The Diary of Katie Young

Legends of the Throne

The Diary of Katie Young

Apparently, it’s mid-June. I found an empty leather-bound book in this very old settlement awhile ago and it took me this long to find a working pencil. I’m not really sure what good it will do, but there’s too many good stories to be written down for me to keep them all to myself anymore. And in the unlikely event that I die there really needs to be an accurate account of what happened. To be honest though, I’m really only writing because I’ve been incredibly bored of late. I suppose I should start at the beginning…

Of course, there really isn’t a beginning per se. The end is rapidly approaching though, it should be here soon. Some days it feels as though it can’t come soon enough. If anyone reads this, they will have much difficulty believing it. But I will write down what I know, nonetheless.

I’m the last one. The last female on the planet. Already you don’t believe it. The story may prove more believable.

Breast cancer. Then the other cancers. Birth control and then infertility. And then Aids. Etc. Etc. The human race reached a point in its scientific endeavors that they had created what they thought was a cure for every ailment. They thought they had everything figured out. Thought they could heal us of anything. No one questioned it because the drugs they made worked. For nearly fifty years. In those fifty years the planet did what it had never done before and what it will most likely never do again. It became united.

Recourses were pooled, language barriers destroyed and medicine became the new currency. Between the largest nations the drugs were mass produced on a level no one could have imagined. The entire world’s female population set out to get the cure and the preventative. Within fifty years nearly every country in the world was buying and distributing these drugs. For nearly a century, there was peace, if you could call it that. Happy women, make for happy men. This in turn made for a happy world.

In one hundred years a woman will have children, then grand-children and she will hope to see her great-grand-children. Nothing tragic happened until women saw what she hoped she would see. Well, they say nothing happened. I’m personally inclined to believe there were a few cases that were quietly dealt with. The United People’s government had all the money and power in the world. You’d keep quiet too if you were offered a percentage of an entire country’s income wouldn’t you? But the campfires caught the forest on fire and no one could have seen it coming.

12 million cases in one week. All over the entire planet. At the end of that week 12 million females under the age of 18 dead after a week of nausea, vomiting, internal bleeding and a variety of other symptoms. It was a virus of sorts its believed, and it attacked the antibodies and bacteria that was in the drugs and had been passed on in the genetic code of the offspring. It started with the youngest generation as an imbalance between the bacteria and the natural hormones in the female body. The spike in hormone production increased the imbalance to an unhealthy degree and a virus that had never been encountered was created, or discovered. It was deadly. Within a week of catching it you were dead. And it was very, very contagious.

As anyone can imagine, within the first month after 46 million dead woman and girls, the rest being quarantined or hiding, the war that ruined the world started. It took 50 years to unite the world, and only about 30 to destroy it beyond repair. Once the union fell, there was anarchy, military rule, anarchy, councils, anarchy again; the world was in a constant state of chaos. And with all the females dying despite everything that was tried, men began to lose their minds. It’s not good for man to be alone. Ever wonder why? Because he’ll kill his brother without thought.

So, yeah. Every piece of technology developed become an instrument of war. True, some worked to solve the problem, but when the world is fighting itself into oblivion , no peacemaker is going to survive long enough to make any difference.

Before the people and organizations were obliterated, deaths and missing persons were well above 4 billion and continued to rise.

Eventually, as people continued to die, the world’s population dwindled and the machine of war slowed. But men at this point couldn’t seem to adapt. The technology that had kept the human race alive was changed and before the violent ways of life could be reversed, men were alone and intelligence was slow to become what set them apart from the animals. Real food hadn’t been grown in nearly 80 years. Another 80 years passed and only the grandchildren were left and they were primitive to say the most. They were scavengers and hunters spread across the planet that was ravaged by every type of destructive weapon men could develop.

Without humans to subdue it, nature eventually took back what was stolen. And it came with a vengeance. With growth came natural destruction; fires, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, shifting continents and islands, etc. etc. The world changed completely.

At this point, you are really wondering about me. I’ve somehow survived two “end of the world” incidents and you’d probably like to know how. Perhaps your first thought is I’m not actually from Earth. I’m from Earth. Europe actually, when it was still called that. I was born in 1451. The war broke out A.D. 2262. I was 811 when the world started tearing itself to pieces. Soon afterwards the year was lost track of and with it my age.

I’m immortal. I can’t die. I’ve tried. Others have tried. Arrows, bullets, knives, weaponized lasers, chemicals and nuclear weapons. Falls and broken bones, sickness, been there and done that. I do die, I guess you could say, but its more of blacking out and then waking up a few minutes later. I’ve managed to keep myself from being beheaded, sliced to pieces, and ripped apart limb from limb. It makes me curious at times if that actually would kill me…

Anyway, you might wonder how I became immortal. I was born immortal actually. An inheritance from my father I guess you could say. I was always a little different from my friends, my brother as well. We were stronger and faster, physically. This made us understandably adventurous and daring. We didn’t know were immortal but we knew we could survive crazy things better than others. I fell out of a tree, my brother was shot with an arrow. When we recovered the next day, my parents, and those in our village took notice. When we were about 15 dad told us how he had gone on a long journey before we were born and was cursed with immortality for doing what he thought was right. He told us he forgets most of his life after he dies, that what happened in his life becomes like remembering a dream.

Our father told us the immortality was intended as a curse, but we could use it for good, to better ourselves and all those we came in contact with if we so chose to. My dad and my brother took that road. I, however, I was a rebellious child. When I found out about this, and realized my parents had kept this from me, I struck out on my own, or ran away for lack of better terminology. That was the last time I saw my family. My father and brother are most likely still alive with different names and different lives, but my mother…my mother was only human.

I left and was taken in by monks and learned under them for quite some time. I was expelled, or excommunicated or whatever when I made a careless comment about using what I had learned to assassinate someone. They thought I was serious and feared I would kill someone in their group. So they stoned me and tossed me out. Dying like that is not pleasant.

When I woke up I remembered everything. Out of spite for the monks I decided to take seriously the idea of assassinating someone. I realized immediately I was well suited for such a skill. I put myself at the services of many as an assassin.

I became the best assassin in all of Europe, Asia, and Africa. I was very creative when it came to disguise, deception, acting, and killing. Everyone trusts a blonde fifteen year old girl who acts innocent and pretends she knows next to nothing about how the world works.

After about 20 years, there were far too many people who wanted my service and far more who wanted me dead. I also found that I don’t age at about that time. I was nearly 36 and looked like I was 18. There were many discussions about this with my clients. In addition to this, after you’ve killed hundreds of times, it loses its flair and becomes routine, a job. You become heartless, cruel, ruthless, a loner and as an assassin, your entire life is a lie.

I disappeared for some time in Ireland and lived quietly. That life quickly grew old. I became a traveling nomad. In the 16th century there was the discovery of the new world and I was one of the first to stow away on ship bound for the new world. I wound up in Australia somehow. Australia was really amazing though. I stayed there for some time and learned all I could. It came to my attention here that I could change my name and location all I wanted but I still looked no more than twenty years old. I realized I had to live a constant lie and no one could know who I really was. I became very proficient in everything I did, but had to leave it before anyone could ask questions.

And so I lived from lifetime to lifetime, traveling, learning, and helping people whenever possible. Many books could be written about my lives, I suppose. But where I am right now, I think it’s a very interesting position to be in. The past may come in useful as I write the present, but as the present passes I fear there is not much hope for the future.

It’s getting dark out now, and I’ve been writing for hours. I’ll write some more tomorrow, or whenever I can. There are many things that may keep me occupied as I travel. Until then…