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JOURNAL ENTRY 001; 21/06/2019 - 10:32 am
I just remembered that I have to do some writing over these holidays, thought it might be a good idea to keep a journal of this trip as content for the assessment.
My friends from Biology are coming with me to a spot near Norsewood where a family friend of Keith’s has an old farmhouse. We’ll be staying there for the next few nights. He says he hasn’t been there in years, but apparently there’s a small colony of Peripatus, (velvet worms) there, near a small lake just south of the farmhouse. It’d be remarkable if we managed to find some, as they’re so rare.
Velvet worms have existed in their current state for at least 500 million years, but their numbers have been declining worldwide more so in the past few years than ever.
I’m typing this in the back seat of the car, speeding down a country road. This trip has taken a lot longer than I feel like it should have. I’m sure we would have been here sooner if Tim hadn’t taken so long to find his camera, or if someone other than Keith had their full licence.
Oh hey, we’re here (finally). Gareth is in the front seat, so he gets the job of getting out to open the gate.
JOURNAL ENTRY 002; 21/06/2019 - 07:43 pm
We arrived at the property to find a remarkably clean farmhouse, considering the length of time it’s been left alone. It’s very small, with only one bed, but has enough utilities to keep us going. Gareth cooked tonight, the other three of us washed up. We all seem to be pretty optimistic about this whole thing.
Kevin was talking over dinner about what his family friend was doing here. Apparently, he was strangely obsessed over the Peripatus colony, but not in a biological sense like we are. He bought it off of the estate of a woman who went missing back in 2013, and Keith said he just left the area without selling it and was always reluctant to talk about it, and hasn't been back since. All very ominous.
JOURNAL ENTRY 003; 22/06/2019 - 8:48 am
I had a strangely vivid dream last night about sitting on an island in the middle of a small lake surrounded by native bush. It’s dark and foggy, but I spot a young girl in a white floral dress sitting at the lakeside. She’s facing away from me, so I call out to her. She doesn’t hear me, so I stand up and call out to her again, and that’s it. Weird.
I don’t remember anything else from last night – other than Gareth getting super creeped out by the spiders near the long drop out the back. I don’t know what he expected from this trip.
No sleep-in this morning. Breakfast was just cereal and what not for most of us. Except for Tim, who decided to have the two chocolate bars he brought.
The four of us are about to go and explore a bit of the farm and then head off to the lake. I get the feeling that it might take a while to find a Peripatus, though.
JOURNAL ENTRY 004; 22/06/2019 - 03:17 pm
We arrived at the lake to find a small pier and the remains of an old raft, overgrown with moss and covered in critters. The lake itself looked oddly similar to the one in my dream, just without the island and all the mysterious fog.
Unfortunately, we didn’t find any velvet worms, but we sure looked hard. If there were any on this side of the lake, we would have found them. We were going to make our way round to the other side, but the bush was overgrown, and the ground was rough, so we agreed to keep searching this side and leave the other for tomorrow. Tim has been taking some really nice photos, but says he’s getting some weird distortion on the videos. I’m sure he’ll fix it.
It was pretty frustrating, just lifting up rocks and old logs only to find nothing other than beetles and spiders and the occasional weta. Gareth found a tunnelweb spider under one of the logs. When he lifted it up, he got really spooked and fell onto some dead blackberry. I wondered if he’d hit his head too, because instead of looking annoyed or pained, he seemed really confused. He assured me he was fine, but something wasn’t quite right.
JOURNAL ENTRY 005; 23/06/2019 - 02:02 am
The wind is causing a hell of a racket out there. I’m finding it really hard to sleep. Usually in this situation I’d play some stupid games or something, but I don’t want to run my battery flat since it’s already at 30%.
I keep thinking about yesterday afternoon and I don’t know why. It’s not like anything interesting happened. Gareth’s been acting a bit funny since we went to the lake, and I get the feeling that it has something to do with when he fell. He seemed OK at the time… eh, I’m sure he’s fine. I just need to keep this journal going.
JOURNAL ENTRY 006; 23/06/2019 - 08:13 am
I managed to get to sleep last night, but when I did, I had another weird dream:
I am standing on the same island, only now the girl is lying down with her face turned away from me. She is frail, and partially sunken into the dirt, as if she has been lying there for years. I call out to her as loud as I can, without a response. I contemplate swimming over to her, but the water is so dark, and my mind feels cloudy and unfocused. Before I can make up my mind, the dream is over.
Gareth isn’t himself this morning. He’s paranoid about everything and keeps acting like he wants to say something before he stops himself. I’d be lying if I said he’s been like this before. Tim and Keith don’t seem as concerned as me, but at least they’ve noticed it.
It’s overcast today. Hopefully we’ll find something interesting at the lake.
JOURNAL ENTRY 007; 23/06/2019 - 3:41 pm
To get to the other side of the lake, we all agreed it would be both easier and more fun to rebuild the raft and paddle it over. We found some old rope and some plastic jugs under the pier, and once we tied them on it floated well enough to support two of us at a time.
Tim and I paddled over first. I don’t remember there being a clump of rushes in the middle of the lake, maybe the water level has dropped overnight or something. Maybe I’m just not very observant. Who knows.
After we’d all got across, and after about half an hour of searching Gareth managed to find one! A little blue Peripatus underneath a rotting log. Funny looking things, they are. Almost like a caterpillar, with a head that looks a bit like a snail and a long body with lots of stubby legs. You can see why it is called a ‘velvet’ worm since it’s slightly furry, like blue velvet.
When we found it, there wasn’t as much excitement as I expected. Everyone seemed kind of mesmerized by it, even Tim. The longer I looked at it, the more I felt my mind clouding over. Almost as if I couldn’t focus on anything else.
Tim said that he couldn’t get a good photo of it. Not because of the lighting or anything, but because of ‘something else’. Huh.
JOURNAL ENTRY 008; 24/06/2019 - 11:36 am
I’m typing this in the passenger seat of Keith’s car, barrelling down the road as fast as he can reasonably go. If I had just… ugh. This is a journal. I have to say what happened.
I awoke this morning to Tim yelling at Gareth, or so I thought. Gareth was gone. Tim woke up to find a sleeping bag full of velvet worms. Well, maybe not full, but there were too many to count. There’s no way he could have found that many, especially at night.
When I looked at them, I felt the same sensation as I did when I saw the first one at the lake, only much stronger. My mind felt foggy and dark, like I couldn’t think about anything else other than the velvet worms themselves. It was confusing and scary, and I wanted none of it.
We spent the next four hours looking for Gareth, with no luck. It’s not like him to just run off, but he’s clearly been stressed recently. I should have acted sooner.
With Gareth missing on top of all the other weird shit that’s been happening, we decided that me and Keith should go and look for help in Norsewood while Tim stays back there. None of us have any reception here, so we can't call or text anyone for help either.
Before Tim woke me, I’d been having another dream:
This time, the girl is barely visible through the thick fog, but I can see that she is standing with her head in her hands. This time, I try to jump into the water and swim out, but I can’t. My feet are bound to the island, which seems to be writhing and convulsing. The girl walks off into the bush, and I can’t do anything to stop her.
JOURNAL ENTRY 009; 24/06/2019 - 12:09 pm
The road has been almost dead straight this whole time, and Keith agrees that it should have turned at least three times by now. I’m seeing landmarks that I’m sure weren’t there when we drove down, and we still haven’t arrived in Norsewood. We’ve been driving for nearly an hour. The gas is getting low, and the sun is getting high. I have no idea what’s going on, and frankly, I’m scared.
JOURNAL ENTRY 010; 24/06/2019 - 12:24 pm
What the fuck? We’re back. We’re back at the farmhouse. There’s no way we turned all the way around. I don’t think we can leave. As if this place won’t let us go, like it’s cursed or something.
Maybe this is some strange fever dream? Or I’m in a coma?
JOURNAL ENTRY 011; 24/06/2019 - 10:52 pm
I'm going to die here.
This is a fucking nightmare.
It has to be.
When we opened the farmhouse door Tim was gone. Everything was covered in the velvet worms. The place was dirty and mossy, cobwebs in every corner and roots cracking the floor tiles. It looked like what I expected it to when we first arrived; almost as if nature had reclaimed it. The sensation was overwhelming now. My vision and hearing were distorted. It was difficult to think.
We found some footprints in the damp soil leading towards the lake, we assumed they were Tim’s. Keith and I argued about what to do, before he agreed to go to the lake.
I found Tim’s camera halfway along the path. Everything on it had been wiped and replaced with the same distorted picture of the lake that he took when we first arrived, only now it’s like the one from my dreams, with thick fog and an island in the center.
We got to the lake to find what could only be Tim’s body floating face-down about three meters away from the island in the center. The sky was dark, and the lake was covered in a fog thick enough to obscure the sun. Before we could so much as call out to Tim, Gareth burst out from the bushes and tackled Keith to the ground.
Gareth was soaking wet. He looked haggard, like he had been in the bush for years. He was screaming nonsense, saying that he never should have agreed and that it was all Keith’s fault. He said he ‘knew what they are’ and that ‘we don’t understand’.
I tried to throw him off, but he tossed me back like I was nothing, all the while beating the life out of Keith. I couldn’t reason with him. I couldn’t do anything. Nothing.
I ran.
I left him there.
JOURNAL ENTRY 999; 03/14/209199 - 29:52 pm
I am sitting by the lakeside this time, looking out on a glassy, tranquil plane of turquoise water. The beauty is interrupted by a small, gnarled island. Standing there is a young girl in a white floral dress, facing away from me. I do not call out to her. Instead, she turns to face me, but instead of a face, there is nothing. Not blackness, not obscuration, nothing. Nothing at all.
I’ve figured it out.
I know what to do.
It feels like years since I last saw the sun.
This my last entry.
My phone is about to die and I won’t be able to write
any more I have to go back I know
what she is please I can’t dothis anymoreI ju stwantto go ho
