Dear Theogenes,

I am writing you from a forward outpost. I'm afraid I can't specify further due to army regulation of keeping troop locations and movements secret.

It doesn't feel like its been two years since we graduated the Gymnasium together. Though we both hated it, I look back fondly upon those days. It seems like life was so much less complicated then. Then again, so much has changed since that summer after we graduated. In the Fall I joined the army. The reforms passed by the politicians in the last election did wonders for the state of the Army. I know we both always joked we'd join up if we didn't graduate and yet, when I'd come back from traveling that summer, I found the benefits, not least of which the money, as well as the opportunities offered by the newly reformed army to be particularly enticing.

Basic Training was hard. There's no two ways about it. I definitely wasn't prepared for what awaited me the moment myself and about 300 other recruits showed up for basic training. Only half of those that arrived graduated from our class in the School of Cavalry. It was a good experience though. It made me strong, physically, mentally, and psychologically. I was recommended for promotion to Sergeant. This required me to continue on for another 3 extra months of training and and extra two years of service. I'm currently assigned to the 47th Shock Division, Senator Gneisenow's Battalion, 4th Company. We're a combined arms battalion. I'm in the mechanized infantry Company. The leadership training I've received has been a great experience. Working as a group leader and tank commander is exciting stuff. I can't tell you much more about it, but I'm looking forward to our next assignment. Rumor in the Battalion has it that there is a big urban combat training exercise coming up. Urban combat is specialty of my company.

You are a hard man to find. I had to really dig to find your address. How have you been in these past two years? I assume you are still at university? What course did you decide to pursue? Philosophy and Politics? The Army is going to pay for my university education as soon as I've served my time. I can either go to the Military academy in the Capital or any of the other private universities around the country. I think I'll go to the Capital for sure. I've heard great things about it all. The few days I've spent there in transit have been some of the best of my young life.

Do take care of yourself. There's firestorm coming. Senator Gneisenow is not the only member of the Senate that has funded a battalion here in the army. Who knows how much say he actually has in the actions taken by the battalion. In any case, Intellectuals like you, who don't have a party affiliation may very well bear the brunt of what the future has in store.

Your Friend,

Gideon

Suddenly, a knock at the door...

Below you will find the final entry of Søren Asegelv's log book. Dated more than 4 and a half years after the nuclear holocaust that ended civilization on Earth. Recovered many years later by an explorer from the Mars colony. 

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Begin log entry. 

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Day one thousand six hundred and seventy... Two. I have been alone for so long. I am loathe to open the bunker door and see what ruin may lay beyond. My food stuffs will last for another three months ---

There was a knock at the door. If I do not return to finish this log, this is my final goodbye. 

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The following was added to the log from bunker camera and audio archives. 
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Knock... knock... knock... 

Søren shows clear signs of hesitation, and the camera clearly recorded the obvious mixture of fear, joy, confusion, and apprehension that plays across his face.

The knocks come again, with the same speed and force, making them somewhat more ominous.

Knock... knock... knock... 

Søren can be seen to press the intercom button; he hesitates and releases it, only to press it again a second later.

"Hello?

Silence. 

"Hello?"

"Is KGB."

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End of log entry. 
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-N & L

Additional Perspectives

It was really no more than the echo of a whispered breath that brought him abruptly into wakefulness. Usually there was no sleep for him; the nights dragged on into days until there was no difference between them. His mind ran rampant with imagined scenarios, imagined answers to the questions that were branded into his consciousness. He had been alone for as long as he could remember, but that also posed a problem. He could not measure how much time had passed, and he did not know when he got ... where ever he was. All he knew was that it was indoors and it was massive. In truth he did not know with certainty that here was in fact inside, but there had been no rain nor wind or any other indication of weather so he simply assumed. He could not tell night from day, and all that existed above him was a distant blackness that extended into infinity. Nearer to the ground, and that term is used generously as what lay beneath his feet was just as dark and expansive at the supposed sky above him, was some source of illumination that seemingly had no origin. It simply was; dimly allowing vision in every direction and in every direction there was nothing but more of the same dim light that bled gently into the ground and sky.

He felt as if his entire existence had been within this infinity. There was no way to be sure though; especially after being awoken by a sound. The first sound he could remember experiencing. It was thrilling, and terrifying, and it pulled at something deep within him. A longing, as if there was something that he was missing terribly and yet he could not bring this feeling into a complete thought. It seemed to actively evade him.

Again the echo of a breath resonated through the emptiness and he felt a rush rise up in his body. No, he thought, that isn’t right; how could he feel it in his body when... the thought again escaped him. All around, he searched for the source of this new experience, one that he had never known in his endless time within the expanse. As usual there was nothing to be seen.

Of course there was nothing to be seen, you are just a...

He felt frustrated. It was as if his consciousness was being suppressed or contained and he could not get out. The breath came again, this time though it was stronger, pulling him into a new place of existence. He tried to resist but he found that he could not; the will of this force was overwhelming.

With a shock he found that he could remember again. He had a body again. He was no longer in the nothingness that contained him. Lying there totally still he appreciated every sensation of skin and bone and flesh that was provided to him. A warm wetness began to dampen his back, and steadily it rose. His eyes snapped open in panic and the panic turned to absolute terror when he found that he could not see. He was still confined, a box the size of a coffin. The water rose. As he screamed the water flowed into his mouth and nose. As the body began to release the consciousness that it had just gained, he began to notice a slight illumination that had no real source. It bled gently into the ground and sky.

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"Interesting."

The researcher was alone, so he made no attempt to stop himself from muttering the word. There was no one but the vessel and the stored consciousness with him. He made a note, and pressed the reset button. A timer started. In three minutes, the eyes would open, and there would be a new person in the body.

-L
Read Novam Mortem for more of this story.