((Each post in Tiger's journal will be associated with a song I connect to Tiger's story and Tiger as a character. Kind of like, themes song that go with his character development and sometimes the mood of the post. I recommend reading with them in the background!)) #1 [Audio] Well, since this thing has a recorder, I g-guess I could start... Reflecting on my last moments, right? I mean, it's pretty much over, isn't it? I just turned 18 this morning, and I'm about to probably get shot down. To whoever finds this, I guess, this story can be somewhat interesting... I don't know. I just don't want to disappear. I'm Tiger. It's a nickname. I've made it my name when my parents died, when I was 6. All the kids at the orphanage always called me that. I don't have a last name anymore... I don't want a last name anymore. I guess I'm Tiger X. I've got passions. I love ships, mechs, electronics... Yeah. You know, that kind of stuff. It feels weird, I'm getting comfortable with talking. I'm not much of a talker... Or maybe I am, I'm just extremely shy. People are embarassing, okay? Well, anyway, yeah, I love ships. I love ships so much that I entered this youth program where you get to prepare for ship maneuvering, engineering, and all. I chose to apply as a pilot. Now I'm in a bit of a predicament. I love ships so much that... I kinda stole one. I didn't mean it. I just wanted to fly. It's my birthday... I treated myself, I guess. I realized my mistake just now... This is not "just" a mischief.. I'm 18 now. I should be responsible. I'm dreaming way too much. [The recording goes on for 3 hours... All you can hear is someone walking around, breathing and sometimes squealing. After a while, Tiger starts talking again] ...Well. I'm not dead. I don't know what's going on. No-one came after me...? Did I successfuly escape them? Did they even send anyone after me? I'm long gone now. I've been jumping for a while. I'm almost out of fuel. I don't exactly know what now. Out of fuel... That sounds kinda stupid, but I never realized the universe was so... big... I'm so dumb. Of course it is. My starmap doesn't know any of these systems. I'm just gonna try and use the radio in this system. [Loud sigh] I'm not starving here. Apparently, I'm not dying today. [You hear 3 clicks and the recording stops.]
#2 [Audio] [The recording seems to start at a random time. All you hear is loud breathing, there seems to be a lot of interference and white noise] Fuck! [Tapping and heavy breathing, typical background ship noise] [A typical IA voice speaks] Fuel level: low. Battery level: low. Switching to power-saving mode. [Tiger] P... Power-saving mode? [An alarm starts playing] Attention, missile incoming. [Furious tapping is heard, as well as muffled sounds of explosions and impact, you can hear Tiger squealing, yelling, sometimes swearing, and breathing quickly. This goes on 20 mins.] Damn... Thank you asteroid field, thank you asteroid field, thank you asteroid field, thank y- ... Wait, is the recorder on..? Great. What the heck? I just... Good on me, using the radio. I got ambushed by fuck if I know who. .. I lost them in a field. My ship... Has taken damage. I'm just gonna send a distress signal. If I get blown up to pieces once and for all, too bad. I'm ready. It's either someone saves my ass or I die out there, of starvation or... asphyxtion... or whatever... Attention. Fuel level: critical. [The recording stops suddenly as if Tiger punched the recorder's key]
#3 [Audio] [For once, all you hear in the background is wind, some loud stomping in the distance resembling the noise of oil pumps, and muffled gear grinding] Well. A place I can call home. A pink-haired girl who keeps teasing me, Lydia, picked up on my distress signal and welcomed me to her humble home... "Tetanus Fields." Rust, rust, metal, rust, and rust. This is better than the orphanage. Soon, I'm getting a ... "crate", a place just for me. For free, apparently. That's crazy. I'm extremely thankful. Thoughts in the air: Lydia is very pretty, her boyfriend is very jealous and very smart, Lucky is a very cute Agaran, and this one Floran, Crowliss, seems friendly. I'm given an opportunity here, and I'm gonna jump on it like.... woooo! I'm gonna build a shop here. Like an engineering thing. I'm gonna repair's people ships using whatever scavenged things I find, get a few pixels out of their pockets for it, and become the man I always wanted to be! This is nice! Lydia is talking of opening a.. Pizza place, on Tetanus apparently. Man, I love that! I wasn't convinced by Tetanus Fields when I first arrived, but I mean, the people are friendly enough.
#4 [Audio] [The background is quiet] I guess this is where I talk about Tetanus. It's really interesting. We live on a giant savannah-looking pile of dust and rust. It looks like the city was built on something. Like... A gigantic mining facility... or factory. I'm not sure. The animals here are very strange. These purple looking apes covered in tar are pretty scary to me. I'm a bit scared of everything. But it's home. Valor, Lydia's boyfriend, works in a factory that's so impressing. It's built inside of a salvaged ship and powered by ship engines, from what I gathered. It's gigantic. I'm impressed, honestly. I love these things. Tetanus goes on for miles and miles of dust. There are violent winds, so violent they dig the metal surfaces and take the rust with 'em. When it comes back, they're like, tornados of rust shrapnel. It's very dangerous. We have to stay inside or underground when that happens. Usually, we go to the bar. Crowliss is actually a very nice floran. Probably the nicest person I ran into so far... Phew... Excluding Lydia. She's so good to me. I forgot to tell, but she threw a birthday party for me the day I arrived. Yeah, it was still my 18th birthday. I'm still a big kid though. She's like, slightly older than me, and she has her shit together... Me? I'm still scared of everything. I'm still scared of Crowliss guns, even though he's super nice, and I'm still scared of Lydia and her tamper tantrum. Yesterday, some grim looking guy with glasses, and the kind of wrinkles you only get after years of faking smiles, reported something to Lydia and there she was, punching her knuckles 'till blood. Ha, so much is always happening in this town... Something about Joshua.. And "Mr. Hollow". Is that even a real name? Dirt Biter is extremely pushy and creepy. When Lydia was away, I think she tried to create an embarassing situation... I mean, embarassing for me. And it worked. I was super embarassed... Gee. I don't want to... have sex... or whatever with her... She seems so violent. It seems Tetanus gets bigger and taller everyday. It's crazy. Dirt Biter was talking of the winds bringing some nasty bugs, though.
#5 [Audio] [You can hear a guitar in the background, the sound of fire in the distance, and a very calm breeze] Now we're happy camping, I guess! Tetanus fields is full of them "nasty bugs" Dirt Biter talked about. We all moved outside of the city thanks to the little shits... But you know what, I like it! I like it a lot, actually! Oh, yeah, uh, back to the bugs. They eat metal and rust. Dirt Biter is fumigating. She comes back now and then with a creepy looking gasmask that's literally connected to nothing, and she yells. I love the camping though! My engineering skills are put to good use! I built myself a little campsite on top of a hill, it's very comfy and somewhat secure. Safeness is... always relative in Tetanus Fields. I'm glad I haven't gotten hurt yet. Or caught a disease. I'm mostly taking care of water filtering. It feels good, some people much older than me are relying on me. Skyrax, the Glitch, seems to be proud of me. I'm so glad someone is. A strange lady in gasmask arrived today, she doesn't talk, and lives in a hole, apparently. Everybody else seems way friendlier, with all the camping and whatnot! This red-haired boy always plays guitar, Petaldancer is always there and is really friendly. The giant, Reaper, has also gotten nicer. I like the atmosphere this camping brought! Lydia seems to be dealing with some issues, though. Things about her dad. Crazy. I didn't know he was... "Around". I tend to forget people "have" families... She's lucky he's still here for her. They made a little pool-like puddle of pure water, and they always swim. I'm way too embarassed to do that, Reaper is twice my size and so muscled, and that Apex is so hairy. I'm... tiny... pale... and hairless... Rudy West is a nice person. He used to creep me out because he doesn't talk under his mask, but he told me not to "take shit from Dirt Biter" and sounded honest and friendly. I like him, now. Crowliss is still super nice to me. I think I'm gonna ask him a favor soon, if I'm not too shy, he's probably busy as heck.
#6 [Audio] [In Tiger's tent, you can hear the sound of nature] Hahaha! I'm SO excited! Crowliss taught me how to use a shotgun, a pistol and a rifle! It was amazing! It was like, best-friend bonding moments! I mean... I'm getting carried away... But damn, it was really so much fun! First we did target practise and then he took me on a patrol. We hunted for animals, it was so so so exciting! I don't think I enjoy killing things that much... But ah, isn't it required in Tetanus Fields? I'm gonna have to, at some point, I expect one of these things to just... try and eat my tent. We went around the place a little bit, looking around the camp, and he brought me on a flying starship. He said they were "friendly pirates" who sometimes came to Tetanus to trade. We ended up in front of a tower with some old robots inside. Crowliss taught me how to pop in and out of cover and I destroyed them! I destroyed them myself! It was amazing! Just, amazing. I don't know what else to say. I don't know what kind of person Crowliss is, but I wanted to just, hug him so bad, like, "YEAH, WE'RE FRIENDS NOW!". I mean, I think we are.. That's a friend right? You go hunting with him, and sometimes you discuss. Just like Lydia, minus the hunting. Hard to have a standard for these things, I never had friends back at the orphanage.. [Sigh] Well, I'm sleeping for now. Exciting day tomorrow! I'm gonna go hunt again.
#7 [Audio] [In Tiger's tent again] The last few days... were... eventful. It turns out the strange lady with a gasmask is called 674. Crowliss made it so we had some together to talk. I learned a few things... I guess. Gosh. I'm not expanding on that. Gee. I met Lydia's dad, he's... something. He wears a hoodie not unlike mine and shakes all the time. He seems utterly sad, it's upsetting. It brings a little grey cloud on this happy-camping. I mean, I don't blame him or anything. It's just sad to be reminded yeah.. There's a real world out there. I hate snapping back to reality. I have to, I guess. How else am I going to keep track? I can't live my lies. Life is hard work and a lot of unfairness. I'll make the best out of it. Valor and I fixed my ship. I mean, Valor mostly taught me stuff. I fixed my ship. I'm proud. I'm glad, too. I can amount to something. It took me a while though, gee. The ship is working again, I have absolutely no fuel, but all the electronics respond. 674 and I had a long conversation. She took off her mask, and... I don't know. She has scars all over her face, but I think she's pretty. I think she's tough. I know I'm not. Who cares how many scars you have on your face, when your heart is strong? I'd rather be burnt all over and know half the stuff she knows than be the clean little teen I am who... unfortunately can't do much, when it comes to fighting and all that... I'm training though. I'm training. Crowliss taught me good. 674 is interesting to talk to. She talks a lot of her home, before Tetanus. Some facility where they treat humans really badly? It sounds scary. She overcome all that and fought her way out. She's incredible. Am I ever going to be that kind of person? I admire her so-so-so much. She's strong. She asked me what I thought would be a good name for her. I said Clara. It's from a story they used to read to us at the orphanage. Now she goes by Clara, around me. She always takes her mask off, too. Soon as Skyrax or anyone come around, she puts it back on. I think it's cute. For once, I get to think something is cute. Lydia spends her time teasing me about how [Imitating Lydia's voice] "adoraaable" I am. I'm just gonna borrow Reaper's pill and become strong in 5 days, [PFFTTT]. Clara is... Growing on me, in a strange way.
#8 [Audio] [In front of Tiger's tent, evening, the fire is burning under a stove] Wow. It's kind of incredible... I think Clara and I are like. Together. Like, we're a thing. A... [gasp] Romantic thing. Clara is very... Formal about it? It's strange. She was like. "Tiger, I think by now, it's safe to assume I love you." And I was like " CAN I love you?" Is this even allowed? Why did I do to deserve such awesomeness? I'm that lame kid that filters water, read books and do nerdy engineering. The only cool thing I do like the big boys, is going hunting, but Lydia'n'all probably wouldn't like hearing about it, so I kinda do it in secret. They'd be worried, and they'd probably stop me. I'm still pretty amazed. I love her presence. I mean, I love -her-, but, she's like, the only person I feel safe around, on Tetanus Fields. I don't know why, but the happy camping atmosphere is gone. Everyone, except Skyrax is back to being suspicious and cautious and hateful. That's kinda ironic. Clara and I are balancing all this, I think she's happy. It's hard to tell. She smiles around me. She's very mysterious. She comes from another planet, busts into my life, loves me, and like my presence. Woah. Did I do something right? For once, like. Maybe I did. I'm happy. I feel really loved, for the first time. I mean, as a whole. I feel loved by Clara, by Lydia, by Rudy, by Skyrax, by Crowliss. Back at the orphanage, the feeling wasn't there. I guess... I'm glad these people like me, as things seem a little bit tense between each-other, regardless of me. Looking back now though, I took the right turn when I stole that ship. I'm pretty certain about that now, yeah. This is home. Love's here. Friends are here. People who value me for what I can do are here. I'm not worthless.
#9 [Audio] [In a crate] Woo! We moved back into the city. I got myself a new crate! And so did Lydia. She made it so we got crates next door, I'm starting to look at Lydia like, a big sister of some kind. She's really fun to be around. I've started moving in stuff in my crate. I've salvaged blueprints and various documents and collected them. That's practically all I have in my crate. In fact, for the paper not to get damaged, I put all the lockers and safes in my crate, and I sleep on top of it, in a big sleeping bag. Sure, Tetanus Fields isn't luxury, but what more can I say? I'm happy. I've noticed a little vault with some kind of... Kluexian thing, in Tetanus. I don't really get it. I trespassed there and found a hole. Well "found". I slipped. I almost hurt myself. My main concern was that I was completely in the dark. I used my PDA to navigate around... A real labyrinth of wreckage. I was literally walking on all kind of furnishing. Bathtub, fridge, counters, heaters, you name it. All that was down there, dirty and broken. After a while of going further, because it was too high to climb back out, I found a strange place, like an abandoned mine. I kept going, I was frankly terrified. I had nothing on me and I kept hearing, you know... Typical water noises. Water dripping and going through pipes. Pipes trembling... All the noises you don't want to hear, alone, unarmed in the dark. After a while, I fell in yet another hole, straight into dirty water... Eugh. I found a tunnel large enough for me to crawl in. I was scared to go through, but ah. What else was I supposed to do? I swallowed the fear and went ahead. I ended up in some kind of tomb...? And what! I found a rifle there... Like... a sniper! It's so pretty. It's unusually long and light. I loaded already with the usual bullets, magnum ammunition. It works. The long barrel has markings all over it, some things written in... some Avian dialect, probably, but also human: there's a sentence in arabic on it. I didn't show the rifle to anyone, yet. I wanna show it to Clara, when I get the chance.
#10 [In Clara's crate, Tiger sounds angry] I need a spaceship. I need a ship. I've been working too hard for this, for nothing. I'm leaving. I'm leaving as soon as I have a spaceship. Can I trust anyone? Clara was banned from Tetanus Fields, and for what? Apparently, she disapproved of the Mucklings and Petaldancer. She said Petaldancer was a burden. Am I going to disagree? These things are terrifying. They come out, annoy or hurt everyone. If you get bitten ... Or even if they touch you... I bet some of them are so rough that just by scratching you, you'll get a disease. Isn't Tetanus at least supposed to be a little bit safe? I'm in tune with what Clara thinks. I won't let Clara down. I'm thinking of something. I need to find her. I need to join her. How? Where the fuck is she? How am I supposed to find someone that goes by a 3 digit number in the universe? My only track is that she left with Traptooth... I've looked up Traptooth. What the fuck? He tortured Lydia, Petal, and others... And he allowed Clara to leave Tetanus Fields safe. What the fuck is Lydia hiding from me? They allow these "mucklings" things to walk all over the "uptop" and they get captured and hurt by the same person that stood for the most precious person in my life. I don't even want to hear their opinion. There's something so wrong about them. No more lies. No more stepping over little Tiger. No more teasing Tiger. You can't fathom my energy for this anymore. I'm finding a ship. I'm living. I'm not staying with these psychos. You pat me, you silence me, you label me as cute when you mean ignorant, I see how it is. It's not gonna be like that anymore. I don't trust any of them. I'll find a way. Even if I gotta work all night for it. A spaceship.
#11 [Audio] [In a camp again, the sound of nature is heard in the background, you can hear Tiger moving around, prone] I'm still furious. They all lied to me, and they act like nothing happened. I saw them, there was definitely something wrong. When I broke it to Lydia that was I leaving, backpack on, she was acting innocent, but it was pretty fucking obvious. Greg and Rudy, just waiting for Lydia to lie, arms crossed, leaning against the walls. What the fuck are these people even hiding? I've found a solution. I'm waiting for it. I've set up a quick camp around the gun range just to train for a few days. Using that rifle I found. [A shot is heard, probably shooting targets at the gun range] ...Lydia. Yeah. Lydia. [He breathes slowly and repeats] Lydia... Lydia. [Another shot is heard] Don't cross my path again. I thought I found friends. I thought I could trust you people. Once I find that Traptooth guy and I understand what's going on... [Nghrrrr...] I got the beamcodes to a R.A. ship that's trading resources with Tetanus Fields. I'll sneak in the cargo and leave this shithole and its liars.
#12 [Audio] [In a quiet room in Taranis' Inn] Well. The last weeks weren't enjoyable. After exiting the cargo, I ended up on yet another slum-planet. "Haus", they call it. Nothing but a bar and a few... piles of metal. At least, I was far away from Tetanus Fields. Another whole sector, on the starmap. I met some people, down there. They told me about the places I could go, as I was asking for somewhere where I can be trained. There's no way I'm going to the USCM, I don't know what's their policy on stolen ships and outlawed girlfriend but.. Ah. I considered the R.A., but I have no military experience. I heard of a Knight Order, on "Taranis". Well, that's something. From what I know, Knights take in Pages. Like, that's a thing. I thought that would be my way to... become stronger... I guess. I need to perfect my aim. I need to perfect my fighting skills. What if something happened to Traptooth and Clara? What if I have to fight? I need to be prepared. I stole... money. From an avian my age. I had to use a knife. [Sigh] I took a taxi to Taranis. I was disappointed, upon arrival. I was asked to repair mechs, to join the order. Which I did, I fixed the eletronics on some old mechs lying around in a gigantic ship's cargo. Not only, after doing this, nobody was ever available to help me, but some Knights harassed me. Better yet, Florans spent their time fighting and having dramas about "who's sleeping with who", as the Knights mostly fought each other, seemingly randomly. John, the leader, doesn't do anything. He sits around and delegate everything to Astora, who apparently went into a depression upon my arrival. Nice. He went from jolly to "monotone". The place is dreadful. I made a mistake.
#13 [Audio] [Obviously outside, you can hear leaves flying around and the breeze. Tiger sounds thoughtful and calm.] "Never underestimate an enemy... [The click of a rifle loading is heard] and never assume success is assured." Mhm. What am I exactly preparing for? Who's my enemy? Is it Tetanus Fields? Does Kane means that failure is an option? Still a lot of stuff I don't understand. My willpower is enough to keep me going, I don't feel like anything can kill my drive. Taranis is a complete wreck. The Floran tribe is laughable and the knights are unstable. I've learned to keep my head up and despise those that used to scare me. Kane [He says, putting an emphasis on his name, to pronounce it right], is a sniper, here, on Taranis. He's here to protect some Floran. None of my business. I don't want to know. All I know is he's incredible at what he does, and he helped me. For the past two weeks, he taught me everything I missed about sniping. I'm better. I'm calmer. I understand things better. I understand life better. I'm less afraid of those around me: I'm stronger. I can deal with things on my own. Kane was a great teacher. It feels like I've had nothing but that, lately, Crowliss, 674, Skyrax, Kane... I had nothing but great teachers. It's time to give back. It's time to prove I can cope with all that on my own, without hiding in a corner. My rifle is loaded. I know how to use my revolver. I'm not afraid to pull the trigger. I ain't got all the answers, but I'm looking in the right direction. I'm leaving today. Kane has taught me everything he could, I won't be bothering him any longer. Once again, I'll be on the road.
