Diary of an Arcadian Orphan
Introduction[edit]
This diary belonged to an Ancient Umbra whose roots were laid in Arcadia. It was given to the Umbra Abraxas before her death, and translated by Wildkin Karol Long.
“I have to make a note that there weren’t any dates written down on any of these entries. Several days may have passed between them, even years at some point. I’ve done what I’ve could to make these translations as faithful as possible, even if the story they tell is not at all times cohesive. - K”
One[edit]
Today was possibly the best day of my life! Auntie Bear usually brings us guests to talk to us, but they’ve always been boring people. Like those who make us orphans feel bad about not having parents or that we’re not gonna do so well in life because of blah blah blah. Today though, we got Princess Sophia to come in!
She’s the same age as some of the older kids here and she didn’t feel at all snooty. It honestly felt like she was just one of us! I wanted to talk to her longer, but some adult came in and said that Mister Durian was badly injured and she needed to go help him. I really hope that he’s okay, and that Sophia comes to visit us soon!
There is a drawing of a princess surrounded by children, with a bearkin in the background.
Two[edit]
I’m scared. I’m really, really scared. Auntie Bear says that a war is starting. Princess Sophia is going to be leading the attack against this big scary lady. A lot of the older kids went to join the militia. Auntie has been crying a lot.
She won’t stop crying.
I’m scared.
Three[edit]
Something scary has happened. I don’t know what. Auntie still is crying. A lot of the other workers begged to have all of us moved to the temple, because the Dragon will protect us, but Auntie Bear said they didn’t have room for all of us. She keeps telling us it’s alright, but I heard Sam say that Princess Sophia died and Poppy is failing at keeping the militia together. Auntie yelled at him for saying such things inside the orphanage, and I haven’t seen him since. I think he went to the temple.
Translator's note: "Not much time may have passed between this and the last entry. Princess Sophia did not survive her battle against Rakshasa 8. This part appears to have been written when the Faewild forces began to push into the Arcadia itself. I believe I have been to the temple they are talking about. It was erected for the Earth Dragon, whose name we currently do not know, and it was used as a shelter during the war. A shame that the temple itself collapsed in recent history. I would've liked to have studied it more."
Four[edit]
We’re playing a new game called hold still and stay quiet. There’s always loud noises in the streets. Really big scary-looking bugs are walking next to the metal golems, but Auntie says that they’re our friends. Yet, she won’t let us talk to them. Auntie says we have to stay hidden and quiet whenever they move by. Juni said she found a butterfly in the play yard and that it said the big bugs aren’t our friends at all. I don’t think Auntie is hiding anything from us. At least she stopped crying.
Five[edit]
Juni brought us a jar of candy. It was full of blue and red and pink sugar that was shaped like all sorts of flowers. She said the butterfly gave it to her and that she should share it with all her friends. Juni had us line up to get a piece, but I got shoved towards the back because I’m the shortest.
Auntie found us before us shorties got a piece. She grabbed the jar and threw it into the fire. When she found out a lot of kids had already had a piece, she started to scream and cry at us. Juni called her crazy, and that made Auntie ran out the room. She locked herself in her office and forgot to give us dinner.
Maybe if I had a candy too, I wouldn’t feel so hungry.
Six[edit]
Auntie woke us up with screaming this morning. She was running around the room and looking under blankets and pillows, tossing this weird blue powder everywhere while she was at it. She grabbed onto my shoulders so hard that I got bruises, and started to scream at me.
I don’t know where Juni and the other kids went. They were all here when we went to bed. I don’t know why there’s powder everywhere.
Please stop yelling, Auntie.
Seven[edit]
Auntie Bear has us sleep in her room now. We’re no longer allowed to play outside either. I asked if we could go to the temple, since there’s not that many of us left. She said that there’s no one at the temple. The dragon didn’t protect anyone. She said she’d keep protecting us though. Auntie is always going to be with us.
Eight[edit]
Something has gone terribly wrong.
That’s what Auntie keeps muttering to herself. I looked out the window earlier today. The scary bugs were fighting a bunch of plants. Auntie saw me looking and yanked me away from the window. She put me in the pantry for a bit, since there’s no windows there. I wasn’t let out until dinnertime. We all split a jar of peaches. It was really tasty!
Nine[edit]
Translator note: "The handwriting from here on out is quite different. The speech used is more eloquent, often using polite forms of Arcadian speech, but the letters themselves are formed more crudely."
I didn’t think this journal survived.
I had spent a week trying to dig through the rubble for survivors, but so much time had passed. I didn’t even know what I was looking for but this journal is something special. It’s proof that we all existed. We were all alive once.
Though I fear this is all my fault.
I honestly did try to stay away from windows that day, but then I saw it. The butterfly that Juni had talked to before, simply sitting on the dead flowers on the window planter. It had to have been the same one, because it was the same blue as the powder that had been left behind on everyone’s sheets. Though, it was strange. I could’ve sworn it had a human face on it.
Even if I shouldn’t have, I ran towards the window. I started to scream where Juni and the others were. Auntie was already running up the stairs when she heard my voice. She shouted at me to get away from the window, but it was too late. Everything became dark as something massive appeared.
It was black, shiny, and angry. Auntie had gotten in the way of me and the window right as it went to break through, and she was stabbed in the chest with its claw. She then turned around and held onto me as the thing began to rampage through the orphanage. The whole building fell apart around us and we were trapped.
Auntie kept telling me that it was going to be okay, even as I felt her blood against my back go cold. It was dark though… I don’t know how much time has passed. Though I do not know exactly what happened, I believe there may have been some sort of poison in that monster’s claw. Auntie’s body started to melt and turn into some sort of ooze. It ended up getting everywhere, in my mouth and eyes and ears.
Worst of all, I felt myself also turn into this ooze. I felt the despair grow in my heart, and the ooze grew all the stronger because of it. It changed me. I became it. Through its curse and its blessing, I was able to make my way out of the cracks of the orphanage.
But I didn’t find anyone else like me. There is only this journal left.
Ten[edit]
I tried to go to the temple, but there was only the priest there. He didn’t react well to my appearance and claimed that I was a monster. It should’ve hurt, right? To be called that. But when I looked into his eyes, I could tell that he changed too. He was also a monster. Is that what happened to us all? Maybe Sophia and the older kids were lucky. They didn’t have to watch all of us become monsters.
Translator Note: "As I recall, the Priest himself had become undead, and was likely already in that condition when the Umbra met up with them. When I tried to speak to him during these present times, several years ago, he ended up exploding into spiders. The spiders then attacked us. I am not fond of trips to Arcadia."
Eleven[edit]
I think I’m starting to get the hang of this! Everything comes down to emotion. At first, I wasn’t able to control my form all that well. There were so many times where I thought I would be caught by the golem patrols, but now I understand that it all comes down to emotions!
I hate myself! I hate what I’ve become and I hate that I’m so alone, but that hate is what makes me stronger! With it, I can shift into many beasts! Into men many times larger than myself, so I can have the muscle to push past barriers. Or I can use fear to turn myself into a cat and sneak past the monsters! Fear, hate, and despair are what make me stronger!
Twelve[edit]
Something broke off of me today. I didn’t know quite what was happening at first, but perhaps I became too powerful? Then that piece, it started crying. It started talking. Something that was from me, but it had their own thoughts and personality.
It would seem that I’ve become a mother?
Thirteen[edit]
I’ve named her Greta, after Auntie Bear. She honestly is someone different. I had hoped that it was Aunti Bear, who had become absorbed within me and somehow find a way to break free all this time later, but no. They don’t remember the orphanage at all.
Though it hurts me to do so, I must teach her to be strong. I will teach Greta fear. Despair. Anguish. I will teach her how to hunt. I will teach her how to survive. It is what any mother would do. Force their young to live.
Fourteen[edit]
Greta has so much natural talent! There is a difference between being born of ichor and being born human. Evert day, I feel this pride in watching her grow. Yet, I feel that clear divide between us. This joy, this happiness, I feel it changing me. It is pushing me away from the darkness I had lived in for so long.
And the more I change, the more I see the divide between myself and Greta. Perhaps I will always be human. Somewhere, deep inside, I will always wish to return to how I once was. But not my daughter. She will always be free of that regret. Though I teach her to embrace pain and agony for the sake of survival, I am truly grateful that she was born this way. This is what she was meant to be, and always how she will stay.
Fifteen[edit]
I lost Greta today.
She had wandered off on her own. We had been together for some time. Though there are still golem patrols, the amount of monsters has certainly lessened. Greta had earned the trust needed to go out and do hunts on her own. She was a clever girl, and her ability to change forms was better than my own. I should have taught her to never leave my side.
She brought back a human for me to eat. Greta told me that she had already devoured her fair share and that she left me, her mother, some of the best meat.
We got into an argument. She didn’t understand why it was wrong to eat a human. Greta didn’t know what one was. She didn’t even understand what Arcadia had been, only what it was now. When I watched her fight and shout back, I realized that I had born into this world something truly different. We were always going to be different, but I never realized before how different we really were.
Greta was a monster. I had made her this way. I chose to make her this way.
We continued to fight until she threw away the man’s head in disgust. Then she ran. I chose to follow, to apologize for my mistakes, but the golem patrol found her first.
I am no longer a mother.
I will never be a mother again.
Sixteen[edit]
It is time to leave Arcadia behind. I realized that the golem patrols would never stop, but the demons who were once around had drastically diminished. All that is left behind is the ill experiments and creations.
I want to see the outside world. They must have left as well, haven’t they? The butterflies and the terrible people who killed Princess Sophia all those years ago. I pray with everything I have that they are also gone from the outside world.
My final stop before I left was the orphanage. To my surprise, as I approached, I heard laughter. The laughter of children. I thought I had gone mad, but no. They were there. Children.
The splinters of those like myself, playing in what remained of the play yard. I can only assume that the others that had remained with Auntie Bear and myself somehow suffered a similar change. They had been in Arcadia this entire time, and I somehow had never found them.
Though none of these children recognized me. I can only assume that my family, the only ones who understood what we went through, and how we became this way, continued to split themselves until nothing of their original selves remained.
This is not a decision I disagree with. Had I not had my experience with Greta, it is likely something I would have chosen to do as well.
I will take these children and together, we will travel away from Arcadia. I will teach them not only fear, but joy and love as well.
Our negative emotions can make us strong, but they drive us closer to becoming the demons that helped destroy our home. By embracing our heart’s whims, and learning acceptance and recovery from our pains, we can become strong as well. I firmly believe that our shifting is tied to these emotions.
Those among us Umbra, the ones who fully embrace love and become it, will surely become the strongest of us all.
Translator's Note[edit]
"I highly doubt that Umbra only come from Arcadia. Humans who remained in the Untamed Wilds became Wildkin. Humans that attained the Dragon's blessings became Draconian. Arcadia was not an isolated incident. Umbra hold their roots in Kal Azul as well. Their ancestors were likely all humans who became heavily influenced by some sort of Void magic. Unlike the demons and phantoms, it is their emotions that push and pull them away from the Void."
"From these notes, I garner that emotions lay at the core of Umbra abilities. Negative emotions drive them to be more heavily influenced by the Void, but happier thoughts will have them remain rooted within Rhyst. A strange notion, but one that is simply a quality of their kind. It is my hope that by publishing this diary, Umbra everywhere will have some insight to how their own ancestors were shaped by Void, and give them a push towards continuing to evolve themselves for the better. - K."