PERSONNEL FILE

Vienna's journal entries

(OOC)

"My memory keeps getting worse... Thank God."

Out.

"I am out of the hospital, and out of 24/7 care.

I was told I'll be working for a task force soon. I only need a few weeks of training and debriefs of my work load.  So much of my time to start as a simple private.

My left eye still hurts, it hurts so bad I can barely keep it open for more than a few minutes. It feels like the bright neon lights follow me everywhere now, taunting me.

They said I will be fine.

They said, and will say, many things.

Yet none of them have uttered a word about him. Neither have I.

I no longer deserve to say his name.

I can only pray.

The site

It seems these creatures have been living along side us for years on end. Most of them have labels, a number, and a warning of how your mortal years can be cut short within minutes.

These creatures are disgusting, utter rejects of nature that plague our lives.

Whatever I do, whatever they do, will never lead to an end for those beings. 

We're not making a better world.

We're sustaining an unfixable one.

 Those things will never belong, and I'd rather play a fool's game than ever accept they have a space in our reality.

Cafeteria

The cafeteria recently started carrying grape juice. It's sweet and tangy, a little bit sour too.

Bittersweet.

It's Christmas season. Site Command put up a tree somewhere, apparently. Haven't seen it myself. 

I only hear these things from passing conversations.

My father called, or at least he tried to. Nurse ended up talking for him.

I can only pray.

Pray.

Home

Torva looks exactly the same as I remember. It's colder than Colorado in the winter.

The old ladies around tried to talk to me, but I never learned the language. I don't have anything to offer.

Roads are unkept.

My father resembles an old hound more than the soldier I once knew. He pointed out my "new" gray eye, as if his own gaze isn't covered in mist.

Vienna, Virve, Virve—  That's all he could repeat. Dementia isn't to blame for it, though.

I doubt he ever had anything to say about me without bringing her up.

Nurses treat him like a newborn.

Had a vastlakukkel before heading back home.

Well?

Some person from another site passed away. Nothing out of the ordinary, but I've heard their site is more active than ours. It's insensitive to take their spot so soon, but time awaits no one.

More plagues terrorizing humanity? I'd like to assist with that.

I've gotten used to my work by now, and I hate it. 

If I don't have anything to do, I'm as good as that dead person.

I can't allow myself to simply 'be'.

Alaska is a big change.

I miss Colorado already.

Polar Bear

Mountains covered with snow surround this site. There's a beach, a lighthouse, and a small town nearby.

Personnel don't seem to be fond of me. Grieving, still? 

Miss XO introduced herself to me. One of the few who didn't take offense to my arrival, at least until I truly spoke with her.

She said people here work different, that they're more attached to each other. 

Create bonds to make life a little bit easier to endure. What a joke.

My body is a vessel for the soul which will carry to the God above. 

I don't carry companionship, nor emotion for my kin.

It's our duty...

It's my duty, Vienna.

Give it up

Radiation is abundant around here.

I thought it was over. They said I was better, that whatever cough I had wouldn't be anything but a small nuisance.

My supply of medicine is running low. It was meant to end back in that damned hospital.

Did the pills go bad? 

Have I gone bad?

Having to replace the tissue box in the officer bunks so frequently is already embarrassing enough, but I can't even control my own blood anymore.

When have I ever?

It hurts to breath.

It hurts even more thinking of that old hound.

I'll end up like him if I don't die soon.

Dates

Autumn is my favorite time of a year.

Harvesting time for grapes.

Decaying yellow leaves that remind me of your hair.

It was a cold morning despite the rays of sun peeking through the mountains. 

You told me of a place that sold fresh grape juice, and how much the tangy flavor reminded you of me. Whatever that implied, I never questioned it.

No responsibilities for the day meant we could make our own way to the vineyard, use our legs to walk instead of running for cover.

The rustle of wind mixed around with your holy words. As always, you found a way to speak of what makes you passionate.

We were different, in different ways.

I never needed a God to march forward. You were my own deity to hope for.

The grapes were ripe.

Squish them too hard and they might die.

That's the only way to get a tangy glass of juice.

I woke up with a new set of lungs.

Virkelighed

Reality grounds me once again.

Reality proves how weak my flesh is once again.

I am nothing once again.

I am Virkelighed.

You lied.

A big property with a run down white house in the middle of it. 

A few of the wood walls were stained, some broken in half. 

The windows had a blue tint, almost similar to my eyes. 

I would have never been part of a view, certainly not his. 

My mother’s death decided back then how much of a daughter I would be. She has been gone for 24 years, and a long straight line could be crossed all the way back from that moment to what I’m currently viewing.

The white house barely kept itself together, no matter how much money I have spent in this place.

On my third and last visit, the white color never went back to being clean.

My face and hands felt numb to the winter breeze, incapable of truly feeling anything around me. Even though it was supposed to be spring by now, the force within the white walls was stronger than anything outside of it.

A nurse appeared in front of the door only when I noticed her. She spoke in a language I am supposed to remember, yet was never familiar with.

He never had more than a few words to say, and my name was never part of those.

— “Virkelighed.” I said from behind the wool scarf covering my mouth.

The woman’s expression became sour, hesitating on her own words before speaking in the language again. Her hands came together in a praying motion, sorrowful eyes accompanying the gesture.

I don’t speak that language either. Not anymore.

Useless gestures for those above to see won’t pay my debt.

There was no other choice but to follow behind the woman.

The leather loafers made the old floorboards creak more than usual, more than the other people walking around.

I was hurting it, and it was crying back to me.

A receptionist called my last name, following it up with meaningless noise. He placed papers on the desk, pointing at an empty space meant for a signature.

—”No signature. No visit. No time… 

Kriitilises seisundis patsiente lubatakse külastada ainult nädalavahetustel, preili. 

Meie meeskond ei olnud teie saabumiseks kunagi valmis.”

His concerned tone never stopped me from reaching into my bag. I placed the 4 stacks of euro bills on top of the papers.

—”Two years. Two.” 

That was enough to keep him breathing for two more years. Three short of what the nurses told me his current lifespan was.

Another stack dropped on top of the papers, covering where my signature was meant to be written.

—”Funeral cost.”

The man stared, but his gaze went further than the cost of expenses in front of him. He looked at me, and simply gave me the number of his room.

A colorful red rug decorated the hallway all the way down to his room. Color inside health centers was not something I was familiar with, but red was the exception. 

The flimsy wooden door felt oddly heavy once I walked inside. 

Some sounds you replay in your head.

Some sights you keep alive.

Some smells you never forget.

I will never forget,

the slow sound of his heart monitor,

the shrinking of his skin,

and the odor of his pathetic state.

Everything inside the room was already so tidy. No cards or flowers around, no visiting hours marked in the calendar, and a stillness which forced me to stop breathing entirely.

This is what I am the daughter of.

This is what is left of that old hound.

My shoes were stuck to the ground. It had to be the shoes.

I have never refused to take a step forward. This won’t be the first time.

It had to be them, not me.

Andrus Virkelighed opened his eyes, or what was left of them. The mist in them had gotten deeper from what I had remembered.

—”I’m here…”

—”I won’t be coming back. This is it.”

The only familiar thing was the depth forming in my chest, the tightness in my lungs that reminds me every day how weak humans like me are. Like us.

Just like I had forgotten his, he had forgotten my language a long time ago.

It was me who was making meaningless noises all this time.

—”Tütar.”

—”Mina, tütar.”

You were always blind. When your eyes looked directly at my face, you never recognized my features.

—”Virve.” He whispered.

You were always ignorant. When you decided a name wasn’t worthy of me, you chose to call me by hers instead.

Death changed you, but it wasn’t your own.

—”No, no.”

I took a step forward, the only signal left in my body to beg for recognizement, to beg for a spot in his decaying mind.

—”Ma olen…”

—”I am…”

This was the closest I had ever been to a rotting corpse.

Why did it have to be him?

One human who never bothered to dignify me with a name; his bed was used, tattered by a breathing body.

Russ. The bed was neatly done after the body was incinerated, and the only thing attached to a memory of living blood remained stained within the white strands of cotton, all grouped inside a black trashbag.

And Blackwood. That should have been the material of your final resting place.

You’re still lost somewhere, rotting away without anyone to watch over you.

An old hound cannot bark, cannot see, cannot move without limping. Its snout could only smell the future awaiting, and its legs could only get it so far away from destiny.

A dead canine can let you see how many layers of skin we truly possess. Its legs could run for as long as its memories allowed.

What path would you have chosen if you were ever destined for something else, I will never know.

Even when the answer is as clear as your last words were, I will never know.

I am merely a dog. My legs won’t move from these floorboards unless they are ripped from the rest of my body, and my eyes can only see yet another empty bed waiting to be cleaned.

There is no name for me.