Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1)(52)

Observing all of this has quelled the last ashes of the burning compulsion I had to know everything … anything … and in its place remains the knowledge that the brightness is not done with me. It is just beginning, and the thought of continually doing harm to myself to remain human seems somehow pathetic. I will not be here when the thirteenth expedition reaches base camp. (Have they seen me yet, or are they about to? Will I melt into this landscape, or look up from a stand of reeds or the waters of the canal to see some other explorer staring down in disbelief? Will I be aware that anything is wrong or out of place?)

I plan to continue on into Area X, to go as far as I can before it is too late. I will follow my husband up the coast, up past the island, even. I don’t believe I’ll find him—I don’t need to find him—but I want to see what he saw. I want to feel him close, as if he is in the room. And, if I’m honest, I can’t shake the sense that he is still here, somewhere, even if utterly transformed—in the eye of a dolphin, in the touch of an uprising of moss, anywhere and everywhere. Perhaps I’ll even find a boat abandoned on a deserted beach, if I’m lucky, and some sign of what happened next. I could be content with just that, even knowing what I know.

This part I will do alone, leaving you behind. Don’t follow. I’m well beyond you now, and traveling very fast.

Has there always been someone like me to bury the bodies, to have regrets, to carry on after everyone else was dead?

I am the last casualty of both the eleventh and the twelfth expeditions.

I am not returning home.WLEDGMENTS

Thanks to my editor, Sean McDonald, for many kindnesses and for his wonderful edits to the novel. Thanks also to the great, dedicated crew at FSG who worked on the book—I really appreciate your efforts. Thanks to my agent, Sally Harding, and to all of the good people at the Cooke Agency. Much love to my wife, Ann, the only person with whom I can discuss works in progress, for her thoughts on the characters and situations. Thanks to my first readers—most of you know who you are—and in particular, Gregory Bossert, Tessa Kum, and Adam Mills for their extensive comments. Finally, thanks to the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge: the people who work there and the people who care about it.