#questiophobia

Proteus's Puddle – The 2011 Fissure

What lies in the puddle can be split into three “eras”:

The Fractal Deep

The Perplexing Vascular System / The Perplexity

The Patulous Complex / The Complex

The Fractal Deep – Silence before the storm

A primarily empty, seemingly boundless dark ocean. The only things that exist here are unrecognised species of aquatic creatures, geometric currents of bubbles and occasional dismembered seaweed-looking plants drifting into oblivion.

Curiously, even when nothing else exists, weather does. Strong currents mimicking gusts of wind, air bubbles tapping on the surface of submarines like rain, flashes of weak light simulating a storm. While these are harmless most of the time, when The Deep starts to conjure phenomena such as tornadoes… exploration becomes a little more tricky.

The Perplexity – Evolution

The depths filled with vein-like tendrils, forming mangled corridors.

What scientist first thought was just biological waste gathering at the entrance of The Puddle turned out to be something far more fascinating. The Fissure began to create a structure out of materials available to it. It doesn't look like much yet, but the architectural shapes are unmistakable. It's observing the station and trying to recreate it.

This is the era in which predators began appearing. Previously all species found in the ocean were weary, but docile. But as the ecosystem evolves, a need for protectors and hunters arises. The Deep responds to the call.

The Complex – Organism

Semi-successful mimicry of reality. The tissue that built its walls started to die, forming a petrified, sturdy construct resembling Station Neptune, interlaced with locations it observed in various pictures or other images scattered across the facility.

The layout is hardly logical, but far more expansive than the actual building. It contains biomes, such as “Proxima” which is the closest to the entrance and most accurate in its mimicry of the station.

Areas closer to the entrance are considered rather safe, the complex itself isn't alive and not much dangerous fauna approaches the threshold. The further away one ventures, though, the more instabilities and sea predators await. The Complex and its denizens require sustenance, after all. And just like humans don't take kindly to outer beings infiltrating their world, the outer beings push back against them.

On the edges of The Complex the same veins from before can be seen as it spreads. What awaits past the mangled tendrils is what conjured the false structure into existence in the first place – it all comes back to The Fractal Deep.

What The Puddle adapts:

Whatever it sees in its close proximity – but it doesn't quite understand what it mimics. Thus, things inside it appear in strange order: weather > weak organisms and microorganisms, viruses > waste created by these organisms starts forming an environment > simple predators appear (although the fissure does not quite differentiate earth’s predators and prey) > proper environment appears and spreads > advanced predators appear > intelligent life forms crawl out (curiously, a fissure can stir human-level intelligence in organisms or objects already existing on earth! These are thought to be “experiments” conducted by it in preparation of creating its own version of mankind).

What it gives:

Omens – previously discussed, omens are signs that a fissure is going to manifest and can appear as early as 50 years before they form. Things that could be classified as omens persist after the opening too, but they lose the “omen” status when discovered after it.

Mass mutation events – a part of a species mutates and becomes an anomalous subspecies. Most often those mutated organisms try to migrate to the fissure’s location (unattained small plants are technically no exception, as the old generation dies the new one grows nearer the fissure). Mutations are themed after this location. Proteus’s Puddle causes marine life-like features, for example.

Individual mutations – humans with dormant fissure-born DNA that activates because of its manifestation fall into this group! These organisms don’t experience the drive to crawl into the fissure, in some cases being completely disgusted by the mere idea.

Strange weather phenomena – erratic dances of light in the sky, strange storms, sky colors and so on! Numbers of natural disasters also tend to increase.

Mutations via exposure or consumption – hello Esteban, Magdalene, Mścisław and many more explorers of Station Neptune!

What are the fissures?:

Studies are being conducted, but there's no deliberate answer yet. One theory suggests an allegory of gore – our world being the outer skin layer and a fissure being the muscles shielding a skeleton of sorts (yet another layer of reality). Others suggest a plant metaphor approach, either calling us or the fissure a seed planted in the other to grow. Last theory compares the two worlds to a machine – neither infiltrates the other, they are just here as parts of something far greater, forced to cooperate like cogs.

Without the fancy, dreamy language the theories boil down to basic groups: questioning who is the perpetrator in this conundrum, the fissure or us? Is the fissure a portal to another world, or is it an extension of ours? Is it mimicking or is our world “infecting” it? Is it truly boundless, or is it just a barrier to cross? Are we meant to coexist, merge or destroy each other?

Proteus’s puddle is not the first fissure:

There have been at least three other fissures before this one, out of which two have been archived.

“Sovereign’s Iris” – 1921 in the sky above the Gobi Desert, too high above to gather sufficient sustenance and copy material, closed on its own.

“Blood Spill" – 1999 McMurdo Dry Valleys, closed by scientists two years after discovery via special artificial fluids.

The third one, “Guesse’s Hypothetical”, is theorized to have appeared during the evolution of mankind. It would’ve been left open for long enough that it would start mimicking and “deploying” human-like organisms, which is considered to be the speculative “final phase” of a fissure’s lifespan. These potential humans are nicknamed “Faces from the rift”.

The theory was presented by one of the first researchers hired by Invocation Corp. - Eduarda Guesse. The basis of Guesse’s theory lies in the existence of the Uncanny Valley effect and the undeniable traces of fissure-born DNA present in some individuals. Often that dormant DNA activates as part of the Omens phenomenon.