Part I
A dusty haze hangs over the rolling fields of grass, dried and browned a muddy ochre from the sun, which make up the land surrounding the town. It has been years since crops were grown here or animals grazed in the expansive pastures; yet the earth seems tired all the same. Thickets of trees - some dead but most thriving with a rich green in the summer heat - speckle the land, marking waterways and depressions in the ground.
A girl walks without purpose through one thicket in particular; the crunch and snapping of twigs underfoot further marking her weary, blistered soles. Harsh sunlight sieves itself through a canopy of branches and leaves overhead, occasionally lighting up her malnourished figure. Bones stretch against the surface of her naked skin, as though trying to force their way out. There is a thick layer of old dirt and grime that clings to her, seemingly in an attempt to protect her from the rest of nature.
In a clearing, she stops. Overhead a Kite soars through the still air, its wings riding currents of heat from the scorched ground beneath. From up here the colourless shapes and blocks that make up the town are visible - just off in the distance - though its focus is trained on a small shrew hopping from tuft to tuft of grass, making its long journey home unaware of the threat from above. At some point it scurries past the legs of a girl who stands timidly, staring up at the silhouette of a bird against the sun, one hand splayed above her face in a vain attempt to shield herself from the light.
It is some time before she finds herself at a pool, glistening orange under the glow of sunset. The earth breaks away, giving up where the line of murky water begins, still like a great black mirror in the ground. Ripples send the surface into a frenzy of orange sparks as she takes her first timid steps into the water, a cold that numbs immediately - the sharpness of stones against her skin feeling distant, like a body that does not belong to her. The water creeps up to envelop her as she moves forward into the sparkling mirror, submerging her knees, hips, hands, stomach, breasts, in some impossible coldness. As the water level reaches her neck, her eyes close and she takes one final breath, and one more step forwards.
Dropping into a black void of absolute zero, shock does not take her. She is calm and collected as the pressure in her lungs begins to build, slowly at first, then rapidly building into a tight pain coupled with panic, a burning until involuntarily she opens her mouth with a gasp. Inky black water fills her lungs only increasing the pressure which she chokes on, her spasms replacing the last remaining air in her body with more of the frozen, mud-tasting liquid. Now both movements and thoughts slow to a crawl as her brain drowns, the last fumes of oxygen she has left used to open her eyes: circled around her, inexplicably, six figures lurk in the depths of this pool, barely visible through the thick murky haze of silt and mud. Six women arranged in an arc, palms outstretched and eyes that are somehow filled with empathy, a sense of belonging. With a smile, she takes their hands as they close in on her.
A bird comes to rest atop a fir tree; dead rodent in its talon. It surveys the lands around for a while as it sits in its nest of twigs and strange objects made of materials it does not know. The sun disappears behind the horizon as it finishes its meal, beak stained crimson and black. Now it is time for sleep. It is home.