Ok, I think it’s as done as it’s going to get for now, so here’s gecko’s first journal entry! They’re really going through it in this one tbh (there will be worse in the future, but this one is fairly graphic) sorry if any of the writing’s weird, it’s not something I do often at all!
tw: blood, vomit, pain, choking/asphyxiation, a bit of swearing, some suicidal ideation (vaguely), and please tell me if there’s anything else you think should be mentioned here!
UPDATE OCT. 2025: please treat the contents of these journals as semi-canon at best, there are parts of the lore I’ve changed and the journals may be rewritten in the future ^_^
November 9, 2024
Entry written on a small notepad, once long forgotten in somebody’s vest pocket, now in an undisclosed hiding spot in one of the esc basements
—
I don’t know how I’m alive right now. I don’t think I’m supposed to be. Everything feels so, so wrong, I don’t think they should have saved me
But they did. They saved me so I must be alive for a reason, I hope there’s a reason
I need to write down what happened, I think. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, my head hurts like it’s going to split open and there’s so much blood, I can’tbreathe
[the writing cuts off sharply and there are specks of blood on the paper, smeared like somebody tried to wipe them off. When the writing resumes, it is in a much clearer hand than the first few lines]
Everything felt so slow, at first. Then everything hurt. My skin, muscles, nerves and bones all felt like they were being stabbed by hundreds of needles, like they were being injected with acid. It felt like I was being crushed, like I had no real form, it was all just pain, I couldn’t breathe at all
There was something in me, in my throat, lungs, even in my sinuses. I know they were helping, they were saving me but I didn’t know it then, all I knew was panic and pain and the mud that made me slip and writhe like a crushed worm and I couldn’t move, breathe and it burned and I was dead, I was going to die -
After what felt like forever, I was able to roll onto my side. It felt like my insides were being flushed with bleach as I coughed them up, my whole body heaving until I spat them out in a mess of bile and blood. It felt like an almost unbearable amount of time until I could finally stop choking and just lay there, letting my body take its first rough and bloody breaths.
I eventually could feel my body through the burning, scalpel sharp pain. It was.. wrong. My heart was too slow. The limbs were in the wrong places, I was too small, too thin. Shaped wrong. My teeth didn’t sit right in my jaw. It felt like my body had been twisted and reshaped into something it shouldn’t be - cold, weak and unnatural.
I moved wrong, so fucking wrong as I scrambled out of the mud. Eventually I opened my eyes.
It was bright out. Everything looked fake, somehow. Or maybe too real. I could see the blood and vomit glistening in the mud beneath where I was sprawled, the light catching it in a way I don’t think I was ever supposed to see.
I could see them, too. The thing that had been choking me. Small, dark, pulsing like a muscle. Sick and wet and disgusting. I reached for them though, so fast that I almost fell back in. I don’t know why. I think they reached for me too.
I’m here now. I found this notepad in my pocket, It’s not the best but it still works for what I need it for. Thought it might be good to have some sort of record that I exist, even if it probably won’t be for long.
They’re still with me, clinging to my hand as I write. They seem a lot smaller when they aren’t strangling me from the inside, and they’re warm and they can move. They’re disgusting. I wonder if they’re a part of me. I don’t think they are but I really don’t know anything, do I? I don’t know why I’m here, why I’m alive, what I am.
I found a path a bit ago, I think if I follow it I might find something. I have to find something, before I change my mind and go back.
Also! The journals on their own aren’t like.. idk, public in rp I guess? Like they might come up at some point, but so far nobody knows about them except gecko. I just want to post them so people could know more about the character even if it takes a while for things to come up in lore tbh
december 14, 2025 - a new entry in the same old notebook, left untouched in its hiding space for the last eleven months.
(mostly just some ramblings from Gecko and updates on what she's been up to recently)
I went to go visit Jacob, Alma and Isabel today! I saw quite a few text messages from them when I got my phone back online, and Jacob wanted to catch up in person since it's been so long. Didn't go to the GSC this time, but got to visit their new house instead! Apparently they bought it this summer, very happy for them. They invited me over for the holidays.. not sure if I'll go yet, but I definitely need to put together some sort of holiday present for them either way.
Also. Went back to talk to guts again today. It's.. the experience of talking to it is unpleasant and invasive, but it doesn't mean any harm. Kind of like how everything else with it has played out, honestly. It told me its metabolism has slowed now that it's more mature, but it will need to start eating bigger food again soon. As far as I could gather, the animals it should be eating right now have to be at least the size of a goat? Maybe bigger? Guess I'll have to figure something out for it soon. Miss when it just ate feeder rats, honestly.
Guts also says it wants to move. It says it misses the light and space it had when it was younger, and even though I explained that there was no way it's fitting in its old terrarium.. well, I mean, I understand where it's coming from. I can barely even close the door to its room anymore, and it's only going to keep growing, apparently. The problem lies in its weight, mostly. There is NO way I could carry it out of the sub-basement, or even to the elevator.. I don't know.
Where would I even keep it, though? Not in the ESC for sure, there's too many scientists I don't trust to not cut parts off of it - can't keep it in the GSC either, for the same reason. I'd put it out in the forest, but who knows what sort of weird bacteria it would spread to the animals.. Jacob's house is too small.. I told it I'll scope out a new home for it, but it's going to have to stay where it is for now. I feel bad, but what else can I do? At least it seems to be safe there.
One last thing. I've been trying to keep track of my health since I got out of hell, since the whole not eating or sleeping for almost a year seems like it has the potential to cause some problems, you know? However, it seems like the only side effect I've experienced (aside from the excessive hunger and headaches the first few days) is just being really hot all the time. It's nice when I'm outside at least, but it makes it hard to dress how I like :/ I'll keep observing my health for now, and maybe consider raiding the lost and found for something more suitable? Really wishing I knew where my swim trunks were right now.
To do:
go christmas shopping for literally everyone
late wedding gift for Ko? Or just combine with their christmas gift?
ask guts if it can eat non-living meat
conditional: check out local butchers shops - maybe look into a hunting licence?
figure out what the hell is up with Dr. Waterbottle recently (note: learn what happened with the divorce)
try to gently talk Dr. Waterbottle down from putting me in a computer (important!)
Alright, Journal 2 time YIPPEE ^_^ it’s the day before the ventity happened, btw!
tw: not too much! descriptions of pain, a bit of paranoia and some depersonalization. This one ended up being a bit less intense than the last one tbh. Feel free to tell me if you think there’s something else in here that needs mentioned though!
UPDATE OCT. 2025: please treat the contents of these journals as semi-canon at best, there are parts of the lore I’ve changed and the journals may be rewritten in the future ^_^
November 18, 2024
Entry written in a stolen spiral-bound notebook, hidden in the same undisclosed cabinet as the bloody notepad that the first journal entry is scrawled on.
—
I made it out of the forest alive, somehow, and I've survived more than a week, so I figured I might as well write an update. And I mean, there’s still no guarantee that I’ll survive, right? Especially not in a place like this. Might as well keep up a record just in case.
At the end of the path I was dragging myself down was a building. It was large, dark and intimidating and some things about it pushed at my mind in a way that was almost as painful as trying to breathe was. I was weak and didn’t want to potentially put myself in a fight I couldn’t win so I hid in the forest, waiting until the sun went down to approach the building. I got in easily enough, somehow, and managed to lock myself in one of the bathrooms without anyone noticing.
The first thing I can clearly remember from that night was looking in the mirror. It was -
The thing that looked back at me wasn’t me. Covered in blood, terrified, scarred and alien. It had such wide eyes, such a thin, bony face.. We made eye contact, and looked away in panic at the exact same moment. The way I felt, when I realized that I was looking at 'myself', that I was seeing my own body..
The worst part is that I have no idea what I should look like. Every time I catch my reflection, those eyes.. I try to avoid mirrors, mostly.
I looked away from the face in the mirror, keeping my back to the wall it was hanging on so I couldn't accidentally catch a glimpse of it. Tried to put it out of my mind, at least until I had a plan of action. Took stock of everything I had on me.
I was wearing the same suit I’m wearing now, damp and covered in mud. It felt very unpleasant to wear, restricting my movement in ways I don't think I was used to. At least it had been spared from most of the blood, I guess. I cleaned it up a bit, and it looked.. not perfect, but okay enough. In the pockets were a full but definitely not brand new pack of cigarettes, a lighter, the notepad I wrote my first journal entry on, and a little green and purple keychain attached to a single key. I didn’t know what the keychain was at first, but I looked it up the other day and apparently it’s a UFO.
I had the creature I coughed up earlier, too. It was small enough to fit in my pants pocket, and I had put them there while I was hiding in the woods earlier because holding it had been making my skin burn. I think that it secretes digestive acid or something similar, maybe? I’ve seen it catch mice a few times in the past few days and I’m pretty sure that’s what it's for at least, it just kind of sits and waits for them to come investigate it and then folds itself in on them, sort of like a venus fly trap but more fleshy.. Probably burned up my insides too, now that I’m thinking about it. Bet that's why breathing hurts so much.
..Anyways, I decided that I couldn't make a good plan without learning about my surroundings so I left the bathroom once I was sure nobody was around. I snooped around for a bit, and discovered a few things. First, that I was in a place called the Evil Science Center. Second, that there is a lost and found, and that somebody had recently misplaced their phone. Third, nobody even looked at me twice, despite how strange and weak I must have looked. Fourth, how everyone else moved their body, and how to mimic their movements with my own body. It was a bit of a blur, honestly. Most of those first days were.
I slept in the bathroom that night, only getting a few hours of poor sleep. I spent some time on my new phone, discovered the internet and the esc group chat. I decided on something to call myself, naming myself after animals I found on Wikipedia. I know now that it’s a strange name but nobody’s really questioned it so it’s worked out okay. By morning I had already made up a simple story about why I was there. Decided to be honest about missing my memories so that people would question me less. It’s worked out. I was also honest about coming from the woods in case anyone here might know anything about my past, but so far nobody’s recognized me at all. Not sure if that’s really a good or bad thing yet.
It’s been.. okay, for the past few days. I’m nice. I’m very, very nice, and nobody comes after me. Well, so far. I think there’s at least one person here who wants to eat me so I have a few safety measures set up, just in case.
I moved into a broken elevator far away from the main facility. It’s pretty okay. Nobody comes up here. The creature stays up here, mostly in a glass enclosure I stole from one of the labs. Like I said before, it eats mice, and some bugs I think. It catches them by itself, I don’t have to feed them to it. I’ve been thinking, though, and I don’t know if I should keep it or get rid of it, honestly. I don’t know if it’s really safe for it in the esc, it might be less likely to be stolen and dissected if it was free in the woods, you know?
I’ve been trying to help around here, at least enough that it’s not suspicious. Going into the labs, though.. Some of them make me afraid in a bone deep way. I hate it. I hate trying to think about why I hate it, too, it makes my head hurt so bad. I feel like I have a constant headache, and sometimes..
Sometimes I do remember, just a bit. Things I really don’t want to remember. Never anything concrete, just flashes of pain, bright lights, the smell of ammonia.. lots of needles. Lots of concrete. The burn of electricity. It’s all I dream about, too. I don’t really want to remember where I come from, I think. Not those parts.
At least there’s some nice people here, I guess. I’m even going out for drinks with some of the other interns later. Never been out of the facility before, I hope it’s not too confusing out there..
On that topic, I think I need to get ready to leave. Might write more tomorrow.
