Hello, everyone - this is Ethen.
I must apologize for the distinct silence since my last post. As you've probably already seen, I haven't been particularly well within the past week - before or after what I attempted to do.
Conquering one's fear isn't always the easiest thing to do - even if that fear is one that should have been left behind as time continued to pass.
Despite what many outside of our order have assumed, I haven't had the greatest life growing up, even long after I thought I had moved on from something so traumatic in my earlier years - it isn't exactly something I'm particularly open about, as is the rest of my history. I've experienced much more than one person could handle on their own, which is why my mental state in this extraordinary series of events has been constantly... fading.
I can't handle loss - it's an extremely personal gripe that's tugged at me since childhood, and despite being able to talk about it before to select few, I don't think I could ever do it again on a larger scale like I tried to do just a while ago. It's not to say that I'm afraid that people would think I'm just making excuses or that I need to toughen up - it's not the first time I've been told that, believe me. Even our own members have tried to have that talk in a way that's more... constructive? Supportive? Either way, that's not why I don't talk about the worst days of my childhood.
I prefer to look at the positives - what made it worth living, as those were the days that kept me going and why I've always striven to be better. Before the world became what it is now, it was easier to look at all of my past in that light - easily able to recognize how all the bad that ever happened was just a small fraction that overshadowed everything else. But now? With all the suffering that people are barely able to overcome, it makes looking back on all the good feel... selfish. A reminder of how everyone's lives - whether good or bad, were completely flipped around by something far worse. Where we are and stand looks like heaven compared to the cold, bitter world that everyone else has to sit through with each passing day - and while I've tried to show my sympathies... there's nothing I have that could ever compare to that, and those that constantly berate us with death threats, pleads for help, or even their lives ending in an instant... it just adds on to the overbearing weight that we all have to bear here.
It's why I tried to initiate that recreated experience all those months back - before another troubling predicament fell upon our laps. There are people in this new world that are out on their own - lost and alone without their families and friends to help them through the chaos. I tried to reach out to them with it - showing that even we had so much on our hands when the Quake had struck. I knew people couldn't bear to sit without answers as to why our silence was so prevalent, but that's because it's still something we can't risk telling the full details behind. We thought that by finding the deeper answers to that situation, we could understand what was at stake... and we certainly did. But the final piece was something I simply couldn't open after the Outsider had cracked it's code.
That should have been the sign. More pain isn't something people need when trying their best to survive in the world... if they want answers, they expect it to be told. So... sometime tomorrow, my truth will be brought out.
But in the meantime - I will leave you with the circumstances that came on that world-shaking day.
After the first waves of tremors and earthquakes is when I noticed the encrypted file under my name on the Ethichive. I passed through it's defenses - but unlike everyone else with an encrypted entry, what I received was far more impossible...
It was an audio file - or at least, it appeared to be, as a voice on the other side spoke directly to me... and only continued to do so with my every word, like it were a call. Just from the method of communication alone, I had every reason to believe it was from our loathsome adversary... but this was a new voice, and his intentions were anything but hostile.
He spoke of the events that were just happening, as if he had more information or means of detecting what was happening to the world. I hoped he could have been of better help to us - maybe something that would lead us in the right direction, but apparently he was just as out of the loop as we all were - despite how much he knew of us.
And especially how much he knew of me.
I didn't know anything of this man's identity, but it was clear this wasn't any ordinary follower, member - hell, even likely not as ordinary of a person as we were... but given where we all came from, it wasn't hard for me to understand who or even what he was. And that alone was enough to tell me what was at stake when he told me;
"The Storm is subsiding. And a new Storm is coming."
I was scared - terrified, even, because I knew one thing for certain... we had to prepare for the end of the beginning.
It's only a matter of time before the next Calm, whatever it may be.