The Salty Land of Blood

"Do you know, they say there are some underground gangs and such in here."

"I've heard of them. I've also heard about drowned ghosts slipping out of the water prisons, and man-eating sea monsters that crawl up from the ocean at night."

Not long after leaving Elm Street, they soon stood before a stretch of rather unpleasant buildings; just seeing them from afar was enough to make one associate them with decay and rot.

These dull-colored structures were mostly pieced together from wooden planks, growing out of the damp, low-lying ground like proliferating fungal colonies, spreading out in dense clusters.

Rather than man-made objects, they were more like some sort of alternative lifeform growing in disorder. It constantly absorbed more tiny individuals, driving them to bring more materials, turning nothing away.

From misshapen reef rocks to wood of various forms and unknown origins, everything left over or discarded by the city gathered here, stacked and spliced together in an amateurish fashion.

The only goal was to make them form spaces that could barely accommodate human habitation; beyond that, there was no energy left to think of anything else.

Over the course of months or years, the already poor-quality wooden structures would change slowly but surely in the humid air, bending and snapping along irrational stress lines.

The owners needed to find new materials to repeatedly repair these defects. If there was a hole, they covered it with a board; if it tilted, they added support structures on the outside. Adjacent residents often built their houses very close together, connecting them with short wooden beams so they could lean on each other and become a more stable whole.

Because there was rarely wood thick or long enough, the houses had to be close enough to be less than a strong man's shoulder-width apart, allowing them to be joined by external attachments as dense and disproportionate to the main body as the limbs of a millipede.

Even so, on land soaked soft by seawater and lacking a stable foundation, any effort was destined to be futile in the long run. Sooner or later, the buildings would tilt to one side under their own weight and collapse to the ground.

The still-usable wreckage would be salvaged to grow another short-lived building upon the ruins, repeating the fate of the former.

Under such planning logic, one should not expect any normal roads. Those who entered had to move through the gaps between the crooked, filthy houses, sometimes having to turn sideways in narrow spots to avoid brushing against the slimy wooden planks on both sides.

Lucius lowered his head to avoid a wooden strip sticking out at an angle, its surface still covered in unpeeled bark. Kraft stopped at the fork ahead and looked back to see if he was keeping up.

"How are we going to get back later?"

Not long after entering the Salt Tide District, after turning a few corners, Lucius quickly lost his sense of direction. They had already hit several dead ends and frequently changed their direction of travel.

If he had come here with Liston, they would have felt fear in this labyrinth long ago and sensibly turned back to avoid getting trapped deeper inside.

"I remember the way." Kraft pointed to his own head. The path they had taken was clearly imprinted in his memory; he outlined the route in his mind, forming a map. "This location is about right. Let's find someone to ask before we continue deeper."

Bypassing a pile of cluttered waste, the two found the front door of the building in front of them and reached out to knock on the damp door panel.

The person who opened the door was a gaunt man with an unpleasant expression. Seeing the strangely dressed visitors, he wiped his eyes, suspecting he was hallucinating.

"Hello, we are doctors. May I ask if you or your family have recently experienced longer sleep times or difficulty being woken up?" Kraft inquired.

The gaunt man looked suspiciously at the bird-headed person who called himself a doctor, not understanding why he would ask such a question.

Out of a desire to get rid of them as quickly as possible, he still replied: "No, I'm the only one here, and there's never been anything like that. If you're looking to sell some medicinal powder, you've definitely come to the wrong place. No one here will buy it."

"Then have you heard of anyone nearby sleeping longer and longer?" Kraft crossed this point off in his mind and continued to pursue other clues.

The gaunt man grew impatient with the aimless conversation and dropped a dry "Don't know," hoping these two strangers would leave on their own and stop bothering him.

Kraft sensed his impatience, reached into his money pouch, took out two copper coins, and spread them on his palm. "I don't have the habit of letting people help for nothing. Could you think about it more carefully?"

The man reached out to take the money, but the black-gloved palm quickly flipped and clenched, trapping the copper coins in a fist and making them disappear from his sight.

"Please, think carefully. Any news at all, as long as it's somewhat relevant."

He could feel the eyes behind the red glass lenses watching him; they wouldn't produce the money until they got an answer.

The man with long, dirty fingernails scratched his face. The gaunt man racked his brains, trying to find something from the messy rumors to exchange for the reward in front of him. He had no reason to let the nearly free two copper coins go.

Moreover, this demeanor reminded him of those wealthy people with strange hobbies he had heard about, who were willing to spend money on things normal people thought were completely useless. Perhaps he could get more money from that pouch that looked quite heavy.

"It seems I did hear something like that a few days ago. They said someone over by the Red Algae Well lost a job they had lined up because they overslept. Does that count?" He stuck out his tongue to lick his dry lips, staring at the fist holding the coins.

"Thank you, that is very useful." Kraft opened his palm, letting the gaunt man take the two copper coins from his hand and stuff them into a strange part of his clothes. "Are you interested in earning a few more copper coins? I need someone to take me there to take a look now."

"But I have work to do today."

Making some extra money on the side and losing a job that could last for a few more days were two different things. Even if he didn't know math, he understood which was more important.

"What if I offer a black silver coin?"

"Two. My work over there still has four days left." The decisive counter-offer made him certain that Kraft was one of those "wealthy people with strange hobbies" from whom he could squeeze more benefits.

Although he didn't know if this price was fair, intuition told Kraft that he might be being treated as a sucker. Regardless, since he already knew the place name, he didn't mind shopping around for a guide fee.

"Fine, then this silver coin will have to be earned by someone else." He made a move to leave, pulling Lucius, who was carrying the case, along with him.

"Wait!"

They had only walked a few steps when the person behind them called them back. "One silver coin is fine. How stingy. I'm losing a whole four days of work."

This local guide led the two through the crooked alleys, drilling deeper into the Salt Tide District.

As they went deeper, the messy alleys became even messier and narrower, and the chaotic support structures extending from the shacks became more complex and cumbersome.

The further in they went, the longer the structures had existed. Like granulation tissue on an old wound, they wrapped, connected, and regrew to a volume always a circle larger than the original to approach the original strength; repeated trauma caused more hyperplasia.

Kraft had the illusion that he was walking into the interior of a tumor along its capillaries. The outside could barely be considered passable, but the depths were already beginning to necrotize due to insufficient blood supply, and the discarded waste and household garbage were the pus it formed.

They accumulated here, piled randomly wherever there was space, making the congested narrow paths even tighter, worsening the deterioration in a vicious cycle.

The sun gradually rose, and the warming light squeezed through the gaps between the crisscrossing structures. Water vapor evaporated from the mixture of ground and garbage, carrying the smell of salt, rot, and excrement, which the passing hot wind sent into human nostrils.

Wearing a bird-beak mask stuffed with several layers of spices, Kraft still smelled it. It became even more intense and penetrating when passing by large piles of garbage, making him consider turning back several times.

Their guide, however, seemed completely unaffected, breathing these gases directly—whether he was long accustomed to it or his sense of smell had been completely destroyed.

The short distance on the map was negated here, and the subjective perception of time was infinitely elongated. After a long ordeal, the view suddenly opened up, and they stopped in a small open space.

"Are you sure this place is the Red Algae Well?" Kraft looked at the pile of rubble in front of him.

In this rare patch of open ground, a chaotic heap of stones sat in the center, bearing no resemblance to a well in any sense.

"It used to be a well, that's for sure."

"Used to be?"

"Just like the name says, the water inside was as bitter and salty as seawater, and it was full of red algae." The gaunt man kicked a stone on the ground. "It was completely useless after being drawn, so someone sealed it up after falling in during the middle of the night."

This explanation was reasonable enough; with the low-lying terrain near the sea and long-term seawater flooding, it would be strange if the Salt Tide District had any normal wells at all.

"So, can you give me my money now?"

Kraft pulled out a black silver coin and handed it to him, ending their brief employment relationship.

Next, he would have to explore this area of unknown size to investigate the suspected cases. Dilapidated, moldy buildings surrounded them, and for a moment, he didn't know where to start.

He reached out to steady Lucius, and even through the thick mask, he could hear heavy, labored breathing. "I dare say this is the worst place I've ever known."

"Who could argue with that? Do you want to find a place to sit for a while before we continue?" Kraft took the box from his hands and patted his back, helping him catch his breath.

The Salt Tide District was a terrible place, but this spot made him feel even worse; an indescribable sense of dissonance had appeared at some point, yet he still couldn't put his finger on what was wrong.

At first, he thought it was the sensory irritation from the deteriorating environment, but even after gradually adapting, the dissonance refused to dissipate. Stopping in his tracks didn't make him feel any better; instead, it only intensified the sensation.

"How much longer do you think it will take for us to find them?" Lucius was hunched over, his hands braced on his knees, his bird-like beak nearly poking into his chest.

He didn't hear Kraft's response.

Kraft remained silent for a full minute. He had discovered where the dissonance lay—it wasn't a sensory irritation, but the absence of a certain feeling.

The sun was already well above the rooftops; there was no need for the Clock Tower to remind them that it was already eight or nine in the morning, yet they stood in an unnatural silence, devoid of even the faintest sounds of clashing or conversation.

[I work as a laborer at the docks, I have to go there every day to look for work, I usually get up very early...]

"It's not early anymore."

The author has a thesis to write, so updates might be affected...

(ｉДｉ)