Valentine Cole's Journal

Entry #4

March 26, 1893
Again I write. The current events have kept me busy, but not busy enough to not write in you.
My memories have started to fade. It is so confusing, sometimes I can be thinking and then- wait, why was I writing this? Ah, never mind.
See, the thing is, another of our team... they have been injured. The Whipping Machine... A dangerous thing. It somehow came to life, another of the Obscurosmith's scary, terrible 'games'. We did manage to beat it, but staff were injured in the process. Mr... Like? Pyke? I'll just call him the manager. Alright, so the manager, he and his helpers were horribly injured, one (Endacott? Apricot?) was thrown around, hurting himself in the process. Eventually, Eddie... Eddie sacrificed himself, throwing himself at the Whipping Machine in a valiant attempt to save us. He was whipped and flogged, mainly on his legs, arms, and even his cheek. Eventually, Pearl decided to throw the onyx horn... No, that's not right. Unicorn horn? Well, it doesn't matter. She threw the horn to Eddie, who jammed it into the Whipping Machine's depths and finally killed it. But not without a price- Eddie was severely burned on his hand in the process, so we went to the Tea Salon to help it. It worked, but we met the Obscurosmith in the kitchen, dressed as our chef. We were incensed, as he was taking our memories ahead of time. So he... unfortunately gave us a penalty, for apparently we weren't being 'good sports'. Now, when before we had 240 minutes, now we have 80. I have no idea how we will ever pass these tests, with my memory dissolving into scraps of useless information and the time disappearing so, so quickly. And Pearl... I believe she's forgetting how to read. The way she looks at things, the way she hesitates as she glances at signs... as if she's losing the ability to read. A person who cannot read, in a Book Arcade, where the point is to browse through books?
To be literate?
I fear we will never pass...