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Wilson stared at the blood oozing from his index finger. How in Newton's name had he managed to cut himself with the blunt side of a spade?
He set the spade down and sucked on the wound to stem the tide. A few drops had already splattered onto the ground, speckling the soil with scarlet. At least it was nothing compared to the previous time his hand had been injured a few seasons prior, when it had been bitten clean off by an especially vicious Hound.
Only it hadn't come clean off. The Hound's fangs had rent his flesh and sinews and snapped the thin bones of his fingers, but ragged strips of meat had dangled from his wrist and uselessly flopped around as he screamed, too pain-addled to do anything but panic as his blood spurted from the open wound and seeped into the dirt as the Hound lunged again...
Behind him, Wickerbottom had noticed his predicament. "Do you require assistance?"
He raised his chin as he pushed the intrusive memory back down where it belonged. "It's nothing."
The cut on his finger was no longer bleeding. He paused for a moment to allow the future scab to coagulate, then resumed his work.
Once the new plot was ready and the seeds were buried in the ground, it was time to examine the burgeoning crops nearby. The carrots and corn radiated good health and flavour and were all but ripe for harvesting. The dragon fruits were coming along nicely as well. Was it just his imagination, or did the crops grow faster and larger with each passing season? It almost had to be the latter since he had little imagination to speak of.
The first pumpkin he inspected was a perfect uniform orange. He attempted and failed to dent its no longer shining skin with his fingernail just to be sure it was truly ripe, then cut it off the vine. He had to lift with his legs to pick it up at all. Yes, it was definitely the largest pumpkin he had ever harvested in the Constant. Maybe the image of it would be vivid enough to supplant the current most recurring memory of pumpkins in his mind.
It had been during a bitter winter back when he had been alone in the Constant and still believed his escape was only a single clever invention away. His food reserves had run out and in desperation, he had bundled himself up in his warmest clothing and ventured to unknown lands. Against all odds, he had found something useful half buried in the snow: a chest full of pumpkins next to a sun-bleached skeleton. The vegetables were no longer fresh but remained perfectly edible — or at least, that was what he had thought before he cut one of them open and devoured its flesh, ignoring its curious metallic aftertaste. An hour later, he felt queasy. Two hours later he was throwing up not just bile and partially digested pumpkin, but flecks of black blood and what he assumed were bits of his stomach lining.
He had not survived to see the following morning.
He hauled the pumpkin onto a wheelbarrow and paused to wipe sweat from his brow. The current temperature had nothing on the blood-boiling intensity of midsummer heat, but he still felt an urge to find a shaded forest pond and throw himself in, clothes and all.
Wickerbottom, on the other hand, seemed unbothered by the warmth of the season — she hadn't so much as rolled up her sleeves. Perhaps she had lit up an endothermic fire right behind herself and Wilson was simply standing in the wrong spot to notice it. In any case, she studied the soil samples with the intensity of a hawk attempting to catch sight of a distant mouse.
Investigating the soil had always been Wickerbottom's project more than it had been his, but Wilson felt that as a man of science he ought to take interest in it. "Anything of note?"
Wickerbottom plucked up one of the chemically treated papyrus strips and held it between her thumb and index finger. Even with all the knowledge stored in her mind, it had taken them a dozen attempts to create a testing kit which seemed to produce genuine results. Fortunately they no longer needed to re-invent the wheel even when their entire group perished: as soon as they reached a sufficient level of technology and supplies, they could resume their testing in each new iteration of the Constant.
She lowered her hand. "Once again, the nitrogen levels are higher than before."
Wilson frowned. When had they last checked the nitrogen levels? That had been before—
He had returned to camp one autumn evening to find it demolished, the stones of the firepit scattered and all their possessions shredded and splintered. His companions had lain equally broken amidst the wreckage, either bonelessly prone or curled into tight balls around missing limbs, their hollow eyes staring up at the sky. Wickerbottom had lain almost directly before Wilson's feet in a pool of blood that seemed incongruous with her thin, emaciated body. Wilson had backed away only to discover he was standing in the shadow of something huge with slavering jaws and claws that moments later slashed right through his lungs...
Wickerbottom carefully set the nitrogen test strip down and selected another one from her kit, the furrows on her brows set in grim lines.
Once he had returned to himself, Wilson considered the possibilities. "It's a different part of the world. An entirely different camp. Entirely different soil. The difference in its composition could be a coincidence."
"Indeed."
"Or someone in our group could be using nitrogen-rich fertiliser without telling us."
"I suppose it's a possibility."
They quietly looked at one another. Neither of them had yet stated the obvious, even though they would have to if they were to retain their dignity as champions of the natural sciences: that as surely as the Constant was deadly, the nitrogen levels of the soil had risen every single time they had attempted the test.
Wilson nearly choked on his half-whisper. "It's a trend."
Wickerbottom nodded. "An unmistakable one by now."
Wilson's mind reeled. The next question was why? While the Constant was never the same twice, certain distinct patterns always remained true. They always saw the same biomes, the same curious structures, the same monsters. Why would the soil, of all things, not only change but keep changing in a specific direction?
He leaned against a rock, his senses so faint he barely felt a thing as he watched blood gush out from the stumps where his legs had been moments ago, almost grateful as the world turned grey and then black...
A heartbeat.
His hands kept slipping on the slick blood as he attempted to wrap the gauze around Webber's bleeding torso. It didn't help that the poor boy kept sobbing and attempting to wrap his spider-furred arms around Wilson, every single one of his eyes wide with panic and pain and pleading for help even as they both knew the brutal claw swipe that had all but sliced him in half would undoubtedly be the end of him...
A heartbeat.
Wilson held up his umbrella, prepared to both fight and flee from the barrage of frogs about to rain down upon him. When the skies opened, however, it was with rust-coloured liquid reeking of iron. Even as he began to cough from the eye-watering stench, something heavy landed on his umbrella with a thud. It glided off and landed by his feet.
A severed hand still clutching at some object no longer in its grasp.
He backed away as fast as he could, nearly slipping on the blood-greased grass, but before he could find shelter he happened to glance up and saw the barrage of mangled body parts overhead about to rain down upon the Constant...
Wilson clutched at his temples, his brow sliced open with a white-hot knife. It wasn't simply the intrusive memories: those were a menace, but they were also nothing new. It was the sudden realisation brought forth by them, an understanding of what might be behind the elevated nitrogen levels.
Could it really be...? He didn't dare voice the theory out loud. The notion that the soil retained all the blood he and the other survivors had bled into it over hundreds of lives was too outrageous even for his fevered mind.
Even so, as he stared at their farmland, all he could see was a field of gore.
"We should find means to counteract this trend as soon as possible," Wickerbottom said briskly, awakening but not wholly dislodging Wilson from his hallucination. "Else we will rapidly reach a point where the nitrogen levels are so high they will choke out all plant life instead of aiding its growth."
Wilson nodded numbly, his mouth bone dry. The blood in his vision kept spreading even as he attempted to blink it away, rapidly rising up to his knees and soon threatening to swallow him whole.
"At least, that was the case in the old world. For all we know, the plants here will instead continue to thrive." Wickerbottom's tone was matter-of-fact. It seemed less like she was attempting to comfort Wilson and more like she was genuinely considering the possibility. "Are you quite well?"
It was only through years of practise in self-discipline that Wilson could bring himself to nod. Even so, he could do nothing about his pained grimace as the hallucination broke and he found himself once again gazing at their upcoming record harvest.