Kevin returned to the university and made his way back to the library, where he studied Yankish until dinner. After eating dinner, today a stew made with potatoes and fish, Kevin retired to his dorm. As he entered his room, he saw a light tan canvas bag sitting on his bed. Kevin changed into his nightwear and lay in bed. Once comfortable, he grabbed the correspondence Dyson gave him earlier.
The handwriting was tough for him to read, but the words were written in English so, although littered with spelling mistakes, it was understandable for Kevin who, after a silent yawn, began reading its contents.
"My beloved grandniece."
"I hope you are well. I haven't gotten the chance to see you and your father since I left Illnoi for California, which is why when your father made the trip here and visited me, I broke into tears. Your dad is so old now, not as old as me, but far from the young man I left behind all those years ago. And he tells me you are all most a grown woman, a fact which gives joy and pain to my heart. Do you remember how I used to carry you as a baby? lol."
Kevin visibly cringed upon seeing the written version of a text acronym. It just felt wrong seeing one outside of a phone or computer screen. The letter continued.
"Of course, I don't expect you to remember, so I've attached a photo I had of us together which I've been able to keep all these years. Have you seen a photo before? They were common enough when I was your age, but I've heard they're becoming expensive since functioning cameras are rarer now. Please take good care of it. I'm old and approaching death, so I felt you should keep it safe."
"Your father has told me many things about Illnoi since I left, each thing progressively worse than the last. Is it really true that a horde of mutated deer ate towns of people for an entire season? While not surprising, the idea that deer could do this astounds me :("
Is this guy writing an email or a letter?
The upside down smile was common enough on computers before Kevin was frozen, but this was the first time he'd seen it written down on paper.
"Your father tells me the reason he came all this way was because he wanted to move here with you and your brother, while in better years I would have welcomed the notion it pains my heart to tell you that you should stay as far away from Cali as possible. I've already given your father my opinion, but I've been told that you were the one who suggested the idea, so I would like to explain my reasoning to you."
"Let me start by asking you a question. Have you ever seen a people consume themselves? When I was much younger than you are right now, I lived in Richmond, it's in the far East where the ocean first touches land on maps. I was invited into the house by a good friend of mine named Alex."
"When I showed up at his door, the people who greeted me were his parents. They urged me to come in and wait for Alex, who they said was coming back, but I wasn't interested and decided to leave. That was the best decision I've ever made. You see, after running out of food, his parents got desperate and so attempted to eat me using Alex's invitation as bait. I know this because my next door neighbor Micheal was eaten by the same people 2 days later."
"This may sound horrific and I agree it was, but faced with little choice after food stocks ran out, many committed the taboo of consuming human flesh to survive. I honestly don't know a single adult from my youth who didn't cannibalize in some way. One thing you'll notice no matter where you go from the largest outpost to the most primitive band of raiders is that the punishments for cannibalism are always extremely harsh and creative. My guess is that this is a manifestation of guilt."
Kevin turned to the next page
"Back to the topic when I was young, food scarcity, chaos, and breakdown forced me and many other city dwellers to move on mass into the countryside. These places usually had no food to spare. I'll let your imagination paint what happened next. When you enter a household, remember the phrase "You're living on stolen land" because it's often true. During the chaos of the collapse, the mass movement and death of people meant that homes and lands were abandoned or more often than not taken by desperate survivors who in turn would get the land robbed from them by raiders, bandits, and armies, who themselves would lose it after said group collapsed."
"Case in point, a year ago, one of my friends asked me to mediate a dispute between two brothers over a farm in the valley that their father had farmed for a long time. When I asked a neighbor about how their father acquired the property, I learned that he murdered the last owner and seized the place on the pretext that he was scammed while buying produce. The brothers had told me that the land was theirs for generations and even went so far as to create a fake deed!"
"I suspect the situation is the same, if not worse, elsewhere as people who know they are illegitimate invent reasons to claim things they do not own using lies and conjecture. At the lowest level these will be people claiming land, ancestors, or false pasts, at the highest, well you know how many so called "Presidents" "Governors" "Mayors" and "Sheriffs" operate now and I'm including that prostitute who says she's the president of California. For being what they are, I respect bandits and raiders for at least being honest about how they are thieves and murderers."
Kevin turned the page once more
"You may be asking yourself why I speak to you about this. The answer is fairly simple. Cali will not be a good place to live in a few years. All the horrors and depredations I saw in my youth, the consumption of cities, endless violence, robbery, and hunger, they will return and I want you, your brother, and your father as far away from it as possible. Had it been a year ago I would have warmly encouraged the three of you to make the trip assuming it was safe, although hard, life is stable and for the most part safe here, I eat twice a day and have fruits at least once a week, however the situation has changed."
"Last year, President Rodriguez set out with an army to save Nevada and Arizona from savagery. No one has heard from him since. I assume he took an L of some sort. Since then, a number of things have happened. Raiders from Baja swept into Socal, Southern Cali, and destroyed entire towns before running back to their desert hellhole. But they aren't what concerns me. What does scare me are the stories I've heard from the valley. Demons wearing human flesh prowl the streets, wantonly destroying each other and everyone around them."
Demons wearing human flesh... that's just an expression, right?
Since awakening, Kevin had been curious about how the world he knew disappeared and changed. Before, the supernatural was unthinkable and technology had seemed to be unstoppable. Now every one he came across seemed to be associated with the supernatural in some way and technology had taken several steps back. This letter now answered some of his questions while raising new ones.
Kevin slowly flipped to the final page.