File no. MFA-Z-2891-██████████
Description: Anomaly manifests as a grassy field, poorly tended. Grass extends roughly a meter into the air and as of writing, no footpaths have been discovered through the zone. Z-2891 is untethered to baseline reality, slipping from one designation in time and space to another without warning. The manifestations do not appear to have a pattern, except that the zone always borders a mundane park or field. The only consistent aspects of manifestation are the length of time the anomaly is present at any given location – thirty-six hours – and the locations at which they are recorded. All manifestations have been noted within seventeen kilometers of the Iron Corridor.
Access is limited to specific windows of time during a manifestation, for example, entering the zone at dusk or dawn is easier than doing so at midday. No reported incursions into the zone have occurred after sundown. If an individual attempts to enter Z-2891 at dusk or dawn, they will encounter no resistance from the translation from real space to that of the anomaly. However, resistance increases at the border of the anomaly as the sun approaches its zenith in a commensurate fashion. Similarly, as the sun lowers from its zenith, the resistance reduces. Said resistance takes the form of psychosomatic pain experienced by an individual attempting to cross over into Z-2891. Mortfield personnel, having entered the zone a few hours after dawn, described aching pain in their limbs, spine, and back of the skull – estimating the pain at a 2/10. Mortfield personnel who have attempted to enter the zone while the sun was at its zenith, have invariably lost consciousness at the border and failed to enter the zone.
Within Z-2891 is a series of stone circles, low in height – approximately 2 meters. No exhaustive survey has been completed, but at least three different stone circles have been recorded by Mortfield personnel. The stone pillars making up these circles are roughly worked, with visible chisel marks on the surfaces of each. The color of the stone has been described by eyewitnesses as blue, despite video surveillance revealing mundane granite coloration.
Individuals who cross the border of Z-2891 experience a cognito-hazardous effect that is ill-understood by Mortfield researchers. Additionally, only a small handful of people who have entered the zone have exited.
For this reason, when a manifestation of Z-2891 is confirmed, Mortfield personnel are to surround the area and prevent members of the public from entering the zone with temporary barriers and cover stories.
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Second Recorded Incursion[I]
Foreword: The presence of a Z-2891 manifestation was confirmed on 2012-██-██, bordering the complex of structures called Curtea Domnească[II] in Târgoviște, Romania. Several tourists were noted as missing and Mortfield personnel intercepted calls for law enforcement, appearing on the scene and maintaining a cordon. A three-individual Investigation and Containment Squad (ICS) designated ICS-███████ was mobilized and sent into Z-2891 at approximately 18:00 local time.
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18:00 – ICS-███████ members Alpha, Beta, and Gamma enter the boundary of Z-2891. They complain of minimal somatic pain in the limbs and head for several seconds which then diminish as they move further into the zone.
18:05 – Beta leads the formation, pushing through meter-tall grass when Gamma reports singing. Command asks for clarification. Gamma notes that it sounds like a choir. Command asks the other team members if they hear the phenomenon. They answer in the negative. The squad is ordered to continue.
18:07 – Gamma begins moving perpendicular to the rest of the squad. Command asks Gamma to explain his actions. Gamma explains that the singing is louder from that direction. Command orders the squad to follow Gamma.
18:11 – Alpha, Beta, and Gamma approach a circle of stones. Alpha describes the stones as luminescent, sparkling with blue lights. The body cameras of all three squad members show only a simple gray stone circle made up of single pylons roughly two meters in height. Command asks Beta what color the stones are. Beta describes the stones as blue but flickering on and off with light, as if a strobe light was playing across their surfaces. Gamma does not respond to questioning but moves within the circle.
18:14 – The squad has arranged themselves in a perfect triangle within the circle of stones, at the center of which is an altar of some sort. Command asks the squad what they are doing. Alpha says they are paying homage. Beta says they are showing reverence. Gamma does not respond but approaches the altar.
18:15 – Alpha has fallen to her knees. Beta is holding his hands to the sky. Gamma is holding his hands against the altar, which is stained brown in the fading sunlight.
18:17 – Gamma produces a knife and begins cutting his palms. Command orders him to cease and the squad to retreat to the boundary. No one responds. Gamma begins humming as he works.
18:19 – Hands covered in blood, Gamma gestures to Beta who approaches the altar. Beta backs up to the altar and bends at the knees, placing her shoulders, neck, and head on the stone. Command begins yelling that the squad must cease what they are doing and return to the boundary. Gamma slices through the flesh on Beta’s throat, carving a sigil of unrecognizable origin. Gasps and choking from Command can be heard on the recording, matching the choking that Beta is exhibiting. Command begins having a seizure.
18:20 – Beta’s vital signs terminate. The choking on the recording stops, Command goes quiet. Gamma paints the sigil with blood from Beta’s wounds and his own.
18:21 – Gamma gestures to Alpha. Alpha shakes her head. Gamma gestures again, insistently. Alpha gets off her knees and stares at Beta’s corpse lying next to the altar.
18:22 – Gamma approaches Alpha and assaults her, striking her forehead with the pommel of the combat knife in his hand. Alpha collapses. Gamma drags her towards the altar and drapes her over it. Gamma cuts away her utility harness and opens the back of her uniform with his knife.
18:23 – Gamma carves a new set of sigils in Alpha’s exposed back. She screams from the wounds, but Gamma begins singing loudly, mingling the sounds. The language Gamma is singing in has no known matches within the Mortfield database.
18:26 – Gamma has finished carving sigils into Alpha’s back. Alpha has lost consciousness but appears to still be breathing. Gamma holds her head up by pulling on her hair and slices through her throat. The resulting spill of blood covers the sigils Gamma has painted on the surface of the altar. This does not mar the image of the sigils, as they begin to glow through the new blood pouring out of Alpha’s wounds.
18:28 – Gamma kneels on the top of the altar, singing still. He holds up the knife to the setting sun and screams. He then places the pommel of the knife against the surface of the altar and brings his head down hard on the blade, impaling through his skull and forebrain.
Transmission Ends.
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Afterword: Approximately an hour after the end of transmission, Command was found dead at their monitoring station roughly 100 meters from Z-2891.[III] An alert went out and the boundary of Z-2891 was investigated, finding Alpha, Beta, and Gamma’s corpses lying neatly in a row with their hands crossed over their chests. A daffodil was placed on each eye of the cadavers. The bodies were taken in for further analysis of the sigils, it is unknown how they were returned to the boundary.
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[I] No record of the first attempt at documentation has been recovered.
[II] The Târgoviște Princely Court – served as the residence for many rules of now defunct nation of Wallachia from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries.
[III] Time of death matches termination of life signs from ICS agent Beta.
Sources:
Grigori Karpin
