This story wasn't written to be uploaded in chapters, so I apologize for any inconsistent lengths! Quick disclaimer, this is a DSMP fanfiction, but I only write characters, not content creators. This work can be read as a standalone work from any other DSMP content and no context is needed.

TW: Amnesia, atheism, blood, bombs, death, depression, disassociation, existential crises, fireworks, graphic gore, implied eating disorders, isolation, MCD, near-death, panic attacks, repression, self-dehumanization, self-harm, self-hate, shock, suicidal ideation, suicidal intent, thoughts of hallucination, unfifilled promises, wounds, zombies

These TWs are for the entirety of the story, not just this chapter.

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[TIME: 22 SEPTEMBER, 2020, 20:13]

[BROADCAST STARTS]

[There is a muttered curse and the noise of something slamming into a desk. A small gasp can be heard.]

“Hello? Is this thing on?”

[There is a beat of silence, then a huff that might be a laugh.]

“I don’t know why I expected someone to answer, honestly. It’s not like there’s a phone line for this thing. Unless there is?”

[Another pause.]

“...That’s an issue for later.”

“Uhm. Hello, anyone who happens to be on this channel right now. I’m in a radio station of some sort, my brother begged me to take him to check it out, uh, before this whole apocalypse thing started. I can’t remember what channel he said it was, so… probably unlikely anyone’s hearing this.”

“Thes, if you’re listening to this, I’m still here. I’m stuck inside, but there’s enough food to last me months. If it’s too dangerous, stay where you are. If it isn’t… Please come find me. I miss you.”

[There’s a very quiet whisper that could be “Please be alive.” It’s difficult to tell.]

“Okay, what do I say now? I probably should have thought this through. Uhm, what do radios say? The weather? Politics?”

[There’s a bitter laugh.]

“Not many politics to talk about anymore, so, uh… It’s absolutely pouring outside, from what I can hear. There aren’t actually any windows on the floor I’m trapped on in here, but I can certainly hear it. So be careful, I guess.”

“Oh! I have some info on the zombies. If you’ve been living in a bunker or captive in a basement your entire life, there’s currently a zombie apocalypse going on. It kind of sucks. But anyways, zombies are attracted heavily to noise, but they are averse to extreme temperatures, like bonfires. Or snow, I suppose, unless you live in a snowy area where they’re probably adapting. Ugh, adapting zombies. That sounds like a nightmare. I’m very glad all you losers are the ones who have to deal with it.”

“...Don’t ask about the bonfire bit. That’s the whole reason I can’t really go downstairs at the moment.”

“I hope you’re all doing okay, if that’s actually possible in our situation. Heh, I say all as if there’s anyone listening. I’m probably talking to no one, but oh well. This is all that’s kept me from going insane over the past two weeks, fiddling with this radio. I’m actually… not totally sure it was broken in the first place. I might have just been messing with wires for literally no reason, but I’m pretty sure I know more about electricity now. I think.”

“You guys don’t understand just how utterly bored I am. It sounds really stupid because I know anyone surviving out there wouldn’t feel sorry for some guy who just doesn’t have anything to do– you probably think I’m lucky. I feel selfish now.”

“...”

[There's a shuffling noise and footsteps leading away from the radio. A few moments later, the footsteps return and there’s the noise of fabric rustling again.]

“I found this guitar yesterday, so I might try to teach myself how to play just so I can actually do something. I wonder if I’d be any good at making songs. My English teachers used to tell me I was very good at poetry, so maybe? I dunno. You’ll all be here with me while I do, because I plan on doing this every night. I’m pretty sure it’s nine PM, but I can’t be sure. It just feels like it is, so I can’t promise the broadcasts will be at a set time, but I’ll try to talk everyday.”

[A few very out of tune notes ring out from a guitar.]

“Ooh, that sounds bad. I’m gonna have to dig into my deep memories and see if I can tune it. I had a friend who could play, so who knows, maybe I can actually do it.”

“I suppose I’ll see you all tomorrow. Stay alive.”

[BROADCAST ENDS]

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Tommy still remembered every word of that first broadcast from the Report. He’d thought he’d been going insane when a nearby car radio crackled and began to speak clearly, as if he was simply listening to your average radio station– as if it wasn’t the middle of the apocalypse, doomsday, the end of the world; whatever you called it. He’d heard it all by now. Everyone remembered where they were, when they first heard that melodious voice. They might’ve found it during the second broadcast, or the fifth, or the tenth, but everyone knew it. It was a lifeline, the Report of L’Manberg, and somehow word spread quickly. How, Tommy wasn’t totally sure. He’d only come across five lone survivors in the three years he’d been surviving. Sure, there’d been survivor camps, but everyone knew those didn’t last.

They’d all been there when The Host played his first song to the world he thought wasn’t listening; they’d all been there when he decided any ‘rare person’ that might be listening was now a member of his imaginary country, L’Manberg. They’d all been there when he’d discovered an old, broken keyboard and fixed it. How he still had interesting ideas to broadcast after a thousand and ninety-three days of the Report, Tommy couldn’t understand. Then again, he also couldn’t understand how he was alive.

He was too reckless, he knew, but he didn’t particularly care whether he lived or died, and neither did anyone else, so he’d be as reckless as he liked, thank you very much. His base was the penthouse of a crumbling apartment complex that had been luckily spared from the fires that rampaged throughout the city when the nuclear power plants finally exploded from neglect. It had taken him a very long time to find a mostly-intact city. Now why, you may be wondering, would he want to live in a city full of zombies?

See the whole explanation above, idiot.

He’d been there for months. The apartment building was safe. The city was full of food. His fighting was starting to look less like slinging around a baseball bat as if he couldn’t control his arms and more like he was doing his best to actually use it. He was safe, and it was boring. For the past several days, he’d just been slaughtering hordes of the undead because the thrill was the only thing keeping him from jumping off a bridge. As far as he could remember, he had nothing.

Tommy had decided he needed a goal other than stay alive, because it was far, far too easy.

At first, his goal was ‘learn to play the national anthem on the guitar’ but very quickly gave up when he realized he didn’t even know how to tune the thing. He moved onto his next goal, which was to find a survivor camp and take it down without killing anyone (he pointedly ignored his reasoning). That was an easy goal too. The camp had just been waiting to unravel. Then he decided to take them all down, or at least all the ones within a week’s travel. He finished that in a matter of two months, after having to track each and every one down. Every night, the voice of the Host had been a comfort as he rambled about the pleasures of somehow managing to fix the microwave in his kitchen, which had apparently once been a breakroom for whoever had previously worked at the station. According to the Host, even hot ramen without a flavoring packet was a million times better than cold beans.

Tommy had promptly found a ramen pack the next day and heated it up in a pan over a campfire that night.

The Host was right, a hundred percent.

He’d finished his goal of taking down all the nearby camps, so he expanded it and started on a journey to take down every camp in Greater L’Manberg, as the host called it. A couple people still called it Britain (but that was mostly people who somehow hated The Host. Tommy had no idea how they did it. The Host was funny, intelligent, confident, patient, resilient– anything you could ever want in a person. He was better than Prime, in Tommy’s eyes. Prime had forsaken them. The Host had not), though. But he didn’t want to just take down Brighton’s camps. This was the answer to his problems.

He’d stalked through towns, dragging his baseball bat behind him. It was covered in unwashed gore and muddy brown viscera. The color was all too familiar to any survivors. Whispers of ‘the Instigator’ followed him– tales of someone with a young face but old, grey eyes, who sowed discord and chaos in whatever camp he had the misfortune to come upon. No human death was ever caused, but paranoia became so tense that fights broke out and everything was shattered. It was whispered around dark campfires that he looked upon his work with a bloodied bat and laughed, laughed like a maniac, so loud that it echoed throughout whatever city the camp was in.

Slander, all of it. You could hear it through the entire county.

But soon, he grew tired of it all. There wasn’t any fun in taking down camps anymore. It wasn’t exciting. Everything was the same. He tried to make challenges for himself– don’t speak while taking a camp down, blindfold himself during the ordeal, try and do the most risky things possible to scare others on what they called patrol. He grew tired of it all after he ran out of ideas. Whenever he tried to ask other people for ideas, they either screamed and ran away or just stammered. It wasn’t fun.

He returned to that state of being useless.

Slaughtered a couple hundred hordes.

Burned down a few cities.

t̴̺̠̝̏̾͝r̵̮͉͖̗͊į̶͖͂̈ȩ̴̯͚̤͕̚d̵̙̦̹͎̱̂̿͛̽ ̴̨̱͇̃̒̆̀̚ț̸̮͉̮͊͆̓̃͝o̸̟̣͇͖͋ ̸̛̺̾͂͐̌͘d̴͕͓̦̖̭̙̿͑i̷̧͙͓͍̼̔̚͜ẽ̷̗

Nothing worked. Nothing could cure the void of boredom that yawned in his chest. He ate when he collapsed, so food wasn’t a problem. Maybe he should eat more, but it was getting more and more difficult to. He didn’t really care that much, anyways. He’d be fine. He always was unfortunately.

Tommy had only found a way out of it one night when he’d been sitting in an abandoned, rusty car, listening to the Report of L’Manberg. It was the four year anniversary of the apocalypse.

How have I survived so long?

Why do I have to survive for so long?

[TIME: 8 SEPTEMBER, 2024, 19:53]

[BROADCAST STARTS]

“Evening, my imaginary listeners.”

[The Host’s voice is more somber than usual.]

“It’s been four years now. Isn’t that kind of crazy? Four years since I’ve seen the sun. Four years since I saw Thes, or anyone, for that matter. I still remember the warmth of the sun on my skin. I took it for granted so, so much. I hate these fluorescent lights. They’re so harsh. I think the sun was softer. I might be remembering wrong, though. Mandela effect, and all that.”

[It was quiet for a moment except for the humming that was always present during the Report.]

“...Sometimes, I wonder if I imagined the sun. Or life outside. Sometimes, I wonder if I’ve been here the whole time, and everything Before was a lie, and there was no ‘Before.’ It’s just always been me. In rough, white, blinding light, and I’m just talking to the void outside. If there is an outside. Maybe I’ve always been alive, and it’s been more than four years, or less, or something like that. I have a calendar that says it’s the eighth of September, and I feel like it’s eight o’clock, but it might be four in the morning and the sixteenth of October. I would have no way of telling. Maybe the anniversary of the Report is in two weeks. Maybe it’s in two months. How would I know? I can’t get out of here. I don’t know if there is an out.”

[A fist slams into something.]

“IS IT SO MUCH TO ASK FOR AN ANSWER?!”

[There’s quiet, then soft sobs and the sound of someone sliding down a wall. It’s all quiet for a couple of minutes.]

“...I’m sorry, if there’s anyone listening. I… need a second. I’ll turn on the Report in a couple minutes. Keep this channel on. I apologize.”

[There is no prerecorded instrumental playing of the guitar, as listeners have grown to expect.]

[BROADCAST ENDS]

Tommy sat up, staring at the radio. Static crackled from it until some old song from Before started playing.

That had been a rather shocking broadcast. He turned down the sound, processing what had just been said. He doesn’t remember if it was… real? I would give anything for my memories. He’s doubting his own, though? What’s the Mandela effect?

He rubbed subconsciously at the large scar on his shoulder that he’d woken up with. He’d just gotten up, chosen a name, and started exploring to see how the world worked. He hadn’t really thought about… anything. Thinking that deep would probably give him a headache.

He’s so alone, Tommy thought sadly. He is alone and he has been alone for so, so long.

That was the moment when Tommy gained purpose.

A real purpose.

Tommy was going to find The Host and help him escape, or he would die trying.