Résumé

Click “Log number four,” Tobias looks at his watch “It’s been 11 and a half hours since I’ve started walking, hopefully I'm getting close to site,” Squinting he spots a small building through the thick and strong snow “There appears to be something in the distance” He treks confidently through the snow to get closer to the building “End log” Click, he stops his tape recorder. The snow was incredibly thick, but fortunately, it was knee height at the time, allowing him to move at a considerable pace.

Tobias can see the building clearly now, it was a good 30 meters away from him. Without the thick fog of snow on the way, he could see it much clearer. It was a medium-sized arctic base with a helicopter pad on top, the base the size of a small gym. Tobias kept moving towards the base, eventually getting to the door. Knock Knock, Tobias bangs on the door, the door swings open inwards, slamming violently, Tobias unflinchingly looks at the three people in front of him.

“Hello, my name is Tobias” he reaches out his hand, the three people look at each other and one of them, a bearded man shakes Tobias’s hand “My name is Eddy; Eddy Hamilton,” Eddy cocks his head “Why are you out here in the freezing cold?”

Tobias quickly ditches his calm demeanour and starts to visibly panic “I’ve been walking for hours, and I’m nearly out of food,” he says in desperation “Do you mind if I join in with you” Eddy pulls him into the building “Sure,” he says.

“Hi I’m Krys,” a tall bald man lowly speaks “That’s Kaden, over there in the corner listening to the radio, being useless.” “We’ve been running low on food for a while, so I don’t know how long we can support four people, but as a leader, I need to keep everyone in good health,” Eddy says. Krys picks up a hunting knife he found in a drawer, Eddy stares at him “Krys and I are going to try to kill a polar bear” Krys nods.

“How come none of you thought to use the helicopter to escape?” Tobias says “Nobody knows how to,” Krys replies “None of us are helicopter operators.” “Interesting” Tobias mutters. “There's got to be hope, someone out there who can help us.” Spoke Kaden

Suddenly, Kaden had everyone gather around the radio “The virus has broken out everywhere” the radio spoke as all four of them seemingly listened in disbelief.
Eddy breaks the silence “Well that’s something new.”

Click “Log number five. I’ve gotten nine good hours of sleep, food has become nearly nonexistent, S-1 and S-3 have made plans to go out and hunt for a polar bear, while Kaden is still on the radio. End Log.” Click. The tape recorder stops. “Why are you guys out here anyways?” Tobias asks. “Never mind that, all that matters and that we try to survive,” Eddy says.

Krys cuts in “None of us know, we just one day woke up here, you are the only other person we’ve met since we came here, we don’t even know what this place is.” Krys glanced at Tobias “So, where did you come from anyway?” A couple of seconds passed. Tobias finally replied, “I don’t know, I just woke up in the arctic and moved until I came here, you can check my tape recorder if you want to.” “No that's fine Tobias, I believe you” “No, check it” Tobias insisted “No, it's fine” Krys repeated.

“Are you guys going to stand around all day starving or are we going to hunt a polar bear?” Eddy said demandingly “We need to focus on living long enough to see another day.” Tobias rewinds his tape recorder to log date four, erasing log date four and everything before it.

Kaden still at the radio, reporting to everyone anything that may be of interest.

Click “Log number six, it has been a week of hunting and we have not yet been able to kill a sizable polar bear, everyone is very hungry. Today, though, represents a change in pattern, it seems Krys and Eddy have finally found a sizable bear in the distance. End log.” Click. Tobias packs away his tape recorder into his snow coat. “Let's all ambush the thing all at once,” Eddy said “Ready, set… go” All three of move forward at the bear, charging with the hatchets they found in the arctic base, without a thoughtful plan though, they were doomed to fail. Krys is the first one to go down, chomped down by the enormous bear after giving it a good stab, Tobias was soon to follow, having one of his arms bitten with the immense jaws of the huge bear.

Tobias screams at the searing pain and Eddy freezes in place. Tobias pulls out a gun, BANG BANG BANG the gunshots rattles the ice around them, echoing against the cold tundra air. The pain of the gunshots caused the bear to let go of Tobias for a brief moment. Tobias continued aiming at the bear as he backed off, limping from the pain. “AAAH” Tobias screamed, which caused the polar bear to run away.

Eddy yelled, “You had a gun this entire time?”

“That's the question you want to ask right now?” Tobias said as he moved towards the mangled body of Krys. Krys looked at Tobias and smiled.

Tobias touched his hand to Krys’s neck “He’s dead, Eddy.”

Eddy stood silent, all that could be heard was the arctic wind brushing past them.

Click “Log date eight no one has gotten anything to eat for 16 days at this point, the bite still stings even after disinfecting and bandaging. S-3 hasn’t been the same since S-1 died. That’s all to report, for now, end log.” Click. “Eddy, what's the plan,” Tobias said. “The plan?” He muttered under his breath “We tried the damned plan and it got one of us killed” He snapped “I’ll tell you the damned plan” he walked to Kaden “How about this lazy guy get off his butt and actually do something instead of eating our food and listening to the radio?” Tobias cocked his head “Eddy we don’t have any food left” Eddy scoffed, Kaden ignored both of them.

Eddy walked to the ladder and started to climb up to the helipad area, Tobias followed. “Eddy'' What are you doing? You have no idea how to use that thing” Tobias said, “So what, if I don’t we’re just going to rot out here!” Eddy exclaimed “What about the zombies? Do you even know where to go? We are in the middle of nowhere!”

Tobias begins to walk “Not another fucking step,” Eddy says, pulling out a gun while stepping into the helicopter. Tobias stops “Ok Eddy, go ahead.” Eddy starts the helicopter, and it starts moving upwards. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you” Tobias longingly stares at the helicopter with a cold face. The helicopter starts acting erratically and seconds later, nosedives into the snow, exploding. Tobias blinks and sighs disappointingly. He turns around and climbs back into the base.

Days pass. Tobias stares at Kaden, he’s dehydrated and hungry. “Kaden you ok buddy?” Kaden starts shaking. Tobias sits beside Kaden and holds his shoulder to comfort him “Hey buddy it's ok, It’s going to be fine.” “We were doomed from the start, weren’t we?” Kaden asked Tobias.

“You had hope, Kaden, you sat at that radio hoping that there was someone could help us, that kind of attitude, kept us all sane throughout all of this,” Kaden smirks, Tobias squeezes his shoulder harder. “Wish we didn’t eat all that food so quickly” Kaden laughs. Kaden starts withering away from hunger until eventually, he becomes unconscious. “I’m sorry” Tobias whispered softly. Tobias snaps Kaden’s neck.

Tobias stands up, reaching into his pocket for a granola bar, unwraps it and eats it.
Tobias then pulls out his tape recorder and grazes the buttons with his thumb.

Click “Mission complete, all subjects, after injections of class-c amnestics, failed to accomplish tasks in arctic scenario-6 and are not fit to be Agents. Send in the cleaners and then send in the next batch.” Tobias looks at Kaden “I’m not sure how many times I can do this kind of thing anymore, I may need a mental evaluation” Tobias says semi-coldly, breaking occasionally “Requesting immediate extraction at rendezvous point.”

Tobias flips off his long coat, revealing the foundation insignia on the back of his blue shirt. He picks up the recorder again and sighs "I'm too old for this shit."

Click.