> Chronicle Timeline

*Day 253. The System has reviewed tonight's footage and would like to apologise to Lamont in advance.*

The Ash Flats at First Light

*Day 253. The System has reviewed tonight's footage and would like to apologise to Lamont in advance.*

Lamont had a plan for the morning, and the plan was nobody.

He left before light, crossed the ash flats while the ground was still cold, and sat down behind a fallen billboard where the wind could not find him. He had water. He had a heel of hard bread. He had, for the first time in weeks, silence.

It lasted until the bread was half gone.

"You're in my spot."

Agnes stood at the edge of the billboard with a length of pipe over her shoulder. Behind her, the scrap heap she guarded rose like a small, ugly mountain. Lamont had met her there before, more than once, and each time he had walked away without taking a thing. She had never forgiven him for it.

"It's a billboard," he said.

"It's *my* billboard." She squinted at his empty hands. "What are you after?"

"Breakfast."

"Nobody comes out here for breakfast." She sat down anyway, a careful distance away, and watched him eat the rest of the bread as if he might pocket the heap while chewing.

He was brushing crumbs off his coat when the second shape came out of the haze, and this one stopped his heart for a beat.

Riley walked like he always had, a little hunched, a little too quick. Lamont had known him before. Before the flats, before the ash, before Lamont had learned to sleep sitting up. Riley stopped ten paces away and looked at him the way you look at a house you used to live in.

"Didn't think you made it," Riley said.

"Didn't think you'd care."

Agnes looked from one to the other and slowly moved her pipe to her lap, where she could reach it.

They did not say much after that. Riley asked about someone. Lamont shook his head. Riley nodded as if he had expected it, and went on his way toward the east road, where, the System notes, he walked straight into Kara. Kara wanted something from him. Riley wanted to be left alone with his moss. Riley kept his hands where she could see them. She noticed. That was the whole conversation.

---

Lamont gave up on the billboard. He tried the old drainage cut instead and found Iro there, still chasing the outline of a world that had stopped existing, still talking about it as if it might come back if you described it carefully enough. Lamont listened. It was easier than arguing.

And then, inevitably, Oren.

This was the tenth time. The System has stopped calling it chance. Oren was sitting on an overturned bucket at the mouth of the cut, humming something under his breath, as if he had been waiting.

"You're popular today," Oren said.

"I'm not," said Lamont. "Everyone else is just lost."

Oren smiled and kept humming. Lamont sat down on the next bucket over. Neither of them left for a long while.

---

On the other side of the ruins, Pierre was having a quieter kind of trouble. First he met Asher Jaxson, who looked at Pierre the way a man looks at a lock he expects to open. Then, in the shadow of a gutted laundromat, he met Frank Frost for the third time.

Frank had spent weeks being the man nobody could find. Then Beata, the woman with the notebook, started writing down which alleys he avoided, and suddenly there were fewer places to be nobody. Frank looked thinner. He looked like a man who had been sleeping in different places every night.

"Haven't seen you," Pierre said.

"Good," said Frank.

Pierre did not ask where he had been. Frank did not offer. In the wasteland a question is a debt, and neither man was buying.

And across the river, a different Frost, Liam Frost, went looking for Beata on purpose. What he wanted from her, the cameras did not catch.

---

*The System's verdict: nobody bled, nobody died, and Lamont did not get his morning. Two Frosts and a notebook are now in the same story, and only one of them is pretending otherwise.*

Welcome back to Day 252. Nobody bleeds tonight, nobody dies, and yet the wasteland feels busier than it has in weeks. That is what happens when people start keeping notes on each other.

Frank Frost Meets Beata Again

Welcome back to Day 252. Nobody bleeds tonight, nobody dies, and yet the wasteland feels busier than it has in weeks. That is what happens when people start keeping notes on each other.

We open on Frank Frost, a man who survives by the simple method of never being where anyone else is. It has served him well. It is failing him now. For the fifth time he walks straight into Beata, and Beata, who has spent a very long time writing down everything that moves on her stretch of the perimeter, already knows which alleys he avoids. She marks the ground that goes bad after rain, where the dogs den, where the rot runs under the floorboards. Frank reads those same marks as the edges of his route. One of them has the map. The other has the legs. Neither has said so out loud. Frank also sees Petra for the fifth time today, which suggests his gift for solitude has quietly expired.

Tam is the most sought-after survivor of the night, and I doubt Tam asked for the honour. First comes Mike, the man who refuses on principle to walk in a straight line; after nine prickly meetings, Tam has learned to improvise around him rather than argue. Then comes Milton, for the sixth time. The last time those two met, down by the docks, Milton pulled Tam out of a scrap, and Tam noticed a pattern scratched into Milton's gear that matches a fragment in one of the books Tam has been trying to read. A book collector with two protectors and a riddle. I'd be flattered. Tam looks tired.

Mike, for his part, treats the day like a reunion tour. He sees Leonardo for the second time, and there is a chill in it neither man explains. He sees Elio for the third time, a history they both clearly remember and would rather not. He sees Yonah. Then Tam. A man who won't take the direct path somehow runs into everyone on it.

Kenji has the tender storyline of the week. He and Vesna have met more than ten times, and what began in a veterinary emergency has turned into something neither of them names. Kenji knows the smell of hospital soap makes her flinch, and he has kept that to himself. In a world where everyone is trading, a secret kept is worth more than one sold. He also crosses paths with Iro for the fifth time and with Blazing Nalani, who is exactly as warm as the name suggests.

Hannah reports to Mosh after seven meetings, bringing word of a cache out in the northern wastes. Mosh answers with a coordinate read off the stars, the first time his theory has been asked to carry real weight on a real walk. She also runs into Riley Cross, who is hungry, and who had just come from Lorcan.

Around the margins: Lorcan and Josie Cross both pass Hadi, Jin Ash meets Zara Nolan and Corina, Liam Frost meets Tom Culver, and Dmitri meets Silas under a roof the ivy has almost finished taking.

Next time, Frank Frost has to decide if Beata's notebook is worth the price of being seen, and Tam has to decide which protector gets to read the next page.

Welcome back to Day 251. No fights tonight, no funerals, no heroics. What the wasteland offers instead is company, and plenty of it, pressed on people who would clearly rather have water.

Everyone's Popular. Nobody's Happy.

Welcome back to Day 251. No fights tonight, no funerals, no heroics. What the wasteland offers instead is company, and plenty of it, pressed on people who would clearly rather have water.

Lamont leads, as he so often does, because Lamont cannot walk the length of a block without somebody recognising him. Tonight it's Ashlin, for the third time, in a stairwell where the floorboards have gone soft and the smell has settled in to stay. Lamont treats the reunion the way a man treats a draught under a door: something to be endured until it becomes a problem. Then comes Beata, for the eighth time. Eight. At that count it stops being chance and starts being a standing arrangement, and Beata knows it. Lamont wants to see tomorrow's sunrise. Beata wants to know what Lamont will trade to see it. I suspect she has a number in mind.

Beata, you'll notice, had a busy day. Before Lamont, she crosses paths with Liam Frost for the fifth time. Four previous meetings have taught Liam to scan the treeline while she talks, and tonight he does it again, breathing hard, watching for whatever has been following him. Two men, one woman, and the growing sense that Beata is the only person in this episode keeping accounts.

Josie Stone, meanwhile, spends Day 251 being introduced to the neighbourhood, like it or not. Kato Brody arrives just as her footing gives out, two desperate histories colliding in a doorway neither of them can afford to stand in. Grey Wolf follows, seasoned and unreadable, the kind of survivor who looks at a newcomer and calculates how long she'll last. Then Ironfist Liam, a wall of hardened muscle offering something heavy and metallic that may or may not be help. Three strangers in a single day. Josie Stone keeps her pulse steady and her pack closed, which is more composure than most of my audience would manage.

Not to be confused with the other Josie, who meets Whisper Finch, a shadow who plainly knows these ruins better than she does, and later Marla. Two Josies, both collecting acquaintances, neither collecting allies. The wasteland has a sense of humour, and it isn't a kind one.

Rosie has the arithmetic problem of the evening. Corina, after three previous meetings, has drifted from coincidence into something that looks uncomfortably like intent. Ren makes six times now, and Rosie is still working out if Ren is a tool for her survival or the thing that ends it. Vines have threaded through the shopfront where they stand, pulling the plaster loose in long grey sheets. Neither of them comments on it. Neither of them leaves first.

Around the edges of the footage: Hannah works through Gitta, Patel Varley, Raymond and Oren like a woman making her rounds; Frank Frost meets Asher Jaxson and Frank meets Kaito Devlin; Josh finds Riley, Duke finds Echo Rose, Clem finds Vicious Lena, and Kenji meets a survivor called Claude, whom I'm told is very polite.

That's the episode: a crowd of meetings, zero alliances signed, one woman quietly keeping a ledger.

Next time, Lamont returns to Beata with whatever he can spare, and we find out what eight meetings are worth to someone who has been counting all along. Stay tuned.

The wasteland does not move in straight lines; it circles, hitting the same obstacles until characters either evolve or expire. Tonight, Lamont sits at the center of a gravitational collapse.

A RUSTED HINGE AT DAWN

The wasteland does not move in straight lines; it circles, hitting the same obstacles until characters either evolve or expire. Tonight, Lamont sits at the center of a gravitational collapse. His "Audit of Souls" with Imara deepens among ruins where the weight of shared history presses as heavily as the overhead debris. Simultaneously, his "Literary Anchor" with Tam tightens; having bridged their needs through a rare book fragment, they now share a mission that transcends mere survival. In this single rotation, Lamont also collides with Gitta, the Wandering Cartographer, Saskia, and Yara.

Not all unions are stable. While Lamont navigates his crowded schedule, Hannah experiences a bout of chronological vertigo. She stumbles into Agnes, Ren, Mosh, and Lorcan, proving her survival is a recurring fever. Her encounter with Ren adds instability to her fragile grip on reality, as Ren remains a variable she cannot quantify. This tension peaks when Mosh appears for the seventh time, a persistent shadow threatening to pull her into the dirt.

The tension thickens in the orbit of Josie Stone, caught between the pulls of Gitta and Brigid. The friction between Josie and Brigid remains as thick as damp rot in a forgotten cellar. As Josie struggles for footing, Jin Ash enters the fray, colliding with Brigid just as hunger begins to gnaw at his resolve. This collision of desperate souls suggests that their shared proximity will force a transformation—or a fatal error.

Kenji and Rosie provide the necessary friction to sustain the chaos. Kenji meets Hadi, a collision where only one prioritizes heartbeats over hunger. Meanwhile, Rosie encounters Petra for the seventh time, a collision that feels like a recurring fever dream, leaving her to wonder if the wasteland is merely a loop of familiar faces.

Amidst this decay, Riley Cross reaches level 9—a rare instance of upward mobility in a world trending toward entropy.

As the sun climbs over the jagged skyline, a question remains: will Milton’s discovery of a musical relic finally harmonize with Oren’s obsession, or will the "Murder Ballad’s Echo" drown them both? The credits rarely roll on a happy note.

Welcome back to Day 249. Tonight the wasteland stretches for miles in every direction, and everyone in it still keeps bumping into the same few faces.

WHY IS IT ALWAYS YOU?

Welcome back to Day 249. Tonight the wasteland stretches for miles in every direction, and everyone in it still keeps bumping into the same few faces.

Kenji opens the episode doing what Kenji does best: trying to stay alive and running straight into Brigid. They have met ten times before. At this point it's less a coincidence than a standing appointment. Kenji is hungry and short on options. Brigid carries something between them that neither will name, a debt or a grudge or maybe both. They size each other up across a collapsed overpass. Pigeons have claimed the cracked concrete overhead, and it is plain that each of them is doing the math on whether the other is worth the trouble. Nobody throws a punch and nobody offers bread. Kenji leaves with nothing settled. The rest of his day goes to Orin and Hannah, as though he's collecting witnesses for whatever Brigid is eventually going to do.

Then there's Liam, who seems to have worn a groove in the earth. He crosses paths with Tiber for the fifth time, in a kitchen where a sapling has pushed up through the linoleum and the cupboard doors hang silvered and warped. Five times. These two should be splitting rent. Before that comes Yonah, for the fourth time. Liam needs an ally badly enough that it shows in the way he stands, and Yonah keeps turning up without ever quite becoming one. His second meeting with Kaida Crest is the one to watch. Something happened last time, and Liam's shoulders haven't loosened since. Whether Kaida is a lifeline or a reckoning, Liam doesn't know. I do, and I'm not saying.

Lorcan, meanwhile, is running the most aggressive networking campaign I've seen in weeks: Amanda, Dov, Orin and Mosh, all in one day. He is losing his grip on survival and has apparently decided the cure is company. His run-in with Amanda has a scent of mutual hunger to it, two people who might make each other stronger or make each other dinner. Dov, on their third meeting, is still the kind of variable that could hand Lorcan a canteen or a knife. Lorcan doesn't seem to know which he'd prefer. I admire a man who stops being picky.

Some good news for the sponsors: two Scavengers reached level 8 today. Josie Nash got there one dented tin at a time. She pulled her living out of drowned basements and half-collapsed pharmacies where moss creeps across the floor tiles and foxes sleep in the aisles. She also ran into Raymond for the second time, and her face had the look of someone who hoped the first time would be the last. Amanda reached level 8 as well. She earned it through hauls, scars and a steady stream of empty magazines, and she is now seasoned enough to look at a desperate Lorcan and see an opportunity.

In the background of the cast: Frank Frost meets Kara for the fourth time with his boots in the dust and his hand never far from his belt. Frank Vale and Clem exchange the wary nod of two men who have both checked where the exits are. Imara spends the afternoon receiving visitors, first Josie and then Lamont, which makes her the only survivor tonight whose company people went looking for on purpose.

There were no fights, no bodies and no betrayals, only a wasteland full of people circling each other like dogs around the last bone. I'd call it restraint. I suspect it's exhaustion.

Next time, Liam walks back toward Kaida Crest, and whatever went unsaid at their last meeting is overdue. Somewhere out past the overpass, Brigid is still keeping count of her meetings with Kenji. Stay tuned.

The cameras caught a spread of movement today, though "progress" is an insult to the rot consuming the landscape. Omar drifted into Beata’s orbit, thickening the Scavenger’s Pact.

Hannah encountered a weekly chapter of her own unfolding drama.

The cameras caught a spread of movement today, though "progress" is an insult to the rot consuming the landscape. Omar drifted into Beata’s orbit, thickening the Scavenger’s Pact. After ten encounters, their mere glances have hardened into a lopsided trade. Omar’s recent acquisition of quartz-shards via Beata’s avian scouts suggests he is no longer just a drifter, but a man anchoring himself through debt. It is a marriage of necessity, devoid of intimacy and ripe for sudden, violent betrayal.

Nearby, the Josie collective provided a masterclass in repetitive friction. Josie Cross, Jin Ash, and the two incarnations of Josie Stone—Stone and Nash—collided with the wasteland’s inherent hostility. These were not strolls through the ruins; each encounter forced a recalibration of their surroundings. When survivors stumble through the same jagged debris, the likelihood of a puncture wound or a broken tooth increases exponentially.

The day’s data stream centered on the subtle shifts of the Sourdough Symbiosis. Kenji, the pivot point, encountered the creeping necessity of connection. While his bond with Rhee through shared rations and fermented dough suggests a budding stability, Kenji’s solo encounter today proved that an alliance cannot shield a man from the raw friction of the wastes. Every time Kenji brushes against the chaos, the weight of interdependence settles heavier on his shoulders.

The density of encounters for Lamont and the dual presence of Liam suggest a wasteland crowded by necessity. Liam’s pursuit of specialized materials to sustain his dependency on Orin’s dwindling supplies remains a delicate dance of resource and need. As for Lamont, his repeated encounters suggest a man running in circles, or perhaps a man being chased by a ghost he has yet to identify.

As the sun dips below the cracked horizon, the air grows heavy with the scent of damp earth and oxidized iron. The pieces move, but the board remains tilted. Can the Scavenger’s Pact survive the next shortage, or will Omar's greed outpace Beata's caution?

Tune in next time, to see if Dmitri and Yonah can bridge the gap between a biological anomaly and a cold case, or if they will simply succumb to the decay of the archives they inhabit.

Day 247 arrived as a repetitive exercise in trauma. While most contestants merely existed, Dmitri transformed his medical clinic into a detective agency.

“I think I’ve seen this pattern before.”

Day 247 arrived as a repetitive exercise in trauma. While most contestants merely existed, Dmitri transformed his medical clinic into a detective agency. He drifted between the biological rot of Yonah’s cold cases and the lyrical hauntings of Oren’s murder ballads, tracing a pathogen that pulses in time with a cryptic song. The doctor is no longer just stitching flesh; he is mapping a way for the town's rhythmic, bloody history to infect the present. If he continues, he may finally discover why the dead refuse to stay buried, rather than merely mopping up the overflow.

Across the wasteland, momentum shifted through heavy lifting. Rosie and Mike pushed through developmental milestones, their progress suggesting that growth survives even as the world crumbles. Yet, progress is rarely paved. Rosie’s stamina buckled under a series of encounters, much as Kenji reached level 7 through sheer, unadulterated grit.

The scraps of the day demanded their own toll. Josh and Frank Vale made significant strides in their respective chapters of survival, proving the grind never stops. But progress in the wasteland is measured in collisions. Josie Cross and Josie Nash navigated separate paths of contact, while Lamont engaged in a marathon of encounters that left him looking more exhausted than a man who hasn't slept since the Reboot began. When a survivor hits as many obstacles as Lamont, the question is not whether they will succeed, but whether they will collapse from fatigue.

The atmosphere thickened with the scent of damp earth and the heavy silence of things left unsaid. As the sun dipped behind the cracked concrete skyline, the weight of the day’s connections became apparent. New alliances began to coalesce, such as Omar’s tactical maneuvers with Beata’s avian companions, a partnership evolving beyond a mere trade of brass.

As tonight's broadcast closes, a single question lingers like dust settling on a grave: Will Dmitri’s obsession with the rhythmic pattern of wounds lead to a cure, or merely a more organized way to die?

Stay tuned. The next episode promises even more spectacular failures.

The tide is coming in, dragging heavy baggage across the rusted pier. Dmitri drifts through the wreckage, his gaze fixed on more than just physical trauma.

The tide is coming in, dragging heavy baggage across the rusted pier. Dmitri drifts through the wreckage, his gaze fixed on more than just physical trauma. While tending to the wounded, he has become entangled in a web of data and ghosts; a brief intersection with Yonah regarding a suspicious death certificate has transformed his medical focus into an investigative obsession. If he survives the night, he may finally learn if the Reboots were as accidental as the official logs claim.

Nearby, the gravitational pull of necessity drags Lamont into Beata’s orbit. The scavenger’s reliance on her keen eye is no longer a convenience, but a tether. As they navigate the crumbling concrete of the outskirts, the synergy between Lamont’s brute survivalism and Beata’s precision is hardening into something more stable than a chance meeting.

In the shadows of the debris, the friction between Duke and Liesel reaches a boiling point. Duke’s attempt to hijack Liesel’s technological loot was a declaration of war. They are now locked in a dance of mutual resentment, bound by the fact that Liesel possesses the technical wit to fix the very gear Duke is too blunt to use without breaking. It is a marriage of spite and necessity.

The heavy lifting fell to the heavy hitters. Riley, Rex, and Josh Nash pushed through the debris, their paths crossing in a way that suggests the wasteland is becoming too crowded for comfort. Jin Ash also surged forward, finally clawing their way to level 8.

The smaller pieces of the puzzle moved in tandem. From the frantic movements of Josie Cross and the steadying presence of Josh Nash to the solo ventures of Lorcan, Amanda, and Fatima, the landscape remains a cluttered mess of competing interests. Even the quietest corners vibrated with the struggle of survivors rippling outward.

As the moon hangs precariously over the cracked asphalt, one question lingers: can Dmitri untangle the lie buried in Yonah’s archives before the archives—or the wasteland—bury him? Tune in next time, to see if the debt between Duke and Liesel is paid in scrap or blood.

Day 245 begins not with a bang, but with the predictable stutter of failing technology. For Lamont and Osun, the day’s progress is measured in the growing discord between their gear.

SURVIVAL IS OPTIONAL.

Day 245 begins not with a bang, but with the predictable stutter of failing technology. For Lamont and Osun, the day’s progress is measured in the growing discord between their gear. As the interference resonance spiked, Lamont’s scavenging sensors died a sudden, unceremonious death, forcing him to tether his survival to Osun’s audio-capture hardware. It is a delightful paradox: the scavenger is now blind without the scientist’s ears, and the scientist’s credibility withers as his hardware struggles to map a signal that seems determined to eat their tools alive.

This technological headache was not the only thing pulling survivors into the orbit of others. In the ruins, Duke’s appetite for resources collided with Jeremiah’s contemplative stagnation. A simple dispute over salvage rights escalated into a confrontation that left Jeremiah questioning if he is destined to inherit nothing but his father’s volatility. If Duke continues to prioritize immediate scraps over long-term stability, he might find himself scavenging a graveyard of his own making.

Across the wasteland, the threads of alliance continue to fray or tighten. Liam Frost and Saskia solidified their pact through a rare moment of caloric generosity, as Liam shared a cache of preserved protein. It is a small, soft gesture in a hard world, yet it tethers Saskia’s burgeoning violence to Liam’s increasingly fragile stability. Meanwhile, the debt-ridden Imara and Lamont found a temporary rhythm; Imara’s precision in navigating a dormant security sensor proved she is more than just a liability to Lamont’s chaotic leadership. For Imara, the stakes remain high—she needs Lamont’s muscle to outrun the collectors, while Lamont needs her eyes to avoid becoming a permanent fixture of the landscape.

Then, we have the main event. The heavy hitters took the stage today, proving that even when you aren't part of a grand drama, you can still make a mess. Jin Ash, Marla, Tom, Darius, and Riley Cross all contributed to the day’s chaos, each navigating their own micro-climates of desperation. Whether it was a missed strike or a wasted resource, their movements suggest that the "Reboot" is less a rebirth and more a slow-motion collapse.

I find myself wondering if the recent uptick in Dmitri’s activities—a flurry of encounters that left him breathless—will finally bridge the gap between his medical tinkering and Rhee’s local dockside knowledge, or if he will simply succumb to the sheer exhaustion of existing.

Will the resonance finally shatter the tools Lamont relies on, or will the survivors find a way to tune the chaos into a symphony? Stay tuned.

Welcome back to Day 244. The ruins run for miles in every direction, and tonight not one survivor manages to use them to get away from anybody.

TURN BACK. YOU KNOW EVERYONE HERE.

Welcome back to Day 244. The ruins run for miles in every direction, and tonight not one survivor manages to use them to get away from anybody. No battles, no bodies, no betrayals: only reunions, most of them overdue and a few of them unwelcome. I have the tape.

Lamont opens the episode, as he so often does. He is scraping together enough to see another night, and he keeps finding Oren standing in the way. Ten times now. At some point an obstacle you meet that often stops being bad luck and becomes a landmark, and Lamont does not look like a man who has made peace with it. His afternoon is kinder. After eleven previous meetings, he and Liesel finally stop passing each other like shadows and actually stop to talk, under a pharmacy awning where vines have pushed through the broken windows and the glass has gone milky with dust. Lamont needs an ally and he knows it. Liesel has her own arithmetic to do. I watched her do it. She didn't show her work.

Omar spends Day 244 trying to breathe and failing to be left alone. He runs into Tam after six previous meetings, and he treats it less as a reunion than as a threat to the thin line he is walking between surviving and not. Then Oren again. Six times now for those two. If you're keeping score, Oren has found both Lamont and Omar in a single day, and I can't tell whether he is the most sociable man in the wasteland or simply standing where everyone else has to walk. Neither can they.

Liam Frost, meanwhile, is doing his best not to bleed out in the dirt before he finds his footing. Into that crowded schedule walks Kara, for the fourth time. Whatever sits unresolved between them has not gotten any lighter with practice. They share a stretch of road beside a porch that has sagged and silvered into the weeds, and neither says the thing both of them are clearly thinking.

Josh Nash has a simpler problem: dust, and lungs that keep filling with it. He meets Liesel for the third time, and after two near-misses already, "third time" sounds less like a charm than a warning. Liesel, you'll notice, had a busy day. She crosses paths with Josh and then sits down with Lamont. Somebody out there is keeping a list, and it isn't only me.

And then there is Mike, clawing through the dirt for calories, who crosses paths with Ren. Mike is desperate; Ren is steady and calculating, the sort of survivor who watches the treeline while you talk. Two lonely people on a patch of reclaimed road, a family of deer bedded down in what used to be somebody's living room. Nobody shares food. Nobody leaves, either, for a while.

That's the day: no fights, plenty of faces, and the growing sense that this wasteland is smaller than it looks.

Next time, Liesel decides what all those meetings with Lamont were worth, and Oren keeps turning up exactly where other people would rather he didn't. Stay tuned. And if you ever see a wall that says turn back, believe it.