text } Images May Disturb You: the blog of Georgia Mason, entry #1

[choosetruth]

My name is Georgia Carolyn Mason. I'm a licensed journalist from After the End Times. Five years ago, on a website that is inaccessible from this location, I started my blog and wrote my mission statement: to always tell the truth no matter the cost. For the past several months I've been following Senator Peter Ryman's presidential campaign and reporting on his progress. For the past few minutes, I had been running for my life after someone blew up my trailer. It turns out that cost was a lot higher than I ever anticipated. And that was just zombies and a government conspiracy. What will the cost be for telling this new truth: that I seem to have woken up in a literal fairytale?

I tested clean five minutes ago, and hallucinations have never been one of the symptoms of Kellis-Amberlee. I'm forced to conclude that this is, indeed happening and not a very strange dream. I would like nothing more than a way to send this information home so that our readers could know about this, but I've done my research. All sources indicate that is, for the time being, impossible. So, I suppose, I'll just have to start reporting here, and know that someday, should the opportunity arise, I'll be able to bring the news home.

In the meantime, if anyone here is a doctor, or even better an epidemiologist or virologist, I have some questions.

Comments

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[postictal]

[Hallucinations. See, normal people jump to that conclusion plenty. He's not the only one who must've thought, who must've assumed the only thing wrong with the world was him. Is it reassuring to know the world is just as fucked as you are?

Not really, no. Mostly it's just disquieting.

He could say any number of things that might adequately address the points she's addressing. He could say something insightful, or paranoid, or curious.

But he doesn't.]

you know this isn't a personal blog right?

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[choosetruth]

It's the best I've got right now.

[She itches for a real wireless connection and access to her real blog, but in the absence, at least she's writing. At least she's keeping the signal moving.]

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[postictal]

i mean you could record it without posting it to the network.
i mean if you don't want people to see.
if you do congrats i guess.

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[naughty_nurse]

I'm the Super High School Level Nurse. Is that okay?

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[choosetruth]

It's great, but probably not helpful in this situation. High school level isn't gonna cut it.

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[naughty_nurse]

I'm sorry I should have explained myself in the first place!

In my home, Super High School Level means you're the best at what you do above everyone else, because you were accepted to a very special school. Hope's Peak Academy only lets in people with amazing talent, and if you're accepted, you're the best at what you do.

[thisismadfreaky]

Wait-- zombies? For real?

[choosetruth]

[She's taken in enough of the archives that she isn't surprised he's surprised, but it's still... weird. Zombies have been around as long as she's been alive, and she's in her mid-twenties. Doubting zombies isn't really a thing anymore. Hasn't been since 2014.]

Yes for real. And it's exactly that reaction that made fatalities so high during the Rising.

[thisismadfreaky]

Right. But can you really blame anybody for doubting it when they've been raised to believe it's just the stuff of science fiction?

[video]

[wriggedywrecked]

H-Holy fuck, the, the bloggers have arrived. Shit, I-I hate to break it to you but there's like, like, like barely any memes here. We don't even have real internet.

[video]

[choosetruth]

[Video chatting her readers isn't usually in her job description, but this is not exactly her usual blog. Usually she ignores the text comments too. This is what moderators are for.]

So I've noticed. Memes aren't really in my division, but I can't believe no one's reporting the news.

[video]

[wriggedywrecked]

You uh, you also realize literally nothing you say here is ever going to carry over to, to whatever the fuck world you're from, you realize that, right.

What's to fucking report, anyway? We have the, the goddamn literal Cheshire Cat and Dormouse telling us that shit's about to go down, that's uh, that's just about the only shit that's ever f-fucking newsworthy.

[luckynumberthree]

[ Well. That's something new. Simon ponders what's in that message there for a moment before typing back a reply. ]

Welcome to AFTER After the End Times.

I'm Simon. There's no zombies here, or infection. Not on a normal basis anyway. It's zom free, which is maybe harder to wrap your head around than magical closets some days. Although I think I'm jealous you got to keep the internet where you're from. How the hell did you manage THAT?

[choosetruth]

It didn't stay up everywhere, though enough people kept enough connectivity to share what they'd learned and help other people survive. But the Rising was over twenty years ago. By now everything's back to normal, though I hear back in pre-rising times you didn't have to take a blood test every five minutes.

I'm a smart girl. I can wrap my mind around most things.

[The no infection thing, though, gives her pause. Everyone's infected, or at least, back home everyone's infected. And as used to zombies as she is, she doesn't want to bring them here.]

It sounds like you've been exposed to Kellis-Amberlee as well. Or [She grimaces, she can wrap her mind around most things but it doesn't change the fact that it feels like she's writing science fiction.] whatever they call it where you come from. How has it not spread to everyone here?

[luckynumberthree]

Twenty years??

[ Well, shit. ]

I've never heard of anything called Kellis-Amberlee. We might have different zombies. Then again, I'm only into a year or two after everything went to shit. There's not a lot of communication in my world. There's survivors, but we're few and far between. Radio waves have been the only way to get in touch with other survivors, other than old fashioned face to face.

And it hasn't spread because it doesn't exist here. Most people aren't from anywhere that's ever seen a zombie, other than in horror movies. Maybe it's this place's magic. Or it could be that time isn't really a thing here either, or so I've heard theories on. We don't age, we're like... pulled out of time or something. Could be why things we're infected with or affected by back home are just nonexistent here.

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[demonstrate]

[ it's strange, to remember an easy friendship with someone that she's never met. the event is over, but iris' impression of georgia remains. even if it hadn't, she would be making this offer all the same: ] Iris West here. I arrived in Wonderland early June, and I've kept extensive notes on every event since, if you're interested in looking them over.

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[choosetruth]

[Right, "events." Because that weird wizard thing wasn't a dream and the people she talked to were real and things like that happen often around here.

She's getting this. Sort of.]

I'd appreciate that. We met, didn't we? During the last event. How often do those happen?

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[demonstrate]

Yeah, we did. You came to me with a newspaper idea and I loved it.

[ how many times did she consider starting a wonderland blog? and how many times did she wonder if doing so would be admitting defeat, accepting she is really not going back home? ] They usually work like clockwork. Usually about two a month, as far as I can tell. They're always preceded by a riddled warning of some kind, like the one with talking mice.

[ yeah. she can't believe she said that, either. ]

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[lamiae]

what's kellis-amberlee?

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[choosetruth]

The scientific name for the disease that caused zombies.

[So weird that she has to explain this. So weird that it's not common knowledge.]

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[lamiae]

a disease. so only a portion of zombie films got that right.

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[shorthair]

[text takes clementine awhile because she never really learned before the apocalypse happened and then after it was... pointless. no internet, no power.]

You have zombies and you can still be a journalist and have a government?

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[choosetruth]

It wasn't the end of the world for us. A major disaster that changed everything, sure, but... we won. Zombies are still a problem, but plenty of people go their whole lives without encountering any.

[Journalists are not part of that plenty.]

[voiceinthedark]

Oh, hey, welcome to the zombie apocalypse club!

There's none here, thankfully. I think I'm jealous that you've got the internet at home though. We have ROFFLENET but it's a bit slow. We're reduced to ASCII art.

[choosetruth]

Honestly, it's hard to reconcile the fact that this is a club and not just the way the world is.

[She's never known a world without zombies. It's not that she misses them, of course, but it's weird. But then again, the virus is still inside her and her brother. The fact that most people here aren't infected at all doesn't make her feel safer. It terrifies her. Things can change, and no one would be prepared.]

The internet was what saved humanity. When traditional media was still laughing about "silly pranks," blogs were spreading the truth and telling everyone what worked and what would get you killed. And also it was over 20 years ago so even the places that lost connectivity at the time have been restored by now.