morale. By mid 2017, the U.R.A. had an economy similar in growth to the old United States. This was all done in six months. Thanks weed!

Anyway, everyone in Salt Lake City is generally happy right now. We're stockpiling the city, everyone is in the clouds, and we're hoping for the best.

September 16th, 2019

Holy shit. We got fucking nuked. I mean literally they dropped a bomb on our ass and incinerated the city. The president and vice president and cabinet have already been relocated so we didn't entirely loose out nation, but nearly half the congress is dead. Michael is a spy after all, and my book is the reason we've kept getting attacked. My book is now a threat to national security, but no one else in the army knew he was spying until he was captured by another stinging bee.

Before we were bombed we got a warning of a B-2 heading to the city. People were thinking it was just another bomber run and we put the city on lock down. Then people were saying the B-2 had a uranium bomb inside of it, about to drop it on the city. If this rumor was true we'd have to evacuate the congress and all the civilians from the city before the B-2 got about an hour from the city. It was over Denver when we got the report so we needed four hours to guess if the plane really did have a bomb strapped to it.

Two and a half hours later we got confirmed reports of a 25 megaton uranium bomb strapped to the underside of a Union B-2 plane flying directly to Salt Lake City. The Inimicus and the U.R.A. called it a national emergency and we needed to evacuate the city within the next half an hour. It was either make everyone hide in a nuclear fallout shelter, or evacuate the city. All of the shelters in the cities were built in the 1950's and no one trusted them. We ordered all civilians into a series of buses to get them 20 miles out of the city.

The next half hour was gruesome work, we had to round up nearly 200 thousand civilians and soldiers into 3000 buses. Knocking on doors and swinging the bus around the corner killed my feet, especially a city as large as Salt Lake. Its not round the people up that was hard, it was knocking on the door of a home only to find it already empty that was difficult, because it was a waste of time to stand there and wait.

Soon enough we got 3000 buses filled and ready to leave the city, the B-2 was going to arrive in half an hour and we had to drive these people 20 miles out. Some people refused to leave and decided to instead stay in their basement or fallout shelter. Fine then, perish.

I got on one of the last buses out of the city, and we were driving 80 miles an hour to make sure we weren't caught in the blast radius. Then I realized five miles outside of the city that Michael wasn't on any of the buses. There was no way to call him, and I didn't know if he was even supposed to be on the same bus as me.

I learned a tip from a Cascadian about nuclear bombings. If the mushroom cloud is larger than your fist, your in the blast zone, if its larger than both of your thumbs your in the fallout zone. The bus let out twenty miles away from the center of the city, and everyone got off to watch the B-2 fly over the city. We saw the plane drop the bomb, and we saw it fall. I kept my fist up to watch the mushroom cloud.

Then the bomb went off. It was silent first, but then you heard a loud boom, then a crack noise, then the light dissipated to show the mushroom cloud. Then you feel a gust of wind. Its so weird to go from watching the Tsar Bomba videos on YouTube in 480p, to watching a real bomb explode over a real city with real people in real life. It was scary to watch.

Then I looked at the mushroom cloud compared to my fist. It was about half of the size of my fist. Then I checked my two thumbs to see it was twice as large. I told everyone to board the bus, and the driver to start driving. But before I could get on a large cloud of dust enveloped the bus. I didn't even notice the dust cloud because I was too busy looking up at the mushroom. I couldn't see the bus anymore, because I was flying away in the sudden heavy winds. It was going upwards of 70 miles an hour, and I think the bus tipped over. I couldn't see or breath in the dust.

I was lost.

Wendover

September 19th, 2019

I'm now stranded in the fucking deserts of Nevada. I lost the bus after the dust cleared out, and I had to walk down the road to find the town where it went. I haven't found a town yet, but I've lounging near the side of plateau for the night, using my flashlight to write in my notebook.

The reason I don't write during the day is because of how hot it gets during the day. Upwards of 90 degrees around the afternoon. I can't stop to write in that heat, I'm in the middle of nowhere. I keep walking west during the day, hoping I see a town. I might die out here. Wish me luck.

September 21st, 2019

The desert really makes a person go crazy. I'm sixteen god fucking dammit I shouldn't even be fighting in the army, let along getting stranded in the desert. I thought I was crazy when I saw a Stinging Bee fly overhead. But it was real, and it was shooting at me.

I was walking to the west, as I've been doing for two days already. I have water going through this reservoir near me, so I was able to get a drink yesterday, and I made sure to fill my container for down the road. Then I heard the humming. I was thinking the humming was in my head and I was just getting dehydrated, but then it just kept getting louder. Eventually its shadow fell over me, and I turned around to see it flying over me.

My first thought was holy shit am I crazy. Second thought was nothing, because it started to shoot at me. Someone was trying to snipe me, a few bullets were landing to my left and right and I started running. I couldn't run away from it because it would follow me, I figured a better idea would be to run underneath it.

My guess is it tried to look for me, because it sped up. Turns out it goes as fast as me running. It flew towards the mountains nearby, and I had to keep up with it in order to not be seen. I ran for about five miles with no break.

Soon enough I got to the mountains, and I hid underneath a hanging rock. It tried to look for me, then it gave up and flew away. When it was far enough way I emerged. I saw it flying to the west, with nothing trying to shoot at it or take it down.

I got so fucking angry. I threw a fit and shot at its ass a few times. Why am I stranded in the god damn Nevada desert with a Stinging Bee trying to kill me. My sarge is a spy, my capital city got nuked, my best friend is dead, I'm running out of food packets, and its 90 fucking degrees. GOD MOTHERFUCKING DAMMIT I HATE THIS!

September 24th, 2019

I've been in the desert five days without food. I have water, but now I need food.

If I don't make, there's no one left for me to talk to or talk about. I'm alone out here. I'm alone in the war.

I'm alone in the world.

September 25th, 2019

I finally made it to a town called Wendover. Thank the fucking gods. They have food, water, a bed, and haven't been attacked. However, red forces were moving into the city so we couldn't stay there for long.

People in the barracks were asking me so many fucking questions it was annoying the shit out of me. They figured out I was a Denver survivor, I saw the first Stinging Bee, I survived the blast over Salt Lake City, and I was stranded in the desert for six days. They were so interested to hear my stories and I honest don't get why. I'm not the one getting the worst of the war. I'm not the one suffering in slavery on the east coast, I'm not the one getting nuked on in New York City and Chicago, and I surely didn't get the worst story possible. Right?

But people were still interested. So I sat them down, got them to shut up, and read my notebook out loud. It took me about an hour to read through the thing so far, and there were enough people to ask questions and asking me to elaborate on my slimmed down journal version of the story I was telling.

For example, people were asking if the mountains near Denver were any better than the desert, and to that I said yes, there's forest and snow up in the mountains and I was able to find limited amounts of food and water. The berries and herbs you can find in the mountains near Denver are surprisingly healthy.

But after I told my stories, I went to bed. Because frankly I didn't want to hear anyone else's bullshit stories about basic. Basic is basic, it sucks for everyone. Its the real world experiences that are original. When you survive a nuclear blast and get stranded in the desert, come back to me and I'll sit down.

Anyway, here I am now. Its midnight, I have a bed, I was able to eat good food, and drink a glass of clear and cold water. Water is what I missed most out in the desert. People like me aren't meant to be out there for days.

September 26th, 2019

Today was a better day than yesterday. I got my tasks, I did them, then I was free to do whatever. I spent my day sleeping. Go figure. I'm a teenage girl in the military against the worlds most powerful army, give me my fucking rest and I'll do whatever you want.

I'm gonna get real here, my cycles are awful. It's like I don't go through enough already. I get these awful cramps this time every month and I hate them. Makes me think that having a child would be easier, but I don't want to be a teenage mom. Besides, being in the army is bad enough, so I just do my best to put up with the cramps and move on.

Besides that, sleeping was okay. It was air conditioned in the barracks and I could sleep with a blanket. Blankets are essential to my sleep otherwise it just doesn't happen. There's my difference between sleeping and just being unconscious, I need a blanket to sleep, otherwise I get so tired my body forcefully goes unconscious.

When I woke up from my five hour nap it was almost supper. So I went to the mess hall and ate my food, went back to write in my notebook, then went back to sleep. Sleep is good.

September 27th, 2019

Wendover is under huge risk of attack right now, and this town isn't high enough priority to qualify for reinforcements. So instead of trying to fight off a Union Division and a Stinging Bee, we're just gonna fall back to Battle Mountain.

Now that Michael is missing I feel more relaxed. I can write the things I want without the feeling that he's finding my book and reading our plans.

Meet me in Battle Mountain, Michael. You fucking prick.

Battle Mountain

October 1st, 2019

The platoon in Wendover took me under their wing, and thank god because I don't know how long I could've survived without other people. I got officially moved to another squadron because everyone in my old squadron either died or went missing. But Michael isn't missing, he got captured on purpose so he can be back in the Union.

Today we're setting up a fort in Battle Mountain, Nevada. No, we're nowhere close to Las Vegas. That place turned into a ghost town after gambling was made illegal in the Republic. Today was mainly just moving containers and setting up traps and turrets. There's a lot of gold mines up in the mountains, and we're making sure that there's an active camp in each mine opening so there's always at least one that you can run to before getting attacked. Trails are being worn in between each one like a spider web, so you can run to one even in the dark.

It's cool to know that this town's economy is based on gold mining. It used to partly be based on legal gaming, but obviously gaming is no longer legal. In fact this entire states economy used to be based on gambling, but now that it's illegal they're trying to find their niche in other markets. California has silicon based products like computers and electronics, Cascadia has weed, Montana and Idaho are farming, Arizona has factories, and Wyoming and Denver have tourism and other resources like metals and wood. Nevada is nothing.

Nevada have been trying to get into the field of electricity generating, but there's nothing to generate electricity out here. Sure they could set up solar farms, but that requires either monocrystalline or polycrystalline, and both became rare after the war started. Nevada is going to become a dud state unless they can teach themselves to specialize in something. Poor bastards.

October 7th, 2019

The Union are camping about fifty miles from Battle Mountain. They've taken over Las Vegas, and most of eastern Nevada. Battle Mountain is a good place for defense because we've got huge tunnels to hide around inside. The past week has been hell because we've been trying to dig more tunnels through the mountains so there's more open air flowing through. People need to run between the tunnels in case if one gets destroyed.

The good thing is most of these tunnels aren't very long, and most of the miners from the companies who own the mines have offered a hand in helping the army. So you really gotta thank these people because they're working day and night to stop these Union fuckers coming farther inland.

The good thing about all of this is that if we get pushed out of Battle Mountain, we can fall back to California. Their last hope of survival is to launch themselves into space to avoid the Union, by taking over and colonizing planets.

New technology and devices have been created that allow for extremely large amounts of output heat at very little input resources, meaning you could power a whole town on a dark side of a moon with a single Uranium tab. And scientists are saying if we can harness the power of the gases on the host planets, we could power ourselves on moons on planets as far out as Pluto. Thats an incredibly awesome feat of engineering, considering we've only dreamed of living on foreign planets.

Sure, Musk already uses his technology on Mars to keep his city going, but going to Pluto? What a concept! When I go to California I'm making sure to jump on a ship.

October 8th, 2019

Another day goes by, another hard day of working in the tunnels, and another day the Union creeps toward our outpost in Battle Mountain. Right now they're preparing a single division attack on Battle Mountain, and we only have a single platoon. There's almost ten platoons in a division.

But, we have the tunnels. They're complete, we just need to polish them out and clean the air. My job is to manage the air filter system that's pumping air into the tunnels. It's not the worst job, but I gotta be thankful for the mining companies that are actually digging the tunnels. Kudos to the companies that set aside their competitions to aide the army.

We've also been getting a lot of volunteer soldiers coming in from the town, they all have shotguns and hunting rifles. Tomorrow is my day to train at least fifty civilians how to aim and shoot. No one's going to listen to me. I'm 16 years old, everyone who's volunteering are between the age of 40 and 70. Hey you know what I'm not entirely stupid. I got 56 confirmed kills overall. Before Denver I got 44. But that's because Omaha was more of a challenge for the Union to take over. Omaha was my first frontline battle against the Union.

October 9th, 2019

The Union is twenty miles away and their primed and ready to surround the Mountain and take over. Luckily for us they dont know we've been digging shit underground, because that's where we've been hiding all of our stuff and working. For all they know we're here, they just can't see us from the skies.

I had to train fifty people today. And go figure a few people we're reluctant to take commands from a 16 year old, but for the most part they listened. Even if they couldn't shoot as good as me at the end of the day, they got better.

Training steps were easy. Let them show me their raw skills, I show them how to hold the gun and fire it, and let them use their training to do it faster than me. Of course there's the range of people in there. From "I've lived in Tennessee since I was 2 years old and I got my first kill when I was 4", to "I've only pretended to live in Tennessee and I actually suck ass at holding my own gun". But hey you know what, at least I got all of these people on the same boat, and they know what to do in their time of peril.

We're expecting the Union to attack at any day by this point. So we're all high strung and ready for a battle. I'll write after the battle is over and I fall back again.

Reno

October 10th, 2019

Obviously, I survived. Obviously, we lost Battle Mountain. Obviously, we fell back to another city. Obviously, this is going to keep happening until I get to California. This is becoming a predictable pattern by this point I dont even know why I'm trying anymore. Fuck this.

Anyway, you're here for the juicy details. The story, the woe, the misfortune, and all of the action and gut wrenching feelings you're here for. So sure, here it fucking is.

I got to Reno earlier today, and we're stopping here for now just to prepare again in Lake Tahoe. And I'm gonna be leaving again tomorrow. There's already a division prepared in Reno and they dont need our help. They're gonna die anyway. Good luck Reno.

We're all already on high alert for an attack. They've got a Stinging Bee, a few dozen planes, and about 50,000 men about twenty miles from the mountain. The news got around that they're moving in from the west. Thanks to the scouts who actually had binoculars.

Everyone rushed to their posts through the mountains and the town. We alerted everyone in the town to stay on high alert. Then the waiting game, it takes about half an hour to travel twenty miles, and the Stinging Bee can only go as fast as 10 miles an hour. The planes obviously arrived first and bombed the shit out of the town. Major buildings and streets got ruined.

The planes came back around and started shooting at the soldiers in the open between the mountain and the town. Those fuckers didn't stand a chance, because the people who were on their way up the mountain were the snipers of the platoon. They could snipe the planes out of the sky and make them drop all around us. The falling planes were obviously an issue because it was like rain. You can run from the rain but you'll never know where a drop will land.

I was positioned underneath an overhanging rock just before the mountain got steep, so I was protected from above by 100 feet of rock, and I still had all the open area I needed to get in my kills. However, this was only wave one.

Soon enough, the Union men arrived over the mountains. Our guys could certainly keep them off our side of the hill, but it's the Stinging Bee we needed to worry about. They could hold about a hundred men inside that thing and they could drop down that way.

You see, it's common practice in a war to not shoot a man in a parachute. It just wasn't done. It was a practice in effect since the first World War. However, the Americans were never shy about shooting a man in a chute. Neither was I. I was born and raised American and I do what the hell I think will serve my country best.

I shot maybe twenty guys out of the sky. Either by ripping the cloth of the chute, or shooting the person directly and letting them dangle downwards like a marionette. However, this is like playing Space Invaders. You have to be quick to get these guys. And from what I got thirty people still made it to the ground.

That's where the heroic people of Battle Mountain come in. They got trained to shoot a shotgun or rifle, and they took out enough men in the town for our guys to go in and clear out the rest. While our guys were in the town the whole time, they let the civilians squeeze in a few kills for their own boost in morale.

But the Stinging Bee didn't just hold men in that giant fortress, they had over two hundred standard bombs aboard. And when they could hover themselves directly above the town, they let them all go. Holy shit you'd think a nuke went off again. But this town isn't important enough for a full nuke. They'd rather kill us all personally.

Soon enough, the people in the tunnels were starting to get over run. Just because a hundred people fell out of the sky that doesn't mean the 49,900 men over the mountains stopped in their tracks. Going uphill in a war is always hard, and when the tanks got over the crest there was no stopping the Union.

The issue that our army didn't think through was the idea that the Union could simply navigate our tunnels to get to the other mineshafts we've built camps inside of. Soon enough I'm hearing stories along the lines of "They're napalm bombing the insides of the tunnels and our men are getting fried." Out of the few hundred ways I've seen (or heard) a person die, that's gotta be among the worst. Besides Kale's death of course, but that's because her death was more personal to me. Once again, I'm sorry Kale. Rest in peace my girlfriend.

Anyway, the mountains are being overrun, but that's fine because we still have the smoldering remains of the town. Fuck that the lieutenant said, forcing everyone to evacuate and fall out. We kept the town of Battle Mountain alive for four hours after the beginning of the attack. But to get out alive we needed to clear away the Stinging Bee flying over the mountains.

From experience, there's one way to clear a Stinging Bee. That's to snipe the underside of it right before its about to drop a hailstorm of bombs. You have a ten second window between them opening the underside trap doors and the bombs actually falling. You'd have to be really skilled to hit a bomb the size of a motorcycle from 10,000 feet in the air.

I took two shots. Neither of them made it. Apparently one guy still alive in the mountains got the shot needed. It's cool to see one Stinging Bee go down from really far away, but it's even cooler to see one fall over the top of a mountain when you're only a half a mile away from underneath it. It blows up almost like a nuke, but in the air, and there's the satisfying boom that follows a second of silence and bright light.

Obviously the guy who took the shot didn't survive it falling on top of him, shame. I would've high fived him. But yeah, now there's flaming hot shrapnel falling in every direction and that's one more Stinging Bee down that we dont need to worry about.

After the Stinging Bee got shot down, we were clear to get on a plane and fly to Reno. We obviously got to Reno alive, but instead of trying to build another fort like in Battle Mountain, we're moving straight to Lake Tahoe. I don't get the advantage of holding a lake instead of a capital city, but my dudes in Reno seem to be ready for anything, even a nuke.

Good luck Reno. You're gonna need it.

South Lake Tahoe

October 15th, 2019

I'm now a lot more self conscious with the amount of writing that I've been doing, especially after the bit about the battle in Battle Mountain. I've dried up two pens so far, and I'm still only about 40 pages in. I need to write less, but at the same time write enough to save enough detail from my stories.

October 17th, 2019

Believe it or not. I spend more time preparing for battles than actually fighting. Which is kinda stupid, because I end up losing all of the cities and towns that I prepare and fight in. If patterns serve me correctly, I'll prepare for about a week or two, I'll get a reinforcement division from the north, we'll battle for about an hour or two, then we'll get the fall back command.

But that's not the case this time. I'm positioned in South Lake Tahoe, and the reinforcement division is in North Lake Tahoe. Our goal is to keep the union off our side of the lake. And I should mention the forces on the west side of the lake. It isn't worth the risk to leave men trapped on the east side, where there's a Union division incoming.

Our goal, create a secure border directly on the border of Cascadia and California. I doubt we're gonna be able to keep it based on how powerful this Union army is. But, here's where I thought it was interesting, the Inimicus forces from Japan and Russia are stepping in to secure a border.

We just might be able to keep a foothold in California and push these people back to at least Nevada and Arizona. Cascadia is also gonna try to push into Montana and Idaho if they're willing to try.

October 18th

The Union have arrived in the eastern part of the lake, and cant get around it in any way. They've tried crossing the lake, but we've implemented a cool method to keep them out of the water.

You see, pouring Vodka into water makes it less dense, therefore things like boats sink easier. Of course they didn't really think to use boats as far inland as Nevada, so they have to use inflatable boats. Here's the fun part, vodka is flammable.

Today over 500 inflatable boats were launched into the lake in an attempt to cross the lake without crossing through our border. They were having enough trouble fitting ten people on a boat but they didn't know the whole lake was rigged from the start. When they got more than halfway into the lake we lit it up.

Have you ever seen an entire lake catch on fire? How about the smell of Russian spirits in the air shortly after the fireball of Union forces catching on fire? Both are a very beautiful sight to behold. And we still have enough vodka to keep these fuckers out of our lake for weeks.

But now that they know our tactic to burn the lake, they need to find another way. And frankly I don't think them flying over the lake is a good idea, because we're in California. Remember the Elite Ace squadron from the prologue? These chaps are still alive. The Elite Ace have been around since the first world war, and they're going to fight long and hard through the third.

The 80's fliers that took down the aliens taught this generation how to fly, and I don't see the Germans standing a chance. These guys just dont learn do they. The Elite Ace had to try these Prussian motherfuckers three times to teach them a lesson.

October 19th, 2019

As I predicted, the Elite Ace came in from Sacramento to help us over the lake. Planes falling left and right, you'd think they're trying to Kamikaze our ass. But I think the E-A got an equal fight against the Stinging Bee they're bringing in to try to bomb us.

It was cool how they took the thing down. Each plane in the E-A took a turn attacking each engine. Soon enough, the engines failed and the Stinging Bee starting falling. It's like a meteor crashed into the lake, because waves over five feet tall were reported on each side of the lake shortly after the ship fell into the lake. War is only fun when you're winning.

October 20th, 2019

Because another division is coming into South Lake Tahoe to take my position I've been given the freedom to camp around.

That means I have nothing productive to do so I'm going to explain what my plan is after I get to California. When I get to Sacramento I'm going to escape and run away to San Francisco, where there's a commercial shuttle launch to deep space.

October 27th, 2019

It would normally be this day of the year that my mom would take me and my friend into the city to shop for Halloween stuff. But it was this time of last year that I got enlisted into the military.

Normally, we'd stop by a store to get candy and decorations, then my mom would go online later and order what we needed to make my costume for the year. I remember one year I loved ketchup so much I decided to go as a large bottle of ketchup. It's not the fact that I dressed as ketchup, it's the fact that the costume even existed to begin with.

But last year was different. In the mall we got stopped by a man, most likely a sergeant, who stopped me and Kale and told us about the military. At first we thought it was a stupid idea but the more the guy got into it the more we were thinking it was a good idea. It was not good, and I wish I wasn't as stupid as I was.

I signed up, thinking I would be put into a waiting list and enlisted when I was 18. But I forgot to read the fine print. In the emergency of a war you will be recruited immediately and required to begin training. I was 15 when they brought me into basic.

Basic was how basic goes for anyone. You get yelled at, you cry about getting yelled at, you get stronger in your weak spots and you get more mentally tough. Sure there were numerous amounts of drop and give me twenty scenarios, but for the most part they were trying to scare you.

Basic still wasn't enough training for the shit I see now.

Sacramento

October 31st, 2019

Sorry I haven't been writing too much, I lost my book in my own bag while packing up for Sacramento. I found it while I was unpacking my clothes of course. If I had it on the plane I would've surely written about the progress of Lake Tahoe. They're keeping the border clear, it's all good.

Happy Halloween! Its spooky season. My favorite time of year. You might think 'you're a girl, so you like everything pumpkin spiced'. No, I hate the Starbucks limited drinks they have. I hate the smell of the candles and the perfume. It brings back bad times, mainly this one lesson in basic that my squad went through.

Me and Kale were bunk mates. This one girl who was in the squad back in Omaha decided to bring pumpkin spice perfume with her, and by itself it smelled awful. But when our drill instructor asked about the smell and she said it was hers, the drill instructor went crazy.

"YOU BRING THIS FUCKING VEGETABLE SMELLING PERFUME INTO MY BUNK HOUSE?!"

"SIR YES SIR"

He threw the perfume bottle on the ground and the liquid spilled everywhere. Then it got worse. We had to mop it later. We didn't mop it up, it spread EVERYWHERE. Holy shit you'd think you were inside a girls locker room, because this stuff stayed in the hot summer air for the whole six weeks. You could smell the shit from the mess hall, and that was across the one mile wide camp.

EVERYONE WHO WAS TRAINING SMELLED THE BULLSHIT IN THE AIR. The girl who brought it ended up getting nicknamed "Pumpkin Shit". Poor bastard. She ended up dying in Omaha in a bombing run. Rest in peace. I hope the afterlife has a lot of pumpkin spice.

November 2nd, 2019

So good news! I get released in five days! That means I can officially ask restaurants and stores if they have military discounts. You see here's the issue. I'm 16. I can't get a job or a home yet. I'm going to be homeless for two years unless I can find my mom, or get arrested and go to prison. Frankly, I dont want to do either.

So here's the plan. When I get released I obviously need to find a way to get to San Francisco, and get a ticket for a rocket to Mars or Jupiter. I might stay in California for a year to get a job and earn some cash, but these five days I've been given are my planning days. I need to figure out how to survive in society.

November 6th, 2019

So, here's the definitive, absolute perfect plan.

First I get released, they offer a few buses around California free of charge, so I get on the one going to San Francisco. Next, when I'm in San Francisco I go to one of the piers. On the piers are job employers who are actively looking to help teenage military veterans by offering community resources such as jobs and public housing.

Once I find myself a job and house, I work around the city for awhile. I'm looking into the weed business because I'm familiar with the good Californian weed that the Cascadians are known for. They're always hiring traders who are willing to move the stuff into cities to sell cheap at retail stores.

If I can't find a job in trading weed, then I'll look into general retail. Because I'm no stranger to moving inventory and putting shit into a bag. I'm an expert on that based on how much I've been doing that in preparation for lost battles. I'm sure my employers will get a kick out of that.

Then, when I save enough money, I'll move all my belongings into a compartment bag, and a carry on bag and I'll buy a ticket to move to Ganymede Red, Jupiter. From there I'll go around to find a job and home on my own terms. I plan on carrying three changes of clothes, an easy to carry food canister, another spare notebook (this one's getting to its end soon), and food and drinks for the long ride.

When I'm in San Francisco, I want to make a spiritual grave for Kale. Because the last time I saw her body, she was still in a bloody pulp on the floor of the hideout in Denver. She never got the respect she deserved. Speaking of which, I should probably send my regards to Mr. Terbac, who I feel was a better dad than my father ever was.

But after all of that is done and dusted up in space, I'm on my own. I dont want to plan for deep space. I want to explore. I want to find something new. I want to free myself of the pain of being on Earth forever.

San Francisco

November 12th, 2019

Well, plans are going great so far. I'm in a public housing block near the infamous Pier 39, where there I have a job in moving containers of Californian weed from the boats of the other piers into the city, where retail stores buy their shipments. I dont speak a word to anyone throughout the entire day and I love it.

I started a few days ago, when I was in the process of being hired the employer asked me why he should hire me. I said the thing I've always wanted to say.

"Because I'm an opportunity you dont want to miss out on."

He had a good chuckle at that, but then I explained how when I was preparing for battles I would often get the job of moving and managing the safety of the containers. But the fact that I lost nearly every battle was a degrading characteristic of mine. But since everyone else that applied only had the horrors of basic to share, I was offered the job. Not because of my battle experience, but because of my shipment experience.

When I was told I got accepted I got excited. I was explained that every weekday except Sundays and Thursdays I would get a shipment of some sort that I needed to organize and send to other people to make sure that the packages get to their purchasing businesses.

I do my work from a computer in an office, which is a nice because the smell of salt and fish from the piers make me sick and bring back bad memories, especially after what happened in Salt Lake City. I can still smell it.

But yeah. Air conditioned office, I sit at a desk with a computer, I type in spreadsheets everyday while listening to my music, its nice.

November 14th, 2019

Turns out there's a ship launch on the 22nd, and I just my first paycheck this week. The check covers the ticket, next week's check will cover everything else. Then I'll leave my job and go to space. This is exciting!

I'm trying to avoid making friends for the time being. Sure my house has a few roommates that are trying to be my friend, but I don't have any interest. I dont want to hurt them. If that five seconds before the grenade blast brought out the truest, evilest me, I don't want that showing on anyone ever again. Kale was and will be the only person that sees the real me.

Something I wish I had that everyone nowadays seems to have is a smartphone. I survived in the military without one, but that doesn't mean I don't need one in the real world today. Like, its 2019, everyone and their cousin has one. iPhone XS, Galaxy S10, and the Huawei P30 Pro all sound like cool phones, but at this point they're not even phones. They're more meant for media consumption than calling and texting now. I'd rather spend $500 on a ticket to Ganymede than to buy a phone will a tall cinema screen.

November 18th, 2019

My roommates have gotten sick of me and decided to take me out to a movie to loosen me up. We saw a Marvel movie about Spider-Man. I honestly don't know how people can still stand to create movies or even watch them in times of great peril like this. We're in the fucking third world war and you want to take me out to watch a movie.

Yeah, the movie was good and all but I couldn't keep my mind off of space. Tom Holland as spiderman is the best rendition of a live action spider man I've seen since Tobey Maguire, but even that can't take my mind off of the idea that I've been given the opportunity to leave this planet.

My roommates are the kind of girly girls who drink a lot of starbucks and wear high end fashion and have the latest iPhone only to post on their Snapchat stories. That drives me nuts. They think they can break me in and get me to be like them, but face it, it's not happening. Being on the frontlines and losing your friends really changes who you are.

November 21st, 2019

I leave tomorrow in the afternoon. We launch into space by 2pm and I hope to never come back to earth. Earth is a really fucked up planet and there's nothing I can do to save it. It's being destroyed with the worst war ever and there's no sign of the Union or Inimicus slowing down.

We fucked up the climate, we fucked up the atmosphere, we fucked up the wildlife and natural landscapes, and we screwed over ourselves the most. These alien motherfuckers who came to earth in the 80's really changed how we view space, and we want to find them again. Well, we can't do that if we just keep screwing ourselves over with constant World War.

And then here's where it gets ironic. We think going into deep space will solve all of our problems because we think that starting fresh on another planet is the way to go. Its not. We need to learn from our mistakes if we want to save our home planet, not leave it.

I also got good news yesterday. Turns out the Stinging Bee over Battle Mountain had Michael inside of it. When that chap who sniped the thing and made it blow up it killed him. They found his bloody tag in the mountains and the U.R.A. was super confused when they found out about him. And since Michael was in my squadron reading the armies plans over my shoulder they had to let me know.

They say tough people bring good times. The good times brings weak people. The weak people create bad times. Bad times brings tough people. I'm tough in a weak time. I dont just want to continue the cycle I want to stop it in its tracks. No more wars like this anymore. No one should go through what I went through ever again.

Epilogue

So maybe the best way out of a war is to run away from it. Why do you think people in the old United States are trying to find homes in the dying American Republic. Earth went to shit since the United States got destroyed.

So maybe earth isn't the best planet for me, I need to go father and explore the other systems that people have been inhabiting. After all, I didn't join the military thinking I'd stay forever. I want to explore and go beyond.

It's interesting to think that within ten years of the Union Aerospace program, people have not only establish colonies on Mars, but Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and the Kuiper belt. Its unreal. People from the 50's and 60's only dreamed of this, but now we're here.

We're in the future we've always envisioned.

The End