Work Text:
The World of Anomalies
After the event that changed the world several hundred decades ago, humanity could no longer exist as it once had. Buildings became uninhabitable, and the people inside them could become "zombified."
Cities retained their structure. Cars still stood in place, and even plants, for unknown reasons, did not overrun the stone streets of the cities. It was as if life went on as usual.
People affected by the anomalies lost the ability to think rationally and to communicate with the uninfected. Their eyes lost their color, and their bodies began to age far more slowly than those of ordinary people. The infected could exist in two phases.
The first of these is the trance. When an infected enters this phase, they remain at their place of "dwelling," which may be their home or a favorite building. Most often, they are observed standing in the middle of a room and producing sounds vaguely resembling speech.
When approaching infected in the trance phase, extreme caution must be exercised. When a person enters their territory, their reaction consists of aggression, more akin to animalistic fury than human emotion. They use their hands, legs, and even teeth to harm a person in every possible way. It is unknown whether being on their territory is the cause of infection. Likewise, no records have been preserved of where the infection originated, but over the centuries, anomalies have become its source.
The second phase of the infected is the routine. The infected wander the city streets and sometimes stop at specific locations associated with them or that served as their leisure spots. In this phase, large gatherings of the infected can be seen at markets, city squares, beaches, and so forth. Large buildings, such as supermarkets, carry the danger of a zombified person transitioning into the trance state, and therefore should be avoided when searching for food. Anomalous people on the streets are inactive and do not display aggression toward people, except in cases of attack, when they may respond with strikes or kicks. Although the Committee had raised the question of eliminating all infected in the routine stage, it was abandoned, prioritizing human lives and the danger posed by anomalies within the city.
View file: ANOMALIES
In many cities, as is known, infrastructure and sometimes even the supply of electricity are preserved, which is inexplicable, as the infected have not been observed carrying out complex actions. Additionally, loudspeakers have been installed in the cities. It is unknown whether humanity installed them before the outbreak began or after. Sometimes, a creaking and monotonous voice bursts from them, speaking of a certain anomaly that has appeared in the city or its outskirts. By paying close attention, one can decipher the location where it appeared, but this requires some effort. It is unknown from where or by whom the anomalies are announced. Attempts have been made to cut power to the loudspeakers or to destroy them. The latter led to fierce resistance from the infected wandering nearby.
Anomalies represent an unknown form of infection that encompasses a specific object or a collection of them. Natural zones may also be infected. Upon becoming an anomaly, an object develops an undefined self-awareness that sustains the object's active movements and seeks the nearest target, which is an uninfected human. The goals of anomalies are unknown, but their behavior leads to mass destruction and the killing of the uninfected population upon contact.
It is worth noting that anomalies possess properties that make them valuable after processing, and therefore some lone groups or units assigned by the Committee are dispatched to destroy an anomaly while ridding it of its infection.
Cases have been known where items crafted from such materials could inflict significant damage to one anomalous entity or another. In connection with this, as well as the impossibility of constructing new factories, special institutions have been built that produce cold weapons and equipment from anomalous materials.
In the cities, as well as their outskirts, one may encounter "shops." They are likely one of the manifestations of anomalies but are not hostile. They appear as recesses in certain rock formations. Their depth depends on the size of the shop but does not exceed fifteen meters at maximum. The entity that acts as the "shopkeeper" is located behind a small window set into one of the shop's walls. The wall is always on the opposite side of the entrance and thus leads only to a space that should be filled with soil.
In the cities, buildings resembling a "shop" in shape and bearing a similar sign can also be encountered. Inside, however, they appear neglected, and instead of a shopkeeper, there is one of the infected, presumed to be in a trance state and therefore aggressive. It is not recommended to enter "shops" located within cities that are not marked with a special sign of the Committee or previously surveyed.
The primary function of a shopkeeper is to accept unprocessed anomalous resources and subsequently issue some sort of tool made from them. It has also been observed that other tools are present on the shelves, with price tags next to them bearing a number as well as an unknown currency. The results of attempted studies have not revealed any correlation between the numbers and the material given to the "shopkeeper."
The main types of tools and weapons that can be bought or obtained include: hammers, sledgehammers, chisels, saws, pitchforks, knives (kitchen), crowbars, shovels, axes, sabers, shashkas, brass knuckles, maces, rapiers, smallswords, spears, and so forth.
From archives, it is known that shops have the property of relocating, though it is unknown whether it is a single shop, as the goods on the shelves may change over time. Under observation, no signs of change were detected. Further testing has been canceled due to resource expenditure and impracticability.
Settlements and the State of Civilization as of the year 2***:
At present, the construction of large cities is under question due to the unknown nature of resident infection. The main groups of people live in dugouts as well as houses with large floor areas or open sections. These have been recognized as meeting safety requirements and have not led to infection incidents. Due to a shortage of resources, many human settlements feature wooden houses and include wells and fields for growing agricultural crops. Concurrently, trade exchanges take place using food products or anomalous materials obtained from the destruction of anomalies. Because of this, many villages possess groups armed with anomalous items (depending on whether they have encountered a trader or received weaponry from the Coalition, the quality of weapons may vary).
At present, no appearances of anomalies or their harbingers (loudspeakers, cases of infection) have been recorded in new settlements. A slow recovery of the human population is taking place, which had fallen to 0.05% of its number before the appearance of anomalies.