World's Over Journal I Silent Tomb

     This is the first entry in the journal logs Charles suggested we start keeping, for the most part to help keep us sane. We can only write for short periods, during the bursts of blue light which goes running through the fusion tubes along the floor or above us on the roof of our otherwise bleak and silent tomb. Charles will be helping, you know, with the technical military verbiage I just never understood, which there isn't much purpose of learning it now; not now, now that it’s all over. It doesn't look like we’ll be leaving this mechanical beasts belly any time soon.

     Twelve of us there were in the geay and black camouflage steel belly of Bahumat. Only Charles and I are awake, the others seem to be in a state of hibernation, which we cannot wake them from, no matter what we try. Water down their front, a good slap to the face, the beautiful key strokes of the piano, we cannot wake them, and we cannot get out. I'm sad, for it seemed that Charles and I woke so easily, amongst the erratic flashes of bright silver blue light.

     Today is our thirteenth day stuck inside the Bahumat, a hexapod class tank; which was made to in the image of a very large and well armoured crab. When it was new there were cannon turrets where operators sat, with one large one for its right arm instead of a claw. Several antennae stuck from the Bahumat’s face, just above the eyes, which functioned as turrets themselves. But now was our silent tomb, resting against the largest tree I've ever seen. Bahumat was missing three of its six legs, the middle right and the outer two on the left, which was propped against the tree; only the large right claw cannon remaining of its two magnificently powerful arms.

      Bahumat was a third generation crab tank, able to hold a crew of up to seventeen. It had several bunks, a small mess and a wash room with a pleasant sized shower; which I’d like to point out, is no longer functioning. The Driver's consoles had to be operated by three specialized pilots while in combat, one for normal leg movement across whatever desolate or jagged terrain the tank may need to cross; another for the rotation of the torso of the crab, and the third to be the eyes and ears, to plan all tactical moves ahead of its victim’s. These were all under the command of the Bahumat’s captain, who had the ability to control the whole tank and all its functions from his console if necessary, which he did mostly out of combat or in moments of dire need. The pilot next to him was combat movement and evasive manoeuvres while his counterpart was weapons and systems alert.

      Behind the captain’s command chair was another station with many screens and panels which controlled defensive shields, counter measures, decoys and energy flow within the tank. The whole inner right side of the tank was a cooling core for the large laser claw cannon. Inside the round cannon core sat three operators, a mechanical engineer who monitored heat and the shield, a second which was the loader and finally, the firing operator.

      When the tank was active there many screens and cooling tubes which lined the floors and ceiling for power that flashed a bright blue light while they streamed the liquid laser from the command chair, which was raised above the main laser reactor. Behind and beside the whole command console and defensive panel there was several feet of storage for weapons and ammunition or anything else the military trained murderers might need in the Last Great War. The left side of the tank was mostly living quarters and storage for the necessaries to keep people alive while living inside Bahumat. Before the silence of the last great war, I hadn’t cared how amazing my husband's tank was or is, but now it is the only our only memory, all else before this has faded. Sparks of blue laser light flash every so often along the walls, floor and ceiling as the core attempts to reengage and the emergency power wane. Before the world ended or... Was changed.

     Neither of us is sure, or can really recall, how the immortal races ended the Last Great War, known to humanity as the Third World War. I don't understand it all really. Did they put us all, every human, into this state of hibernation… If so, for how long have we been sleeping? There is no date or time which we can find to tell. We cannot get out and we can't wake our comrades from their sleep state. We cannot remember the past, not a single event before the war’s end.

In earnest anticipation of,
Jane
With Charles