Saturday 16 November 2019

200 - Unwritten

Unnatural Phenomenon: Unwritten
Written record (and more recently other kinds of media) holds a kind of authority that human recollection does not. It tells us stories across time, reaches people we will never meet and holds the world in order. Made uncertain it removes a foundation most of us take for granted.

Unwritten is like a fungal rot surrounding the records on a particular subject. It unravels them as though they never existed. Events disappear in everything but people’s vague recollections. A person affected will find their birth records, social media and banking details all unspooling into the ether. Something afflicted will either historically disintegrate from its origin forwards faster than it can be replaced or “age backwards” as more recent records are the first to go and no new ones seem to stick.

There are those who can recognise the phenomenon in progress and stem the tide or even halt or reverse it. They’ll deliberately continue to create records as a prophylactic measure when possible, once complete the process is irreversible. Others weaponize the phenomenon to cover their tracks, erase their enemy's records or rewrite history. Stranger folks and creatures do it to feast on the runoff and waste products, cisterns and sewers overflowing with ink and portable harddrives filled with digital white noise.

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