So, I haven’t posted in a while because there’s been squat going on here. Just me and the spiders freezing our arses off in the Inner Sanctum. Nobody seems to be out there – nobody looting the store, nobody on the cameras. Where the hell is everybody? I’m starting to feel like they’re amassing just out of sight, waiting for me to set foot outside my defences before jumping out and shouting: “Surprise! You’re dead!”
To take my mind off the monotony, I’m trying to use up some of the leftover items in the store, the stuff nobody wanted to loot. It’s rained enough to fill my water barrels, so I’ve dyed my hair. What do you reckon to the new avatar? I keep catching my reflection in screens and windows and thinking there’s an intruder. It keeps me on my toes, but it’s always a disappointment when I find out it’s just me. Still, it makes me feel different, conspicuous. I feel like I want to stand up on the roof and shout: “I’m here! Come and get me, you bastards!”
I want some raiders, I want something to happen – anything. I’ve set so many alarms and failsafes to keep them out, it seems like a waste if nobody uses them. I think I can remember where they all are. How would it be for irony if I ended all this stumbling into one of my own traps?
I wonder where the Triggers are now. Did Frank join up with the others, or are there a couple of skeletons hanging by bicycle locks off the lamppost two blocks down? I deliberately took them out of my line of sight from the roof. I didn’t want to see, I didn’t want to know. It was the first time I’d left the store in forever, and it was a ghost town. I couldn’t stand it. In the Inner Sanctum, I can watch movies and vids, I can even SkIMp when there’s enough power, and it seems like the world’s still there. When I go out, it makes me doubt any of it’s real. I know I’ve got friends out there, over thousands of miles of oceans and mountains and crust and mantle and liquid iron core. But the silence and emptiness is right outside, waiting for me, and it’s terrifying.
I didn’t think I’d make it this long. I didn’t think I’d be any good at this – surviving. Failure was my speciality, and now I can’t even do that. Why am I still here? Why am I still alive? And what the hell am I supposed to do about it?
Life in the Fast 'Laine 
Don’t start asking questions like that. Find a project, get distracted, or you’re gonna drive yourself nuts. I mean, more than usual. Even for you.
I’d tend to agree with Jack on this. Maybe you should begin trying to make some contact with other survivors in the area. You don’t have to tell them who or where you are, but at least you’ll know you’re not entirely alone.
Or I’ll find out for definite I am.
Honestly, there are days when I think that Sue and Sarah and I are the only ones left in England, but that’s only because everybody’s keeping out of sight and not approaching strangers. We check the socnets, and there’s masses of survivors in and around the cities. I understand your reticence, but you don’t have to be alone if you don’t want to be.
I don’t know whether I’m more afraid of being alone or of other people. I’ve never been that keen on sharing space.
It is sounding to me like you are lonely.
I like my own company. Maybe I just want other people where I can see ’em cause I don’t trust the bastards.
I was alone for weeks and now I suddenly have a kid. You never know what will happen. I guess it’s made the difference between a theoretical reason to survive and a very specific one.
I pity any poor kid that gets stuck with me. I’d be a terrible mum. I don’t have the patience for it.
There used to be a fair few kids in the early days, usually raiding in pairs or small gangs. The flu left a lot of orphans. I wonder what happened to them all? They must’ve got caught and taken to the quarantines.
by the way, your hair looks nice!
I got too used to it. Changed it again.
Umm….you seriously never looked to see if those young men got unlocked?
Can you imagine a scenario where I go to look and come back feeling reassured about anything?
It’s always better to know than to wonder.
And it’s better yet to crack open a bottle of home-brew wine made from cheap carton grape juice with added sugar and jump around to a 1990s cheese pop compilation till you stop wondering or caring about anything.
I’m not going out there.