September 11th, 2066

10 5 1
                                    

It's all over the news. We can't stop by a gas station without seeing the reports. Lorraine keeps her head down and refused to acknowledge the broadcasts, but I see them. I look right at them and I watch, excepting to see Trent, Sergio, Mateo, or perhaps someone else that I know. I'm waiting to see a body I recognize because at that moment, my guilt will be validated.

I know that I should just forget them. I know I should let my brain do its thing, pulling Trent and Sergio out of my head. Part of me wants to keep holding onto them, though. I can't keep dismissing the casualties of war, and that's what this is... this is a war and, in a way, I'm now a double-agent. So is Lorraine. At best, we're just traitors.

Lorraine talks to herself at night, now. It's a bit out-of-hand. She'll sob, whispering her son's name over and over again. It escapes her lips so softly that it can hardly be understood. Almost like a gust of wind. And she says she's sorry, but I'm not sure if she's apologizing to her deceased child, me, or the people she killed. Maybe she's apologizing to Crutch as a whole. Maybe she believes in a god.

We're heading toward the western coast, right now; the Nevada state line is just an hour or so away. Lorraine thinks that if we get to the coast, we can find a boat and just keep moving. She's sure that she heard there's a Crutch outpost in Taiwan. I haven't heard that, before, but... what do I know? So we're heading westward. How we'll explain what happened to the facility in Kansas, I don't know. We can't admit to sabotaging the mission, I know that much for sure.

I heard Trent's voice, today. I heard him laughing in the back seat. When I turned around, I saw him very briefly, then he faded. It was like seeing something out of the corner of your eye, then having it disappear when you try to focus on it. I knew it was him, I just couldn't see him. Not really.

The frequency of my hallucinations seems to be increasing. I'm not sure what to do about that. Seems to me there's nothing that can be done. Even if I had access to any medication I desired, how would I know which one could be used to mitigate my symptoms?

The Imperfect's Journal: 2Where stories live. Discover now