Entry 17

Orders don’t change

Move

Clear

Report

Repeat

People think routine makes this easier.

It doesn’t.

You still remember faces.

Today’s patrol covered another abandoned neighborhood. Twenty-three houses.

Twenty-three empty kitchens.

Twenty-three tables where someone expected to eat dinner again.

No infected.

No survivors.

Just dust.

One of the new Hunters asked why we still search places like that.

Gideon told him because hope gets people killed.

No one argued.

Sometimes I wonder if silence is worse.

At least the infected make noise.

The empty places just wait.

Found another child’s room today.

Bed still made.

Rabbit on the pillow.

I left it.

Not because I cared.

Because carrying dead things serves no purpose.

…

That’s what I wrote in the report.

I don’t know why I looked back before closing the door.

We move east tomorrow.

Gideon says something has been slipping through our patrols.

If it breathes…

we find it.

—Rowan

Entry #85

Subject: Professor Hops

Object: Stuffed Rabbit

Condition: Extremely worn

Missing one button eye.

Left ear permanently folded.

Several repairs performed using different thread colors.

Appears incapable of intimidating anyone.

Initial Assessment: No measureable survival value

Revised Assessment: Object significantly reduces Evie’s stress during sleep.

Presence correlates with fewer nightmares.

Owner becomes noticably irritated if object is moved without permission.

Correction: Object possesses measurable survival value.

Additional Observation: Loose button repaired…again. Repair was completed while Evie was asleep. She has not noticed. She will. She always does.

Recommendation: If rabbit is lost…

Do not tell Evie to “just find another one.”

Survival probability decreases dramatically

End Report.