More recap and events of the week.

I'm more or less transcribing things from my journal at this point, skipping over the dull stuff though.



So our attempts at fixing one of the trucks parked outside the bunker was an abject failure. Possibly due to being so close to a detonation all the electronics were fried, and try as we might, we couldn't get it to start, even after employing every trick we all collectively knew. And so we walked.

Sheridan, all that we found there was death, damaged buildings and some makeshift shelters. Those that survived the initial blast from the bombs either died from the radiation, or from the ashfall. I suppose it was kinda like Pompeii might have been after the eruption there. We did find some supplies that were still usable and managed to find an older cat tractor that after a half day we managed to start up shot oil out of the exhaust stack over myself and Leishey before blowing a piston, so that plan went up in smoke.

Axel, one of the airforce guys under Commander Rogan (accent as thick as a brick since he immigrated from Denmark), insisted that we stay and hold a service of some kind to at try and lay the spirits of the town to rest lest they become some horrible darkness and ensnare unwary travelers. We built a cairn of rocks on ridge that the wind kept clear of ash, and we each said a few words, thanking them for the supplies, apologizing for the disturbance of their resting place and hoping they'd found peace in the afterlife. I don't doubt that we'll find more places like this.

As we returned to the bunker, we saw the orange glow dim to almost near darkness. We could almost see the ash thickening and beginning to swirl as another storm rolled in. Caught out in the open we ran as quickly as we can before diving into low spots along the broken road and held on. It was a terrible wind storm with some lightning. Because of the wind and ash we could only lay there with our head under our arms and occasionally call out for a quick head count. It felt like years bit it was over as quickly as it had struck. No one was hurt, though everyone was covered in ash, even more so than usual, though this storm had cleared the sky some and we could see the silhouettes of mountains to the east before the air thickened again and only the haze remained.

A few days later another earthquake hit, based off the way the radio antennae started tilting from this one, we think it originated from the east. The orange glow picked up a bit of blue and looked purpleish for a while before changing back to orange and for a moment it looked like electricity was arcing across the ground from the east, as though a power line had fallen over and was charging the ash. That's the last bit I remember before blacking out and waking up inside the bunker and hungry. According to Leishey, Eivan found me asleep under the radio antennae and carried me back in. Not sure if I was hallucinating from lack of sleep or not since no one else felt the quake.


Enough about what was going on back then:

So about the town of Cheyenne. It's weird to say the least, no one seems to have noticed us yet despite there being twelve of us, and having a relatively large camp. Then again we've been making an effort not to be seen. There's something off about the town. There are no one we can call an adult that we've seen, and everyone in the town appears to be fine with that. We're probably going to circle around the town and avoid it. Nothing really beyond that, I mean other than it being a town full of children, they have a small group of livestock and some greenhouses that every morning a group of them, different people each day, tend to carefully to clear all the ash off. It looks like a functional small self sufficient town, but with no adults. It's just... weird, and honestly a group of adults in all black sporting military rifles showing up out of the waste could upset whatever balance they have and throw it all into chaos.

Oh, right, the ash cloud is thin enough here that there is an actual day night cycle instead of light being reflected from yellowstone's gaping maw off the ash creating a perpetual sunrise/sunset effect.