… I am recording because … well, I don’t really know why I’m recording. Soon, all life on the planet Gle’ah will be gone, and there will be no one left to hear my voice. No one to hear my confession.
Perhaps that’s it—I’m confessing. It’s as good a reason as any, I suppose.
If you’re listening to this, then life has found a way to thrive on this planet again, so please regard what I’m about to tell you as a cautionary tale.
Ilia is—was, I suppose—the most powerful city-state on Gle’ah. I learned of Ilia’s glorious history when I was just a boy, forced in school to memorize the names of my city’s heroes and the dates of their military victories. Over the centuries, Ilia’s generals extended the city’s empire over more than half the surface of the planet, conquering smaller cities and villages and forcing them to pay tribute in exchange for protection.
Ilia’s conquest seemed as though it would never end—until our armies reached the foot of the mountains on the other side of Gle’ah. There, we encountered the Bakarai, mountain-dwellers who rebuffed Ilia’s conquest by luring Ilian legions into the foothills and then ambushing them from higher ground.
All this happened centuries ago, before I was born. By the time I was a boy, the stories of Ilian glory were already lies, foolish propaganda that no one believed anymore. Everyone knew the truth—we were losing the war. Our armies had retreated into the plains, and the Bakarai armies—amassed in secret in underground cities dug out of the heart of the mountains—had begun to advance and take land that once belonged to us. With every step backward, our armies shrank; and with every step forward, the Bakarai numbers grew, as the farmers and villagers and city-dwellers who’d once paid Ilia tribute took up arms against us.
By the time I was a grown man and a respected scientist in the city, the Bakarai armies had grown so large that our defeat was certain. Our generals estimated that it would only be a few seasons more before the Bakarai circled our city and launched an assault against our walls. One day, Chancellor Ekto came to me and asked if I might quit my research into new medicines and cures for illness to work instead on a weapon that would rebuff our enemies.
I agreed. But now, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t regret my decision. It would have been better for Ilia to be crushed to rubble, better for my nieces and nephews to be murdered before my very eyes. To let that happen—that would have been the difficult choice. The courageous choice. But I took the coward’s path.
As soon as I designed the weapon, I knew my mistake. I knew that what I had created would mean the end of all life on Gle’ah.
The weapon was a pulse beam—a wave of radiation that would rush outward from Ilia’s outer wall and wash over the entire surface of the planet, gaining power with each life it took, each cell it destroyed, until every person, animal, and plant on Gle’ah was dead. Only the Ilians inside the city walls would survive.
But survive for what, with the rest of the planet dead?
I begged Ekto not to use the weapon, but on the night when the Bakarai finally came to our walls, shouting as they brandished their glowing light spears and fire swords in the air, the Ilians panicked and begged their Chancellor to do something. In a moment of weakness, he set off the pulse.
Now, our enemies are gone. But so are our crops. Ilia has descended into chaos as the citizens scramble for what few resources remain. They will starve soon—if the deadly radiation my weapon put into our air and water supply doesn’t kill them first.
Billions of lives lost, all because of me. I should kill myself. If I were a braver man, I would. But I fear what awaits me on the other side of death—what hell the gods have waiting for me.
Enough confession for one night.
Second entry, dated the eleventh day of the fourth month of the season P.I. 3748.
It’s morning. Last night I had a strange dream. I was walking outside, beyond the walls of Ilia in the wasted world I’ve created. Alongside me, hordes of people were staggering back and forth, stumbling toward death, their mouths crying out for water and their skin covered with sores. Only I seemed unaffected by the radiation in the air.
Then, in the distance, a cloud rose up from the dust of the ground and billowed toward us. Soon it surrounded us, and as the dust buffeted the people around me, I watched as the sores on their bodies healed and they suddenly became well again.
Just a dream. A silly dream. But now I keep thinking about putting something in the air—a cloud of something to offset the radiation and bring healing to those who are dying.
Maybe this could be my penance.
Maybe.
Third entry, dated the twenty-first day of the fourth month of the season P.I. 3748.
You’re probably wondering what P.I. means. Among my people, it stands for peace. The glorious era of Ilian peace.
It’s a cruel joke now, utterly meaningless—if it ever meant anything. Today I went above ground and saw just how meaningless it is. I wore a suit to protect myself from the radiation, and brought a gun to protect myself from the people who remain.
The city is chaos. The streets are full of dead bodies. The stench of death is overpowering. Those who still live will be dead very soon. They stagger back and forth, barely seeing the world around them. They’re blind to everything except their own pain, the agonizing effects of radiation sickness eating their bodies from the inside out.
While I was on the surface, I passed an old woman. She was sitting on the ground with her back to the outer wall of a tall building, weeping and asking me in a quiet voice for some water. I stopped and crouched to look into her eyes. There were hundreds of others just like her—but she reminded me of my own mother, and I wanted to help her. Her skin was covered in sores. I gave her some uncontaminated water from my canteen. Half of it dribbled down her chin, but she managed to swallow some. She begged me to help her and reached her hands toward me. I stood and backed away, left her pleading there on the ground.
Not everyone is so sick. Others are stronger. The radiation hasn’t affected them too badly yet. They use their strength to take from those who are still weak, roving around in gangs that loot and kill. I have to be careful not to be seen when I come back down to my underground laboratory. If they see that I am here, they will break in and kill me.
Next time I venture out, I must be more careful.
Fourth entry, dated the twenty-seventh day of the fourth month of the season P.I. 3748.
I’ve done it. My research from before the war, my life’s work—the search for the elixir of life, a cure for death and disease—is complete.
I went to the surface again today, with a small syringe of my creation. Careful not to be seen by the gangs, I went back to the old woman. She was still alive. Her pain must have been incredible.
I crouched in front of her and gave her a drink of water. She barely opened her eyes. Then I took her by the wrist, peeled back her sleeve, and injected my elixir into the crook of her arm. Before my eyes, in a matter of seconds, the sores on her skin healed and she opened her eyes.
She stared at me and began babbling crazily. I barely understood what she was saying. Her eyes were wild, clouded. It was almost like she wasn’t seeing me—like my elixir was giving her some hallucination, some vision.
I backed away from her. She stood and grabbed at my suit. Her voice got even louder. Fearing that the gangs would hear her and come to kill us both, I tried to silence her, to calm her down, but it was no use. She went on babbling, louder and louder. Hearing footsteps echoing in the streets behind us, I fumbled with my gun and fired. The blast blew a hole in her chest, but her body stayed on its feet for a few nauseating seconds. Then she fell to her knees and crumpled to the ground.
I ran back here as quickly as I could. I hope no one followed me. A couple times I thought I heard footsteps on the cobblestones behind me. But every time I looked back, there was no one. I think I’m safe.
But I can’t stop thinking about that old woman. The things that she was saying. They keep coming back to me. She seemed to know me, somehow—“It’s you,” that’s what she said, “the one who destroyed everything!”
How could she have known that? Perhaps the elixir I’ve created does more than just heal—perhaps it brings powers of heightened perception as well.
The important thing is that my elixir worked. Now I just need to find a way to spread it across the planet, to vaporize the healing particles so they can spread and heal Gle’ah.
Fifth entry, dated the seventh day of the fifth month of the season P.I. 3748.
I’m going to die.
The gangs on the surface have discovered my hiding place. They know I’m here. They’re attacking my door with a battering ram, and once they come in, they’ll almost certainly kill me.
It doesn’t matter. I’ve taken steps to make sure that my creation will get out into the world.
Before I designed the pulse beam, I invented a powerful missile that could fly through the air and kill enemies far away. The Chancellor ultimately rejected it as not being powerful enough to defeat the Bakarai, so I kept on with my research. But I still have prototypes of the missile stocked here in the lab, as well as a prototype of the launching mechanism. I’ve laced each of the missiles with my healing elixir. From here, I’ll launch the missiles into the air one by one, all over Gle’ah. When they land, the explosion will vaporize the elixir and send the healing particles into the air, where they will replicate themselves. From there, what happens next is in the hands of the gods.
I’ve loaded one of the rockets into the launch chamber. I’ll launch it right after I sign off here. This will be my last recording.
I hope that this helps to undo some of the damage I’ve done. I hope … I hope that the gods will forgive me for the death I’ve brought upon this planet.