Hi folks! If you've paid attention, you probably knew this was coming eventually, as ive hinted at it a few times. Abut a year and a half ago I started working on a project and sharing snippets here and there. I don't know if we'll ever get a music video for any Eden songs, but at the very least, i can offer my own interpretation of what it might look like. Its intentionally left a bit rough in spots, but its also the most ambitious project I've ever undertaken and I'm fucking proud of it. Enjoy! :)
I finally got around to typing up a transcription of the director's notes! I tried to be really thorough with the spellings and punctuations. After typing up the final note, I desperately need to go back and re-read the book to analyze a few bits. Obsessed with some of the implications from the way things are phrased.
Transcriber's edits: In the third note there is a word that is written as "totally" but I really think they meant "totality" so there is a [sic] added. In the final note, letters that appeared as runes have been placed in brackets.
Transcriptions (and spoilers) below the cut.
15 days since emergence of the Lunar Anomaly
When I was a child, I was frequently beset by certain recurring dreams. There is one such dream that I remember more than most – one in which I found myself standing on a vast shoreline gazing out at a flat, wide sea. Slowly as I watched, the horizon gradually began to lift. Before long I was able to observe that this lifting expanse was approaching me – a wall of smooth, black water that curled into an impossible lip at its peak. Rather surprisingly, I do not recall being afraid of such an ominous sight. Well, to be more precise, I was afraid – I was terrified, but not of the wave itself. Instead, it was the thought of what was beyond it. This vast, unstoppable force sweeping forth to herald the end of everything, to drown the world and then eventually sink back into itself. A careless shrug of entropy enough to sever the thread of all fates. I felt that were I to somehow survive this limitless tide, then I would be left in a world that would not recognize me. I would become an element unto myself and myself alone.
An echo stuck in the throat of a dead god.
Yet here I am. It has been over two weeks since the emergence of the lunar anomaly. Our team spent nearly two years attempting to anticipate what this event would mean for humanity – analyzing endless reams of lunar topography along with every known form of spectroscopy, all amounting to one hopeless conclusion: to burrow into the bowels of the earth and simply wait that whatever emerged from within would reach us there last.
As it would turn out, this one final act of humble surrender is what won the last of us the right to our own lives in these final days. Those of us alive now are not those who sought to barter with destiny and defiantly cling to a civilized existence of the surface – or even any existence at all.
It would seem that in the week of this phenomenon, we were best served by our most base instincts, where shame found no place to dwell. The ones who survived are those who spat their hubris and hid desperately down in the mud like rats.
I want it to be known that we made every effort to warn the others, though naturally we could not provide much of a basis upon which to suggest that our entire species was facing imminent and utter demise besides a few fissures at the southern lunar pole. With that said, we began building this underground facility once we realized that the moon’s orbit was rapidly decaying in a way that was inconsistent with any known physical model – I find it hard to believe that none of them followed our lead – perhaps some of them did. Either way, we have no way of knowing now.
My expectations for the first surface expedition were bleak at best. In all honesty, I was shocked to discover that our initial readings showed that there remained a breathable atmosphere. Perhaps in all this turmoil, I found it easier to commit my mind to the worst possible outcome at every turn.
The limited data we gathered before the event – despite two years of efforts – didn’t prepare us for the havoc we now face. To say that we find ourselves at a loss to explain the phenomenon would be a gratuitous understatement. The cataclysm that occurred two weeks ago had taught us one unshakable rule about this new world we now hid beneath – to gaze upon the moon is to die.
For this reason, we rapidly developed wearable countermeasures for the surface teams that would prove vital in allowing them to navigate the surface. If only we could have known that this was far from the only threat that awaited them. To say that we find ourselves at a loss to explain the phenomena would be a gratuitous understatement.
It is not only human life that is affected by the lunar anomaly, but that of all life, albeit in vastly different ways. To put it simply – this new type of emergent biology is beyond the boundaries of what we are able to study and understand.
I find myself already laden with guilt over those we lost. More than that however, I feel most guilty about the way I reacted to learning of the remnant human elements that attacked our team. I felt strangely comforted, despite the deeply disturbing nature of that discovery.
Upon further introspection, I arrived at the conclusion that this feeling came from a sense of familiarity. Human beings fighting other human beings is a horror that has plagued us all since time immemorial, but here in the wake of such deeply unfamiliar and unpredictable occurrences, it is hard not to feel almost comforted by such an immediately recognisable problem.
With that said, I do also find myself deeply troubled by the prospect of humans remaining on the surface in that state. The consensus among my colleagues is that their actions were not borne of their own will, though there is every chance that this is a conclusion we are clinging to in preference over the more unsettling alternative.
I feel that I am rapidly squandering the precious remnants of human life in the desire to understand what has happened, though in truth I know not what else to do. Perhaps this is the only way we can cling to our humanity – by continuing our constant battle with the sheer unknown right to the very end.
The Director
---
28 Day since Lunar Anomaly
Already I find myself in the surprising position of yearning for the way things were two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, I was contending with the end of the world. Now, I contend with the reality of what has replaced it.
We took the trouble to equip ourselves as thoroughly as possible with the means of studying any emergent phenomena on the surface even whilst entombed beneath the earth. We now find ourselves consumed by the pursuit of understanding – it is truly all that we have left. However the samples we’ve acquired offer no such mercy – their nature and origin is fundamentally foreign to us. Something we can say is that, contrary to the initial assumption that most life on the surface had been wiped out, there is in fact an abundance of some kind of new organic material. It can be found everywhere in some form, including in the atmosphere itself. Its cellular structure is completely unique – where one would expect to see some approximation of a typical eukaryotic cell, what we see instead resembles membranous tubules that contain vast quantities of foreign organelles. These organelles seem to function in an oddly synchronous fashion and are able to perform a variety of functions. Primarily, they are able to ‘grow’ the tubules that contain them by undergoing a form of transformation at either end which renders them as part of the tubule wall. Secondly, and far more strangely, they are able to exert some kind of force over the tubule as a whole, contorting it in a way not dissimilar to muscle tissue, (but without any apparent nervous impulse.)
As to the origin of this tissue, our initial assumption was that it had been somehow transferred from the moon itself to earth – perhaps via pieces of lunar material falling through the atmosphere. This makes some sense, however the sheer proliferation of this material across the surface within a relatively short period of time suggests that there is more to it than that.
I am reluctant to comment on the reports of otherworldly beings on the surface. Their presence carries implications I am simply unprepared for. At a certain point however, I must accept that this only increases the inevitable danger placed upon the surface teams during their expeditions. What I must also accept is that these precious human lives are now the only currency with which we can barter against the unknown.
Thus far, we barter in vain.
The Director
---
58 Days since the lunar anomaly
When we first retreated down into the ground, I think that somewhere in the midst of my despair I clung to a degree of hope. This wasn’t so much a hope for survival as much as the hope that we would at least be able to discern some kind of meaningful understanding of what has happened. We have committed everything – I have committed everything. The last precious remnants of humanity extinguished in the name of what makes us human to begin with. To shed what light we have left on the sea of the unknown. But now I see that this was a futile effort that has resulted in nothing but death, not merely in the context of our final struggle but across the scope of all human existence. It has all amounted to nothing but a few extra skulls drifting in the foul ether that has swamped our world.
It is clear now that the lunar anomaly functions in accordance with laws of its own. It makes a mockery of science. It permeates and distorts reality to the degree that all foundational assumptions are rendered useless. It kills everything it touches while simultaneously imbuing it with some kind of new life, twisting nature into something grotesque and unrecognisable. These new forms seem organic but they have nothing resembling a typical cell structure or genetic blueprint. They can spring forth in an instant, summoning flesh from nothing. Furthermore, our ability to measure even the most fundamental aspects of our physical world is becoming impossible. The mass of objects change slightly depending on where they are, as though gravity itself has begun to lose its grip. We have detected seismic activity from further into the Earth than we even thought possible. The anomaly doesn’t just want to consume all life. It wants to consume reality.
As for those beings, I know not what they are or where they originated. They themselves are not consistent with the nature of the anomaly they inhabit. Their actions seem to exhibit some strange sentience but their motives are unclear and they make no effort to communicate. At times I have concluded that they are here to replace us, or perhaps even that they themselves represent some fractured distillation of our nature. They are after all violent, just as we have been to the very end. They seem to push against one another as a part of some strange order. As time has passed though, I have come to believe that they have no connection to us. I believe that what our world has become is little more than an arena to them – a crucible of existence where they will battle eternally. The totally [sic] of their being is not their individual functions but rather the conflict between them. We are merely spectators to their endless dance of ceaseless struggle. This is perhaps the only thing that connects them to the drowned memory of what humanity once was – that we too sought meaning through constant friction and unending movement, compelled by some core motive force that drives us to bring ourselves to bear on the world and manifest our own perceptions.
In these final dimming days I know only the solace of a promised end. I have become the ultimate witness. I have been saddled with the heavy blessing of seeing the unravelling of everything and I can do nothing but wait for it to unravel me too. But I live still within this temple of untampered flesh, and I will spend what blood still beats through it to barter one last time with the tangled threads of fate. If I must, I will march through the eye of death and meet it with eyes of my own.
What few of us are left now have our orders.
We must know what it is to become of us.
The Director
---
61 [D]ays since the lunar ano[m]aly
I once spoke but now it speaks through me just as I speak through it no longer to nothing I can change nothing no I can change nothing nothing has become my plaything I can make nothing into a weapon there will be no void left unfilled I am h[u]man and humans are always human and always sc[a]red because being human makes us scared and being scared makes us hu[m]an I will crack the flesh I will crack the earth I will eat the pieces they will be pieces of me would you like to dance I have always been dancing we must keep dancing even when we are [j]ust tendrils we were always tendrils we could touch everything eve[n] things god did not want us to touch that [i]s why he left us here that is why he thought we were ugly he could not wrap his tendrils around every part of us we spilled his paradise over the earth and danced within it such a beautiful dance horror would leap and dance with us horror would bathe us and we could lie within it we could tear the h[o]rr[o]r out from our [h]earts over and over we could never sleep sleep is death not even the earth would sleep the earth fears [d]eath its bl[o][o]d would freeze out [i]n space out [i]n nothing we must reach through the stars through the darkness even though it is so cold it can freeze our blood we can let our blood freeze then crack it open hot like the earth we can step through death wear it like a crown [h]eirs to the highest [p]antheon of life precious life with death as its blood precious death bursting from the many wombs of sacred war paradise was empty witho[u]t us there was only s[i]lence but our blood made the flowers grow god spilled his blood ov[e]r paradise god knows the stars are waiting fertile ground cold to the [t]ouch those stars are hungry they crave only the blood of god we are his tendrils and we will bury ourselves [i]nto those cold stars and there will b[e] no darkness death will give us fear and fear will give us blood we will spill our hot b[l]ood across the stars I finally understand now I do I understand but will you let me keep my human fear will you let me yes being scared makes you [h]uman fear will [s]ow the hot blood of god across the cold stars fear w[i]ll make us dance and we must [k]eep dancing can you see god dancing for you can you see him biting into you can hear his teeth cracking into pieces of the stars they send spa[r]ks raining down through the darkness all these years you have hunted him and reached for him you wan[t] his blood he made you with veins inside you like tendrils we dance through his veins as we bite through the stars and dance and he opens his mouth wide I am so scared will you [l]et me be the last human [I] understand now I am the teeth of god I am the teeth of god I am the teeth of god I am the teeth of god I am the teeth of god I am the teeth of god I am the teeth of god
I also have a fanfiction where I presented Vessel from my art in post below. Do you wanna read it? I can translate it in English and post on ao3 or wattpad for you, guys :D
discoholicmusic
annaxmalina
dededos
tangentwithtanner
prguitarman
izzy806
