Per 
Tales from the foundation
The following are entries from the journal of a man named Jonathan Marsh
I have found myself in quite a shitty situation. As I write, I have been lost in what I can only assume is a nightmare come to life. I walk through endless halls of products I would normally see in the shelves of our local general store, but as I wandered the large desert landscapes late at night, lost from my town and my camp, I stumbled upon the most curious thing. A small store in the middle of nowhere, the sign out front read "Pines General: Neverending Goods, neverending joy." that should've been my first warning that this place wasn't normal but I just saw it as a dumb slogan to attract more customers, I guess that could still be true.
I entered the store and started walking through the rows of products lined up in rows on tall shelves, it'd already been too late once I thought to myself "wait a second, how long have I been walking..?"
You'd think a small detail such as you, walking in a straight line through an -at first glance- regular old general goods store for an hour or two would be difficult not to notice, yet it happened. I'd lost myself to my thoughts or something, it's hard to say. You know those moments when you're so lost in your thoughts, and then all of the sudden, bang, you realise you were thinking and kind of "wake up"? It was like that, except I found myself standing in between racks of items that towered above me, larger than any building I know. Fire burns inside lanterns that stand on different shelves throughout the building, illuminating the environment enough for you to see quite clearly.
As far as I know, the exit is located behind me, so for the foreseeable future, I'll just be walking back in that direction.
I don't know how it happened, but while I was walking back, all the fires in the lanterns extinguished themselves. Luckily, I have a box of matches on me to light my way. This place becomes stranger by the minute.
Do you ever get the feeling you're being watched?
It's now the second day I'm stuck in this place. I found a place that "sells" mattresses so after I got tired, I took the liberty of staying the night there. At least, I assume it was night, with all the lights out. I'm fairly certain that I won't reach the exit walking this way, not only because I've been walking out much longer than it took me to walk in but also because I did not pass these mattresses when I entered.
I feel like I shouldn't have left camp on an empty stomach. I started grabbing extra lanterns to bring with me, I have three now, It'll make it easier for me to see at night at least.
I fucking knew it, I am being watched! I saw someone move in between the shelves, I called out for them but I got no reaction and when I went to look there was no one there. I'm certain though, I'm not crazy, someone was there. They wore a hat and a regular blue shirt, that's all I could see.
If there are others like me, I have to find them. Maybe they know more, maybe they know where to find the exit. Only one way to find them though, and that's to keep on walking.
Nights in here are surprisingly cold. I didn't find any sleeping place so the ground it is I guess… You want to know something strange? I've slept in worse places in my life. I remember this one time during the war when we had to sleep on literal piles of shit to stay hidden from the Confederates using the town as a base of operations. I can't remember the name of it though, pity. I'm starting to get really hungry now. I'll have to look for something to eat tomorrow.
I got attacked during the night, it was that guy I saw, I told you I'm not crazy. I woke up to the sound of someone approaching, telling me to leave the store and I was able to get up in time for him to jump at me. I grabbed one of the lanterns I had brought with me and lit it, then I threw it at him. He screamed while he burned… Not like any man I heard before though, these were more screeches, sounds you'd hear an animal make. He scratched my arm, the cuts are pretty deep but I'll survive, I'll just have to look for some bandages or something. I stayed up all night until the lanterns relit themselves, the one I threw didn't light up again though. I went over to look at the corpse.
There was not much left to see, all that I noticed was that the fire seems to have burned away any facial features the man might've had. The body had no nose, no eyes and no mouth. No ears either, never seen that on any burned man before. I'm going to get away from here, the corpse stinks. Going to look for some food.
Well, I found food… Not in the way I thought I would though. I stumbled upon something looking like a saloon, the tables were set and there was food there. Not just some canned beans or something no, whole prepared meals. I ate some cooked beef with maize and potatoes, the most luxurious meal I've ever eaten I think. Maybe this place isn't that bad after all.
I changed my mind, this place is that bad after all. Seriously, this place can go fuck itself. I saw him again… "Who?" you might ask, who do you think? That guy, and not just that guy, another guy. The same guy twice, and you know what, I saw them clearly this time, they were standing around looking at nothing. And you could say, //"Oh they probably are just wearing the same clothes as the man from before," but no. You want to know why I am so certain? Do you really? THEY HAD NO FACES. Two men, wearing their cowboy hats and their blue fucking shirts, brown pants and no fucking face. I thought the war would be the worst time of my life but this is just fucking ridiculous.
I went up to them, asked them what they were doing, no response. I got mad, pushed one and he didn't react. Then I took a better look at them, once I did I realised they didn't look right, their arms and necks were too long, they had claws instead of fingers, at least that explains how deep my cuts are (found some bandages for those). Should I even refer to them as he or him? They look more like "it" to me…
I'm going to stop writing for a while, just going to keep on walking until I find something worth writing about.
I've been stuck in Pines General for about three weeks now, I'd nearly forgotten about this old journal. So since the last time I wrote I've done a lot of walking, a lot of fucking walking. I honestly believe my horse has done less walking than I have these past few weeks. Oh god my horse, I'd completely forgotten about her. I left her outside the store… Shit. This place must make you forget things or something.
So I still walk, though I don't have to do it alone anymore. That's right, I found people, and a lot of them at that. An entire town. They call it Drygoods, mostly because the surrounding area "sells" dry goods… I like it. Most people share my story, they were lost, walking through the desert when they happened upon the store and entered hoping to find help. Others say they just entered into their regular general store (also named Pines General) and found themselves here. No one has found an exit yet though, pity.
Apparantly those things that roam the store are called proprietors. They are calm during the day and become extremely violent when the lights go out. They are also attracted to each other's corpses, I'm glad I didn't stay long after I burned that one. The town defends themselves using shelve pieces they broke off and placed in a wall-like formation to keep the proprietors out. They attack during the night and the dead ones are transported to a large pile a bit off from town. I don't even want to know what that place looks like at night, I'm imagining it isn't pretty.
There are other towns besides Drygoods and they all live in peace. Besides the bandits that roam the shelves, the civilised communities work together to survive this mess. Drygoods got a shipment of food from the nearby town, Liquor. We were running low but they offered to help us for free.
Medicinal, Spices and Tobacco are some other towns I know of, though I'm sure there are more out there.
We went out to look for some food again, we got hit by some razor bandits, they got 2 of us but we were able to get the better of them. That's two less mouths to feed I guess. It's starting to get late though, this attack slowed us down. We better hurry.
We weren't able to make it back to Drygoods before night, we fought off some proprietors and got back.
There is a swarm of them outside. They're starting to approach, I better go help fend them off. Wish me luck.
I We lost… I was able to get out with a few others but Drygoods is done for, the walls were broken through and there are too many proprietor corpses for the remaining people to dispose of. Shit man… This is my fault. Had we not killed those proprietors on our way back the others would've never been attracted to Drygoods and this all wouldn't have happened. Fuck.
I just hope we'll be able to make it to Liquor before nightfall.
