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Newlywed Couple, depicting two grey wolf people (Homo canis lupus) that the artist met at the edge of an Extrahuman village within the North Ontario flux region. 

Posted on Feb 19th, 2029 by user Tortov Roddle. 

I was making my way towards Hudson Bay, wanting to visit my cousins who lived there, but an oncoming storm forced me to seek shelter. I sent out a distress signal, searching for any settlement or safe place that I could stay, and I recieved the nearby coordinates for a town called ‘Saddlebrooks.’

I did not know how long it would take for me to get there, so my had my steed rush, only relaxing when--2 hours later--I was spotted by the town’s panopticon. The tower was tall, fixing the region around me, so I didn’t have to worry about any further distortions.

When I finally arrived at the panoptican, I was greeted by two young newlyweds, they seemed to only be in their early 20s, and I was surprised to hear they managed the panopticon all by themselves.

We became fast friends, and the wife offered to lead me to the town. In return, I beseeched that they let me draw them, and they agreed--although the husband seemed rather nervous about the whole affair.

It is shocking, in retrospect, to experience these lackadaisical times when only 4 years ago I and many others feared for our lives amongst the confusion and chaos that resulted from the Expansion. As well as the chaos that arose from the appearance of Extrahumans in the first place, but hopefully the people I’ve met in my travels are proof enough that at the very bottom of mankind’s heart is community. And that as long as two people still exist on Earth, the world will rebuild.

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Unfinished sketch of a cottage posted by Jaccques Simmons on March 16th, 2023. Referencing the building he entered in his ‘Cottage Account’ on March 14th.

I only managed to draw the building itself before the photo died, but I tried cleaning it up from memory afterwards. The part that juts out is where the descending staircases were.

If someone ventures into the wilderness around here and finds a building shaped kinda like this, enter at your own risk. And at the very least, enter with another person.

---

Jaccque Simmons’s ‘Cottage Account,’ posted on March 14th, 2023. Recounting what happened to him when he entered a derelict building he had been tracking for the last few days.

Boy, I have got the story for you guys today. I almost died, I think, but that’s not the part that sticks in my head the most. Right now, I’m sitting at home at my computer, writing this on a keyboard with a cup of my rationed hot chocolate next to me. Despite it taking me nearly 4 days to get to the cottage, I only needed 1 to get home, and I couldn’t be happier.

Anyhow, let me tell you what happened:

After waking up that day and packing up my camp again, I noticed that the short hills in the distance had disappeared. I climbed up a tree to get a better look and I saw to my delight, the cottage I had been tracking this entire time was only about 400 feet away. As fast as I could, I got down and made my way towards it, very soon I sat in front of the building, and I realized it did not look anything like I had thought.

The ‘cottage’ was more like the shell of a brick building that just appeared smaller from far away, its insides were completely empty: 2 floors of garbage were piled onto the ground within the walls, and I realized that this house, whatever it was, must’ve been abandoned for decades at least. The small signs of dissaray I had seen on my way to this building were just hints of the cottage’s actual state.

Disheartened, I started loitering around to see if there was something to have made the trip worth my time. I looked at the ground under my feet and realized that it was crumbled asphalt, meaning there was once a road here--but after the wilderness changed sized over and over again it broke apart. Perhaps, I thought, I’d find something else of note if I kept following it. 

So I did, I kept trekking along the traces of roads until I came to a dead end. There was a thin wall of shrubbery in front of me, but between the leaves I made out another building. It was short and squat, but more than enough to get my attention. I took my big knife from by belt and cut down enough of the plants to get through, and when I did I saw what looked like some kind of old storehouse.

It was made of stone, but had a metal roof and the remnants of a powerline was sat in front of it, with bits of dead wire scattered around. The old stone walls were cracked, with bits missing and exposing the inner wall. Across the entire thing were dead creeper-like plants, and in the center was a large metal gate, which appeared to me like it was made to drag a cart through.

Either way, I thought I had what I came for and I snapped a picture with my phone so I could draw it later. This is an aside but I know some of you guys are shocked that I would do this, but I realized after a bit of testing that photos of the stuff you find in the wilderness only ‘dies’ after a little while. Usually it does not last longer than a day, but that’s more than enough for me to draw something from photo reference. I’m not sure exactly why this happens, however, so I guess that’s something for the scientists out there to figure out.

After snapping my pic I pried open the metal gate. The inside of the building was barren, except for signs of the inner wall breaking off. I put my backpack down and brought out my flashlight, and I saw a descending set of stairs to my right.

In hindsight, these stairs were weird as hell. Just at one end of the building, within its own room or even with a fence around it, were a set of wooden stairs that descended into what was presumably a basement. When I walked up to it and shone by flashlight down, I saw it descended about 20 or 30 feet before ending at a normal-looking wooden door. I was so curious that, after making sure the steps weren’t too rotten to support my weight, I went down and tried to open it.

The door wasn’t locked, and it swung open to a small basement-like room. The space looked like it was dug out of the dirt and then had plaster walls and ceilings put up. It was weird as hell, as it looked like underneath this abandoned storagehouse was just an unfinished basement. There was no furniture, unless you counted the littles piles of dust bordering the walls, but there was another door just in front of me. Although the door itself hadn’t been installed so it was just a door-shaped hole. The door hole, if you will.

Through the door-hole was a long room with what looked like the measurement drawings on the wall. Like how someone would do to mark where they’d cut out a window or something, but for this there were the outlines of like 4 windows marked out in blue. Beyond that, the room was exactly as featureless as the last, save for another empty doorway. I went through that and found another room, but this time with no walls, just the metal frame of the room and the naked supports that were holding up the ceiling. To my right, now, was another empty doorway.

And this was something I didn’t notice until I was on my way out, but, the doorway I saw from the naked room should have lead right back to the first room I entered when I descended those steps. But it didn’t. I went through the naked room and found myself in an even more naked room. The previous one had its frame and stuff exposed, this room had none of that. It literally looked like a cube-shaped hole that was excavated out of the ground.

I’m going to make a diagram in MSPaint to show you what I mean.

The grey room is the one I just entered, the excavated one, and I swear up and down that there was no change in elevation as I walked through these rooms. If this was a normal place, I swear the room I just walked into WOULD have intersected with the first room I went into.

So, yeah, in hindsight this place was a little insane. But, it just looked so benign and weird in more obvious ways that I didn’t notice. Was that somehow on purpose? By the whatever or whichever that built this place? Assuming something like this actually was built and didn’t just like, spring out of the aether or whatever. Perhaps if I spent a couple more second to think about this then

Anyhow, once I had reached the super empty room I saw another opening, but it wasn’t shaped like a door like the rest of the passages. It was just a rectangular hole, seemingly carved into the wall itself. I shined my flashlight down, and saw the ceiling steadily lower like a ramp until it opened up again at the very end, presumably into a new room.

Now, this is obviously the part in the horror movie where everyone yells at me to go back to saftety. I’m in this pitch-black basement, with only my flashlight, and a long narrow hallway leading into some mystery room. But you have to understand how it felt in the moment. The situation the world is in right now is completely and utterly undprecedented, it’s basically supernatural. The world is growing bigger and smaller behind our backs and now, within one of these strange flux regions, I find not just a building but a basement, leading to somewhere?

With how the wilderness is acting, along with some of the stuff I've seen other survivalists post, I felt like if I didn't see what's at the end of the hallway, then nobody would EVER see it.

So I continued.

And down I went as the roof continued to lower forcing me to eventually crouch my way forward until I got into a really weird room. It’s difficult for me to describe so I went through the effort of drawing a rough summation from memory.

There was this pedestal-shaped thing that descended from the ceiling, and from it was a clay tablet that hung down a short distance from a two thick black ropes. The tablet had an indentation a bit larger than my head's, and hung down to about my chest. There were no strange markings or runes or anything, on either the tablet thing or the structure in lowered from.

This little room looked completely different to everything I had seen so far. It almost didn’t look manmade. It wasn’t dug out or built and set into the ground by anything, it gave me the sense that it was just... there. That entire time, somehow, this room naturally formed. It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s the only way I can imagine describing it. The rock walls were smooth, and a sort of ochre colour, but the wall in front of me was more yellow. The room itself was also immaculately clean, no dust or anything. 

I looked into the clay tablet-like thing that stuck out from the upside-down pedestal. It was completely still until I poked the edge, and it swung about harmlessly. The indention was ovalular, and struck me as the exact kind of shape something meant for you to stick your head into would be.

So, of course, I stuck my face into it. It didn't look supernatural, and I was really curious. Maybe there was some kind of magic influence going on as well but it literally looked like something that was made for you to stick your face into I thought this place was leading me to something. Like, I had gotten so far, at the literal end of this tunnel, I would find something interesting, and this was clearly what I was meant to do.  So yeah, I did, to see if my face would fit. And I very quickly regretted it.

As soon as my nose touched the back of the tablet thing I gasped. But it was like an involuntary thing, all the air rushed out of my chest and then I took another quick breath, just as involuntary. Right then, I had lost control of my body. It was like sleep paralysis, I was standing normally, leaning into the clay tablet thing, but any attempt at moving my arms or fingers or legs failed. I wasn't able to control my breathing. I wasn’t even able to let go of my flashlight.

My eyes flitted around inside the tablet, I could just see out the edges of my peripheral vision, and I imagined some kinda shadow creature taking me or something, but nothing happened. I began counting the seconds, and 27-ish seconds in I realized I wasn't looking into a clay tablet anymore--I was looking outside. Just outside the storehouse, I could even make out the shrubbery that I knocked down to get there.

But, just as it felt like I had taken in my surrounded I was taken away from my view of the cottage. I started to see flashes of places and things that I sort of recognized. The ruins of a building with lot's of windows that I eventually realized was my neighborhood's library, but once that happened I was shown something else: An overgrown road, with big chunks of asphalt sticking out of swamp water, I eventually noticed half of a sign sticking out of the dirt and realized it was one of the streets leading up to my nephew's highschool. Then my vision shifted again.

Over and over, mind you this entire time I'm still in a vegetative state with my face shoved into a clay brick, I'm shown these random scenes of shrubbery and stuff only for me to recognize something about them, and for my vision to shift to something else. It didn't feel like I knew what I was doing, it was like I was hypnotized and my eyes just glazed over what I saw until the synapses in my brain went off and I recognized the place.

I swear this went on for at least an hour, and the more it went on the more exhausted I got. I could feel my knees go weak and my back start to hurt from the slouching. But no matter what I did or thought I couldn't get my body to move, I realized I wasn't able to consciously close my eyes, even. My blinking was on autopilot. I started to regret my life and stuff, like, was this how I was going to die? Trapped in some weird thing because I stuck my head into it like an idiot? I just wanted to go home, but when I tried to shut my eyes I saw something flash in from of my vision. Something familiar, that gave me a weak idea.

I focused on the image of my house, the doors, the walls, the windows, the solar panels I installed last year, other random stuff that I thought could only be associated with my house and nobody else's. The vision of my house came to me, and I recognized it, and I even saw the footprints of my boots as I stepped out of it the first time. And I felt weirdly relieved.

And the thing that was like, flashing my vision, tried to move onto something else. But I willed it to stick onto my house, like when you put two different images in front of your left and right eye I could see both my house and something else at once. But I consciously shifted all my attention to my house. My vision tried to shift again but I refused to think about anything else, the living room, my house-phone, my computer. This went on like, 2 or 3 times until suddenly I felt the strength in my legs returns and I literally jumped backwards, sending my face out of the clay tablet and towards the entranceway I came from.

I landed on my ass and for the first time in what felt like forever I was able to consciously breathe again. I flexed my fingers and toes as I stared at the tablet thing that was now swinging idly from the two thick ropes. I half expected something to jump out at me, some men-in-black type guy to pick me up, go "You're not finished yet." and shove me back in, but nothing else happened.

When I regained my bearings I headed straight the hell out, and while I was walking out of the basement I held my hatchet in the other hand, just in case. Fortunately, I was unassaulted, and exited the storehouse with no further damage.

Once I stepped outside I saw that it was about 5 PM, and I tried to put as much distance between me and the storehouse as I could. After a graciously short amount of time, I had made it back home. And now I’m typing this update for you guys.

This is kinda of crazy, but in hindsight, what happened is kind of reminding me of how CDs are read in a disc reader. A laser goes across the surface and grabs the bits of pieces of data that's physically spread around thef the disc, then pieces it together on your computer to make a movie or image or something. Was this shrine thing like... reading my mind, somehow? It was flashing my memories or something, showing me images until I recalled what the place was, and then showing me another. I'm not gonna worry about how, this surreal wilderness is messed up enough. But what I wanna know is if so, if that thing held me there to see what I remembered and recognized, why?

One thing I can say, however, is that I have never been more happy to be home. Regretably, supplies are getting low. My instant hot chocolate is almost gone, so I need to enjoy it while it lasts. While I was away, however, my backyard garden has been doing well, and I can confirm that the wilderness has lot's of resources for you to gather and scavenge, as well as wildlife to hunt down. I certainly won't go hungry, but man, I am already missing the benefits of normal life.

I'm also coming to accept that there are other people out there. Not as priveleged as I was to have the resources to set up all the things I have in my house. The wilderness gives me lot's of room to expand as well, so I think after this week, when I head out again, I'm going to look for survivors and lead them back to my house. I'm thinking of making my place some kind of beacon for people to come to, I can expand the farm, make some shelters--there’s lot’s and lot’s of lumber to go around. Maybe provide a place for a good meal for people to find. Maybe I can figure out a way to put out signs and stuff leading to here.  

Afterwards, I can radio someone it to bring a chopper and send people to the larger cities. I think almost dying has burnt out my adventurous spirit a bit, perhaps this is how our ancestors felt when they first began making permanent settlements.

Signing out, y’all. And stay safe out there. 

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Fanart from one of Simmon’s readers, depicting the Silverspoon creature he encountered before his ‘Cottage Account’ on March 14th, 2023.

Simmons loved the picture so much that he pinned it to his front page, but adding the addendum that the silverspoon was probably 8 or 9 feet tall, and “sort of strutted like it was on a runway.”

The post resulted in a lot of controversy, many claiming that Simmons was talking out his ass. But approxiomately 2 weeks later, a different Survival/Artist came out of the ‘Turbohio’ flux region leading one by the neck using a rope.

Once brought into the outskirts of Colombus, photos were sent worldwide and the existence of Extrafauna started to be taken seriously. 

By the by: Silverspoons became classified as Extrafauna camelopardalis. DNA testing reveals it is genetically related to common giraffes. 

Although how this came to pass is utterly unknown, it’s believed by some to have come from the same process that allows for Extrahumans.

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“Silverspoon”

Posted by Jacques Simmons on March 12th, 2023

I ended up sleeping in today, I’d never hung my hammock so high before and I might have been a little afraid to climb down. Regardless, I eventually did and packed everything up, hoping to reach a water source before evening. It was around 11 AM when I had eaten breakfast and began hiking, by the way.

Despite spending more than a month in the wilderness it still creeped me out how everything I saw the previous night, from the treetops, was now totally different. I got a closer look at that house from before, the windows were broken and the thing look really overrun so either it was abandonded or whoever lived there died in the chaos. Scary stuff, but I knew I’d find it eventually if I just headed North. 

With that in mind, I continued, sure to keep track of my compass and GPS so I wouldn’t lose my sense of direction. I think my GPS just confirms my suspicions, I can walk for an hour and it’ll say I haven’t moved at all, but then I’ll walk for 10 minutes and it’ll say I’ve moved 8 miles. Whatever’s going on with the wilderness right now, it’s in a state of uncertainty, like it can’t decide how long distance actually is. That and it only takes place at ground level, I heard the news of the helicopter pilots seeing the ‘distortion’ disappear once they got high enough as well, so I’m feeling confident in this theory.

Thinking I’ve solved the puzzle didn’t really do me much good, though, because things like distance on the ground are irrelevant. I just gotta trust that I’ll get there eventually, whether it takes a couple minutes or a couple days. 

Anyhow, I trekked through low grasslands for most the afternoon, I’d occasionally spot ground squirrels and seed-eating birds dart around the underbrush but beyond that things were boring. I wasn’t listening to music or the radio because I was looking for a stream or something, and wanted to keep my ears perked for it, and eventually--Around 5 PM I think, I heard it. The sound of flowing water.

My waterbladder had emptied and I had to dig into my emergency water bottle by that time, so once I knew it was it earshot I rushed towards it. I eventually made it to the shore of a clear stream, and quickly brought out my filter to refill my bladder as well as try for some fish. I didn’t manage to catch any, but I saw something better.

See the drawing I included with this update? Yeah. I had to draw this from memory, though, as the actual encounter was so short. If I ever get to see it again I’m whipping out my Ipad immediately. I was at the edge of the river when I suddenly heard this loud, lowish chirping sound. It made me think of like, the sound of a robin that was slowed down so that it was longer and deeper. I looked towards and sound and saw this weird thing.

What the hell is it? I had seen some weird stuff, like those table-shaped rocks from last week, but I had never seen an abnormal living creature. This thing looked like something from a videogame or comic book, but it was real flesh and blood! I’m so sad I couldn’t just snap a photo of it, so I just have to ask you guys to believe me. I couldn’t make this thing up if I tried.

It looked like someone had sliced a giraffe in half and covered it in kinda blue spraypaint. The thing was hairless, but had blue markings around its neck and legs. It also had hoof-like feet that stretched out, kinda resembling shoes. At the top of its long neck was a tiny head with ginormous ears that made the silhouette of a spoon. 

It had eyes at the sides of its head, and judging by the giant ears which it certainly used to hear things with, I imagine it’s some kind of large herbivore. Did this evolve somehow in the wilderness? I didn’t think for a second it was some cryptid or some kind of recently undiscovered creature, I knew it was something weird, and something that would only appear in this bizarre expanse. (It also concerns me as to what predators this thing was adapted to avoiding.)

Anyhow, the creature, which I decided to call a ‘Silverspoon’ based on its colour and head, stared at me for a while after making that call. I think it was gauging to see if I would cross the river to come after it. Giraffes in real life are pretty powerful creatures, so I gotta admit I was way more scared of that thing than it might’ve been at me.

I moved slowly, not wanting to startle it or anything. And watched as it kneeled at the river’s edge like a person and dipped its head in. Its neck was so long that its head was basically under the water. After it had finished its drink, the thing turned around and strided away, giving me a glimpse of its small black-tipped tail.

I almost wanted to cross the stream to go after it, but I didn’t want to go too far off course. At the same time I didn’t want to get my chest smashed in by a kick from those legs, so when I had finished my tea I packed up again and headed on my way back in the direction of that derelict house.

Right now I’m in a tree again, I feel like I’ve made good progress and I snared a rabbit for dinner. I’m thinking of making a tutorial series for preparing wild game once I make it back to my house, so tell me what you think about that.

Once I finish writing this update I’ll go to sleep and try to wake up earlier today. My goal is to reach that house by tomorrow, but that’s what I said 3 days ago as well.

If you or a loved one is trapped in the wilderness, remember to give emergency response as exact coordinates as you can. More and more teams are getting choppers together to extract people and put them into the big cities, so be sure to pack up your valuables and stuff for when they get to you.

Signing out, stay safe out there.

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[Transcript]

A Look Back at Bruno Rivera's Account at the Delaware River

Abrar Aly

Sat., February 13 2029, 12:27 p.m. - 6 min read

Trending:

1. Bodies discovered in US flux region “Turbohio”

2. CBL first sports organization to fully replace gendered teams

3. Cr4sh album “Memories Remix Band” featuring late Eminem releases post-Expansion after 7-year delay

4. Halep battles past Swiatek to set up Serena showdown

5. Athletics: Kenya’s Alhaadi, Homo syncerus caffer, breaking recards as strongest person in the world spark controversy

North Yankee search-and-contact police continue operations along the Delaware, continuing to find lost travelers and uncontacted communities within the flux region. Picture taken at Delaware Fixed-Station 3. (SWNS)

The 'Rivera Account' is strong example of how hindsight is always 20/20. Despite the freak occurance in Prague, Rivera's description of what he saw as he went down the Delaware was mostly shrugged off as hallucination, madness, or simply a tall-tale. After the cataclysm that was the Expansion, I think it's worth looking back at Rivera's story to see what exactly he experienced. It could possibly be that the Expansion began far earlier than official records say, and other smaller, isolated events like this had happened to different people.

Bruno Rivera was a 43-year-old fisherman in New Jersey, who was boating across the Delaware River. On his way home, he began to see the roads and fields around him suddenly growing and stretching before his eyes.

This is regarded as the first real description of an Expansion Event, and it's commonly accepted that the Delaware Flux Region is the first to have developed--Rivera is possibly describing the gensis of the Delaware Flux Region. The only event similar at that time to what Rivera described was the 'Prague Disappearances' disaster six months earlier, but there was so little information at the time that the connection was never seen until much later.

"I turned east towards the Jerry Lees campsites, but in front of me the cleared out fields and roads had stretched away, like it had never been there. Instead, between myself and the land in front of me were sudden fields of grasses and trees, I thought I had lost my mind."

This is exactly how the flux appears when viewed from fixed regions. Space will change in front of you when you look away, as well as the appearance of extended forests and grasslands. It should be said that Rivera is lucky to have been on the Delaware, for if he stepped onto dry land we might never have heard of him again.

Later on, after the Expansion actually occurred, Rivera posted the following words onto his Facebook page, including exact GPS coordinates he retrieved from his phone. This was instrumental in him being rescued from the Delaware Flux Region.

Read more: North Yankee mayor celebrates first-year anniversary of new city

---

Search-and-contact leader Marissa Ali, pictured taking the accounts of a rescued explorer after they witnessed an alleged Extranatural event similar to Rivera's 'rising hill,' but was discovered to just have been the effects under a wild thicket of hallucination roses. (PA)

But what did he mean by this, exactly? A creature that rose out of the ground certainly matches the possibilities for Extrafauna, but Rivera never claims it was a creature. He simply says some kind of bulging shape rose out of the ground from the horizon, followed by a tall spire jutting out from its side.

Rivera goes on to describe an actual creature he encountered while continuing down the river.

"I continued down the river, hoping to find some kind house or road so I could get back to town. Until I was suddenly distracted by a loud chirping sound, like a large bird. I looked to my side and saw a terrifying creature, it looked like sort of, the front half of a giraffe. It had two legs, a long neck, blue skin, and a spoon-shaped head. The thing had small dot eyes and it made that long chirping noise again."

This is undoubtedly the first recorded account of an Extrafauna, and judging by how it was described, it was probably a silverspoon. Althrough, there has been no evidence of silverspoons appearing in blue. Regardless, the fact that a real Extrafauna had appeared 20 days before the official beginning of the Expansion shows us just how little we know of when the process actually began.

What other details have we lost either to accounts being buried under the media storm or simply the witnesses deciding to not disclose what they saw? Could it be possible that Extrahumans had been appearing already as well?

---

The menagerie of strange things that Bruno reports seeing mostly match the descriptions of other well-known phenomena attributed to the Delaware Flux Region, saving the few oddities that have not yet been recognized. As the manifestations of the Expansion are better explored, and understood, his report of what happened to him as he drifted lost on the Delaware has only been further corroborated.

Bruno Rivera is currently retired in North Yankee, and is being taken care of by his family. He has not responded to any lines of inquiry, instead quoting a statement he made two years earlier. "I don't wanna think about what I saw on that river anymore."

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Grade 10 History - The Ancient Ruins, The Expansion, and How it Changed Society

https://youtu.be/dqJ1fM8YiOI

A video of Mackenzie-ib-Hasan's grade 10 summative assignment, where he had to make a presentation on an aspect of the Expansion and how it changed society. Mackenzie tried to cover a broad range of topics, including the treatment of Extrahumans.