Chapter Text
PART ONE
“Hey? You alive?” Changbin groaned, as he prodded the mass of matted black hair, covering it’s face.
It lay there, lifeless. Sprawled out across the amorphous silt, small clumps of duckweed and algae covering most of its naked body, which was contorted into the foetal position, still half submerged at the edge of the lake’s water.
The body seemed to be male, maybe in the late twenties, but he tried not to think about it like that, preferring to refer to them as it. It felt less personal, that way.
It had a number adorned, just like all the others, across the left shoulder.
Changbin swept the bottom of his shoe over it’s upper body, relieving some of the weeds wrapped around the arm, and leant down to examine the number.
320428
The year was 2033, and it was May 5th. This was a fresh one, only a little over a year old, and looking at it’s bruises, only a few days since suppression treatment, likely. There were numerous welts and burns across the cavern of it’s chest, so maybe it’d had some thermodynamic therapy, too.
It wasn’t new, for Changbin. Failed experiments often washed up here all the time, day, or night, right on his front doorstep.
He maintained and preserved the lake and wildlife here, Lake ChunguDam. The problem was, he found himself incinerating and burying more botched bodies and contorted carcasses than he did than actually monitoring the lake, at all.
He lived in a small utility-cabin, just 5 kilometres away from the District. The main research facility could be seen off across the grisly coastline, where the blackened water met the ashen, early-morning sky.
The facility was a protruding, offshore platform hovering above the water, once an oilrig, now a gruesome reminder of what happens to those people who are unwanted, or refuse to serve for their District.
He looked back down and nudged the side of it’s ribcage with the underside of his boot again. There was no movement at all, so he felt for a pulse against it’s feeble wrist, and found nothing shifting beneath his finger.
Another dead one.
Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of them were dead, and that was the point. That’s why they were in the lake in the first place.
Twice, that he’d known of, that people had survived it.
He remembers seeing him, a teenager with freckles, barely alive, thrashing for air in the thick sedimented water, and shrieking for his Mom to save them, until the District support forces came and carted him away; but he’d already taken his last breath.
It had been nine years, since that day, but it was scarred into his subconscious forever.
He leant down, tying the dense rope meant for the buoy he needed to cast, around it’s left ankle, tugging to secure it with a strong honda knot. He sighed off into the cool air at the minor inconvenience, and started wandering back across, dragging the body back along the moistened sand.
He left it slumped up in a weathered deck chair sitting out the back of his cabin near an opening in the trees, with a towel strewn over it, just to cover it’s dignity, somewhat.
--
He rid himself of his thick gilet-style navy jacket and pulled his black District-logo-emblazoned cap off, running his hand through his hair. It was thick with salt and debris; he really needed to shower.
Breakfast was lavish. A slice of toast cooked under the gas cooker, a soft-boiled egg and half an orange. He barely got fruits, let alone citrus. They’d sent rations across for him last week and must’ve been feeling more generous than normal.
That, or someone was getting thrown over-platform.
He wanted two slices of bread, but he knew he had to be strict; he’d already eaten more than he should have. He couldn’t be nauseous from hunger again, he needed to preserve his energy for his next night shift. Being out in the minus figures across the lake exhausted him, and it was a thirteen-hour stint.
After breakfast he did some light reading, the weekly District Articulate newspaper. He’d always read 8 pages a day; meaning he’d read the full 56 pages by next weeks delivery.
Then he pulled open his electronic reports, to write back to the rig. His hands were cold and swollen, from being out early to retrieve the body, and they hadn’t warmed, yet. It was colder than he’d expected, but firewood had to wait; he was running low.
He started sprawling across the tablet, his weekly findings next to the designated questions. The questions and answers were always, the same.
Thursday, 5 May 2033, time recorded: 9:45am.
Tidal rotation: around a central amphidrome; no change in momentum loss. waves reflected – normal/within normal limits.
PH last recorded: 03/05/2033, 5:18am, pH measured at 8.1±0.02.
Sensor depths: standardized at 0-30, and 40m to allow for comparability of thermal profiles.
NO /yes - changes in radiation levels, no abnormalities, no anomalies.
NO /yes - changes in precipitation, no abnormalities, no anomalies.
He glanced back across the page, filling in the final row of results.
23: a.) Carcasses retrieved/disposed of: 13. Also found: full right arm from glenohumeral joint, all phalanges attached. Whole thorax, advanced decay, nothing attached)
b.) Of which movement was determined: 0
c.) Of which a pulse was detected: 0
His focus was suddenly pulled, to the sound of his radio. The weather station softly playing in the background had begun to hiss, before a beep sounded, then a monotonous voice crackling from the speakers to warn him of imminent rain.
Yesterday, there was no rain anticipated. His pluviometer was top-of-the-range technology, and the latest model, distributed from the District, themselves.
There shouldn’t be any rain that he didn’t expect.
However, as he looked out of the window, an angry, swirling cloud had formed above the water, gurling it underneath. He looked out in awe, his face twisting into a look of bewilderment, his eyebrows crinkling in the centre.
He slumped back into his chair, making a note of the random, unusual occurrence. There must have been some kind of error when he last recorded.
No/YES - changes in precipitation,
no abnormalities, no anomalies. Rain recorded today, 10:13am. Alternative energy sources potentially interfering with signal of previous reading likely. All changes recorded will be investigated.
He made his way across the wooden floor, taking his black anorak from the hook on the wall and throwing it over his shoulders. He shoved the cap back on, just to protect him from some of the droplets as he pulled the door open, the wind lashing against him immediately as he walked out. He pulled each side of his jacket closed, wrapping his arms around himself.
Outside the back of his cabin, was his barometer. He had to have read the air pressure wrong this morning; that was the only logical conclusion he could come to.
He glanced at the compass-like clock mounted against the tree stump out the back, just like he did before he went out this morning. The needle was swirling out of control, before reaching its’ final conclusion.
The reading had increased 0.40in-Hg in less than three hours.
That, was physically impossible.
He scrambled backwards in delayed shock; the only other time he’d seen anything like this, was nine years ago.
He turned back around, suddenly sensing something was amiss, his throat drying out rapidly, making it difficult to breathe as he tried to suck air in through the bitter wind smashing against him.
He turned to look at the deck chair.
The dead body he’d pulled from the lake this morning with the mess of black hair, was gone. Instead, the stained bath towel once thrown over it’s body was now tied in a knot around the arm, flailing in the wind.