Beneath A Crimson Husk

When the fabric of our known reality tore open, there was an immediate concern that we were about to be invaded by some distant life form or an alternate version of our species. However, when neither of those things happened, a rare calmness seemed to manifest in the world’s governments. Some might call the appearance of the Dinaric Fault a miracle, but leading scientists waved it off simply as an expansion to what we already knew about the laws of physics. It was discovered by a pair of hikers who had been two days into a five-day hike through the Slovenian forests when they stumbled upon what looked like a shimmering tear suspended a few feet above the ground. They never finished that trip because, upon discovery, they were quickly elevated to celebrity status.

I’ll try to explain the single strangest known phenomenon in a way that has been described to me. Simply put, the Dinaric Fault is a window into an alternate reality. It is a thin slit, visible under certain refractions of light. Often no greater than a few millimeters in width, researchers have observed that sometimes the window breathes, creating a brief gap where they've been able to glimpse a primeval place of wonder on the other side; a verdant jungle where the trees are taller than any skyscraper.

I feel I should add at this point, I haven’t ever seen it in the flesh, but it most certainly exists. If the first miracle was a small window into another world, then the second was that, in what felt like the first time since its formation, the UN was actually able to prevent an all-out war between the world’s governments to assume control of the anomaly. After countless hours of back-room negotiations, the world agreed that the UN would independently be responsible for the tear in reality and pursue whatever study was deemed necessary to understand it.

It’s been six years now, and humanity has become so bored with the anomaly, they’re back to decrying immigrants and bombing their neighbours.

At a radius of about fifty kilometers, the UN set up a containment zone around the Dinaric Fault. It’s a marvel in itself, a sort of botanical garden style mega-construct. This will be no surprise, but it was erected to keep trespassers out… and the things that came through the fault... in. Ominous, I know. About a year after the Fault’s discovery, new creatures started to appear around the tear, but before you get excited, they were nothing like the fantastical creatures you might see in some sci-fi movie. These new creatures, largely insects, three species of birds, and one mammal, all appeared to be similar to the animals we are all familiar with here on Earth. Sure, while they possessed slightly different patterns and colourings, and maybe some minor physiological differences, my colleague– the entomologist I’m with now –said that their most remarkable trait is that they came from the other side.

My colleague, Dr Barbier, is one of the few sanctioned individuals who can enter the containment zone, and I’ve been granted a special license to join her on the next expedition.

I wasn’t initially interested in visiting the containment zone around the Dinaric Fault. I’m used to the frantic flurry of a warzone, and the forest around the Fault is anything but that. It’s a serene and almost silent place, left to grow wild by the UN research teams. Aside from the perimeter fencing, there are no buildings within the zone. The basecamp, where the majority of the research is conducted, lies another five kilometers from the border.

Why am I here? When every aspect of our world has been discovered, documented, packaged up, sold, marketed, exploited, and ravaged, the opportunity to discover something new excited me.

And the UN pays well, nowadays.

I’m not a scientist, but I’m a good listener. You have to be really. When things start to turn ugly, you usually hear it way before you see it: the faint pitter-patter of footsteps; the metallic clink of a bullet being loaded; the distant screech of a tank’s track treads. My job on the two-person expedition is to assist in documenting our findings and recording them on my camera. I’m a glorified lab assistant who happens to be a retired war photographer.

This forest is alive. I know how silly that sounds, but while climate change scythes away swathes of our world, this pocket jungle thrives. It’s hot and humid, and the environment is nothing like I expected from a Slovenian taiga.

“Remember, we’re not to stray,” were the first words Dr Barbier said to me in what seemed like a long time since we started our hike. She didn’t say this because creatures were lurking out there to drag us away, or at least… none that had yet been documented. No, her warning was more to keep me focused on the task at hand. It was easy to be distracted by creatures not found anywhere else, and I thought it was kind of her to think I would even be able to tell the difference. We’re here for the Ciccialith Moth, and taking photographs of any other creature is not part of the mission, nor has it been approved. The UN has warned me that I could be prosecuted if I do it, but really, I think that means they just won’t pay me. I’m not going to break the rules anyway. If it’s just the moth we’re after, then that works for me. It’ll take less film.

“Are we going to the Fault?” I ask.

“We don’t need to,” Dr. Barbier replies, “the Din-anomaly lifeforms are spread across the entire zone.”

That’s how they differentiate them: Din-anomalies. They aren’t Earth creatures; they come from another world, another reality, even. She mistakes my temporary ignorance for carelessness and asks me, for the fifth time this trip, “Do you remember the exit protocol?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

I am unable to hide my sigh as I drone back to her what was contained in the briefing pack, “If at any point we become separated, we trek southwards until we reach the perimeter border and from there await further instructions.”

“You’re forgetting something.”

“The cameras will register us. Await further instructions.”

Satisfied with the answer, Dr. Barbier was on the move again.

This expedition would likely last a month, so we were stocked for the long haul. The mission briefing also stated that phones won’t work inside the containment zone, but the compasses we were using to guide us north-east did, at least. I didn’t even bother to check my phone. It was stashed away in the depths of the massive pack, which was currently conspiring with gravity to pull me down. After ten or so minutes of further trekking, I paused, took a swig from my canteen, and then a breath. Dr. Barbier was still going.

I asked, “Shall we break for camp? We’ve been walking for hours.”

“Not yet,” Dr. Barbier said. She was punishing me.

The Ciccialith Moth is a Din-anomaly creature, and the fact that it’s been named means the lifeform has already been well documented. That’s not the point of the mission, though. Dr. Barbier tells me that the moth’s name has roots in both Italian and Greek. Ciccia means ‘chubby’ or ‘flabby’ on account of the insect’s oversized, crimson thorax. ‘‘Lith’ sounds like ‘monolith’ and it rhymes with myth,’ she’s suggested. I suppose it’s meant to relate to the idea that the moth isn’t from our reality. I chuckle to myself, realising only now that Dr. Barbier is not just an entomologist, but an etymologist as well. Here I was thinking that all scientists were boring pragmatists.

Fearing Dr. Barbier’s wrath by asking about the moth, I try to recall what the briefing pack mentioned. As I said before, this isn’t a new creature to the UN researchers, so we’re not out here trying to find it so we can prove it exists. The issue is that they have so far been unable to observe the insect’s journey from egg to larva, from chrysalis, and then to its final transformation to the Ciccialith Moth. All egg samples that were taken back to the basecamp never matured to the larva stage. If I were superstitious, and I’m not, I’d suggest that the moth was too far from its origin beyond the tear in reality.

“It’s because they mishandled the samples,” Dr. Barbier curses, engaging in conversation about the moth on her own accord. The sun is setting, so we’ve made camp and are gobbling down on the fine delicacy of instant ramen.

“Those early expeditions jostled those eggs, and by the time they finally reached basecamp, the poor things were scrambled. Putain,” she curses again and continues, “Our science teams claimed the egg didn’t mature to larva because the conditions weren’t correct, but it warrants further testing.”

“Well, isn’t that why we’re here?” I ask her gingerly.

She snorts down a mouthful of noodles before answering, “Well, er, yes, but I meant simply that we should have collected more samples before taking the time to trek out here and spend a month observing the process ourselves.”

I couldn’t tell at this point if she resented being on the expedition or was angry at the malpractice which had occurred during the collection of the first egg samples. It didn’t take a scientist, which I certainly was not, to recognise that these creatures from another world were incredibly rare. Her frustration must have been with the latter.

“Once we find a clutch, we must be very careful not to disturb them,” Dr Barbier warns, “we must only observe and from a reasonable distance.”

“I understand,” I tell her, but I’m not sure she believes it.

While she reads, I spend my time in silence, watching the last of the day’s light sparkle between a canopy of pine trees. There are plants that shouldn’t exist here, but neither I nor Dr. Barbier can confirm which they are. My eyes are drawn to a hollow column of what I believe to be gnats, circling one another in an energetic dance of synchronicity.

“Are they?” I begin.

Dr. Barbier looks up from her book, annoyed.

“Are they from the Fault?”

“No. Cecidomyiidae.”

I look at her, dumbfounded.

“A midge.”

Dr. Barbier looks at me expectantly for a brief moment before she returns to her book. I don’t interrupt her again, and when the sun finally dissipates, we both turn in for bed.

In the morning, we exchange some pleasantries and Dr. Barbier starts the day by declaring, “We won’t camp until we reach the site of their most recent breeding ground.”

She’s telling me because she knows that, in a couple of hours, I’m going to ask for a breather. This annoys me, and I feel she knows it.

“Fine” is all I say before we’re packed up and on our way again.

Following the map, it’s roughly an eight-hour hike until we reach the Ciccialith Moth’s supposed breeding ground. As we climb up and down the inclines and declines of the forest’s uneven ground, I’ve noticed that the bed of the forest has become denser. There are thickets of nettles and wild sprawling brambles of thorns. I was expecting our feet to be padded by a carpet of browning pine needles the entire journey, but this is a tricky path, and it takes us longer than either of us expected.

On the hike, there’s something else I remember about the Ciccialith Moth, and it strikes me as odd that one of its defining features never made it anywhere near the etymology of its name. In addition to the fuzzy red mane, there is a pattern in the dead center of its large thorax. A sort of face, like those found in Earth’s very own hawkmoth. The African death’s head hawkmoth, to be precise. I believe it’s a sort of mark to ward off predators. I wonder if it’s the same for the Ciccialith Moth.

I don’t know a lot about insects, but as I said before, I am a good listener. Before this trip, Dr. Barbier frequently spoke to me about all manner of tiny creatures. The problem is, in the quiet of my attention, I never really made it clear to her that I took an active interest in her life. She always did this, mistaking one thing for another.

I must admit, I wasn’t entirely honest with you before. The reason I took this trip wasn’t the beefy UN payout or a sudden thirst for adventure. I wanted to be closer to her, hoping that this expedition might prove to her that I was interested in what she had to say and save a marriage that was well and truly smashed against the rocks.

I know she resents me, and yet, she still agreed for me to accompany her. There’s a big part of me that’s hopeful this adventure will bring us closer together, but as she turns to look back at me, catching my breath, a wave of doubt washes over me.

We finally arrive, and I think it’s the first time she’s smiled this entire trip. Clambering through a final thicket of brambles, we enter a grove shaded by huge stalks. Their wide leaves hang limp, crisscrossing over one another. She’s dropped her pack, so I do the same, and suddenly Dr. Barbier’s animating with an enthusiasm I’ve not witnessed in years. She begins gently inspecting the leaves and exclaims suddenly, “They’re really here!”

How she managed to pause during the excitement is beyond me. “There are so many of them,” she starts up again, “This is perfect! We’re going to camp here.”

It's a relief for me knowing that the hike is over. This will be our home for the rest of the trip. After we pitch our tents, I don’t hesitate to set up my camera to film the process of the moth’s life cycle. Meanwhile, she will make written observations and prevent me, I assume, from disrupting the insects as much as possible.

“Catherine,” I call to her, but she’s too busy setting up knick-knacks and doodads that will be used for her on-site analysis. “Catherine!” I call again, but then I become too captivated with the unfolding show to call her a third time.

Emerging from a tiny egg is a red and bulbous moth larva. A tiny leg pierces the outer shell, then another before the larva finally breaks free from its surprisingly ossified cage.

I tell Catherine I caught it on camera, but she’s pissed. “You should have called me.”

“I did,” I protest, but she doesn’t buy it. The brief glint of warmth is gone from her now and she’s back to business. “We’ll take it in turns.”

“What do you mean?”

“We need to observe and ensure that we capture everything.”

Nobody told me that we would spend the expedition in shifts and now I’m pissed. I think we argue, but she’s too focused on the little red worm wriggling across the leaves to engage any further with me.

Eventually, I go to bed, and she remains on the first watch.

The hike the day before must have taken it out of me because when I wake in the morning, I realise I’ve overslept. Emerging from my tent, I fully expect Dr. Barbier, or Catherine, as I can now refer to her as, to be waiting red-faced and angry about my commitment to the project. But she’s nowhere to be seen.

I call out to her, again and again, until my throat becomes too dry and I’m forced to take a swig of water from my canteen. By this point, I’ve circled the glade a dozen times, and my mind begins to wander to a dark place: we’re separated.

I hear Catherine’s voice speak my own words in my head.

If at any point we become separated, we trek southwards until we reach the perimeter.

Something didn’t seem right. What if she needed to blow off steam and take a walk? Maybe she tripped and something bad happened.

Then I saw it again, the red moth larva shuffling along the fabric of my tent. It’s grown, just a little. There’s no way she would abandon it to go off and think about me.

Head south, that was protocol. Maybe she’d gotten confused and–... it didn’t make any sense.

Nor did the days that followed.

I think it was shock; something I’ve felt before. When you’re busy photographing atrocities, you forget you’re supposed to feel something. Anything. I’d numbed myself to that, and now, again, I’ve done the same with her disappearance.

I ignore the exit protocol. ‘I’ll wait for Catherine,’ I thought or told myself. I wanted to make her happy when she returned, so I decided to document what I could about the larva.

I watched it.

For days.

Then, when it became a cocoon, I watched that too.

I don’t think I’ve slept… but I can feel it coming now. The moth is emerging. It was bigger than the photographs gave it credit for; about the size of my hand. I noticed the moth’s iconic fluffy mane and, of course, the unique marking on its back.

It’s a face! There’s a face on its back. I need to sleep, but I can’t. I know this face. It’s Catherine’s. The marking has contorted into an expression I’m all too familiar with. Fury. Anger. Resentment. It’s her face, I know it. I realise now that I hate it, but I can’t stop watching.

Another larva hatched today, and the urge to finally sleep has hit me. I can’t keep my eyes open. Perhaps tomorrow Catherine will return. I think tomorrow will be a brighter day. I think tomorrow, I will change.