#sediment filter

[globexi]

Sediment Filter

Globexi Pvt. Ltd. is a trustworthy manufacturer of highly durable Sediment Filter that play a vital role in maintaining clean and healthy water systems. They ensure that their filters meet industry standards and provide effective filtration solutions for residential, commercial, and industrial use.

[pwt24]

Rotameter by Pearl Water Technologies

Pearl Water Technologies Rotameter is a flow meter of great precision that's applied to take measurements of flow rate for liquid and gas substances. It uses a clear taper tube with an operational float depending on the movement of the flow, giving genuine real-time observations. It's hardy as well as handy, making it suitable for business, industrial, and water treatment uses. visit for more https://pearlwater.in/search?q=rotameter

[aarunresearcher]

The United States water purifier market size reached US$ 6.7 Billion in 2023. Looking forward, IMARC Group expects the market to reach US$ 10.4 Billion by 2032, exhibiting a growth rate (CAGR) of 4.9% during 2024-2032. 

[ingleaisle]

I don’t need to hide anymore...

I HATE the spread of the minty pride flag

[anandhitha]

Discover the best alkaline water purifier in Hyderabad with Sharks Innovation. Improve your health with our innovative filtration technology, which provides clean, alkaline water for your home or business. Shop for the top alkaline water purifier services.

[reasonsforhope]

"Morningside Park, a beloved neighborhood park in Miami with sweeping views of Biscayne Bay, will soon pilot an innovative approach to coastal resilience.

BIOCAP tiles, a 3D-printed modular system designed to support marine life and reduce wave impact along urban seawalls, will be installed on the existing seawall there in spring 2025. BIOCAP stands for Biodiversity Improvement by Optimizing Coastal Adaptation and Performance.

Developed by our team of architects and marine biologists at Florida International University, the uniquely textured prototype tiles are designed to test a new approach for helping cities such as Miami adapt to rising sea levels while simultaneously restoring ecological balance along their shorelines...

Ecological costs of traditional seawalls

Seawalls have long served as a primary defense against coastal erosion and storm surges. Typically constructed of concrete and ranging from 6 to 10 feet in height, they are built along shorelines to block waves from eroding the land and flooding nearby urban areas.

However, they often come at an ecological cost. Seawalls disrupt natural shoreline dynamics and can wipe out the complex habitat zones that marine life relies on.

Marine organisms are crucial in maintaining coastal water quality by filtering excess nutrients, pollutants and suspended particles. A single adult oyster can filter 20-50 gallons of water daily, removing nitrogen, phosphorus and solids that would otherwise fuel harmful algal blooms. These blooms deplete oxygen levels and damage marine ecosystems.

Filter-feeding organisms also reduce turbidity, which is the cloudiness of water caused by suspended sediment and particles. Less water turbidity means more light can penetrate, which benefits seagrasses that require sunlight for photosynthesis. These seagrasses convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and energy-rich sugars while providing essential food and habitat for diverse marine species.

Swirling shapes, shaded grooves

Unlike the flat, lifeless surfaces of typical concrete seawalls, each BIOCAP tile is designed with shaded grooves, crevices and small, water-holding pockets. These textured features mimic natural shoreline conditions and create tiny homes for barnacles, oysters, sponges and other marine organisms that filter and improve water quality.

The tile’s swirling surface patterns increase the overall surface area, offering more space for colonization. The shaded recesses are intended to help regulate temperature by providing cooler, more stable microenvironments. This thermal buffering can support marine life in the face of rising water temperatures and more frequent heat events driven by climate change.

Another potential benefit of the tiles is reducing the impact of waves.

When waves hit a natural shoreline, their energy is gradually absorbed by irregular surfaces, tide pools and vegetation. In contrast, when waves strike vertical concrete seawalls, the energy is reflected back into the water rather than absorbed. This wave reflection – the bouncing back of wave energy – can amplify wave action, increase erosion at the base of the wall and create more hazardous conditions during storms.

The textured surfaces of the BIOCAP tiles are designed to help diffuse wave energy by mimicking the natural dissipation found on undisturbed shorelines.

The design of BIOCAP takes cues from nature. The tile shapes are based on how water interacts with different surfaces at high tide and low tide. Concave tiles, which curve inward, and convex tiles, which curve outward, are installed at different levels along the seawall. The goal is to deflect waves away from the seawall, reduce direct impact and help minimize erosion and turbulence around the wall’s foundation.A

How we will measure success

After the BIOCAP tiles are installed, we plan to assess how the seawall redesign enhances biodiversity, improves water quality and reduces wave energy. This two-year pilot phase will help assess the long-term value of ecologically designed infrastructure.

To evaluate biodiversity, we will use underwater cameras to capture time-lapse imagery of the marine life that colonizes the tile surfaces. These observations will aid in documenting species diversity and habitat use over time...

In the coming year, we’ll be watching with hope as the new BIOCAP tiles begin to welcome marine life, offering a glimpse into how nature might reclaim and thrive along our urban shorelines.

[selfcaredoc]

Nikken PiMag Waterfall the Best Water Filtration System?

Stay Calm and Drink Better Water

In this week’s The Impetus, Dr. Gary Lindner explores what is needed in a water filtration system. Find out if the Nikken PiMag Waterfall checks all of the boxes. If you like this video please hit the Like button and Subscribe.

Be Healthy By Choice

[mbari-blog]

The water coolers of the deep sea. 💧

The fingered goblet sponge (Heterochone calyx) is one of the largest sponges on the Pacific coast. Their funnel-shaped bodies can grow up to two meters (nearly seven feet) tall and fan out two meters (nearly seven feet) across. Remarkably, the skeleton of this massive animal is made of microscopic slivers of silica glass called spicules. As the sponge grows, the glass spicules fuse together, creating rigid joints in between. This intricate three-dimensional structure remains intact long after the tissues die.

Fingered goblet sponges support bustling communities of life. Much like coral reefs in tropical waters or the old-growth forests on land, countless critters make their home in sponge gardens.

Small snailfishes and shrimp seek refuge from predators inside a cavernous sponge, hiding from predators patrolling nearby sand channels. Crabs and feather stars climb up the sponge towers to feed in the current or release their eggs for maximum dispersal. Thousands more unseen animals thrive inside the nooks and crannies of the sponge.

Increased demand for metallic minerals could lead to mining in pristine areas of the deep sea, harming animals like Heterochone. Mining equipment plowing across the seafloor could damage sponges, and the plume of sediment from mining waste could clog their filtering mechanism. Life moves at a slower pace in the ocean’s frigid depths. It can take years for Heterochone and other deep-sea sponges to recover from disturbance, in turn threatening all the animals that depend on sponges. Decisions we make in our everyday lives can affect all animals, even in out-of-sight places like the deep sea.

Share what you have learned about Heterochone and sponge gardens to help protect these unique habitats. Help us spread the word about safeguarding the ocean’s pristine wilderness. The future of our big blue backyard depends on us.

[frogeyedape]

Huh, ok, after reading I see some concerns the article doesn't address. Let's start with one it touches on but doesn't go into detail: planning approval process. Australia's renewable generation is slower in part because of the bureaucratic red tape of requiring approvals for new wind/solar farms, transmission lines, etc. China is skipping this step and just installing the renewables. Now I know how frustrating red tape can be, BUT it can serve an important important purpose. I don't know enough about local/regional/federal planning approval process to say what exactly it's accomplishing even home in the US let alone in Australia or if China has a separate process, but I would hope that part of planning approvals would be 1) local resident buy-in or at least communication about the project and 2) environmental impact/QOL studies, preferably with 3) interactive dialogue w/impacted local residents, possibly with modifications to plans to reduce negative impacts.

Other things not addressed by the article: environmental impact of treating the Gobi desert and other landscapes as valueless outside of their energy production potential--what species & ecoregions will be threatened, which indigenous peoples relocated/otherwise forcibly removed? And workers' rights, labor conditions: are workers safe in their workplace, paid fairly, laboring by free choice rather than conscription?

These are questions for me to go do some research. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

[weeping-anguish]

Sedimental Value

Megatron vs. Paleontology

I just wanted to yap about fossils lmao and pun.

Part 1/4 Link

---

The battle had been fierce—briefly.

Optimus and Megatron had traded blows across the rocky slopes, scattering wildlife and triggering small landslides somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains.

“For once,” Megatron growled, “stay down, Prime!”

Optimus Prime landed with a heavy thud, shaking pine needles loose from the trees. Megatron followed, crashing through the canopy, fusion cannon flaring.

“This ends now, Prime!” Megatron snarled, charging with wild force.

Optimus sidestepped just in time.

CRUNCH .

Megatron pitched forward with a mechanical yelp as his foot caught something buried in the dirt. He tripped in glorious, undignified fashion and landed face-first into a rocky embankment.

CRACK. “GRAAAUGH!”

One clumsy misstep, one badly-placed foot, and the Warlord of Kaon was suddenly flailing—arms windmilling—before crashing into the side of a shale outcrop.

A boulder split in half.

Megatron lay there for a moment in stunned silence, then shoved himself upright with a snarl. “What in the pit—?!”

He looked down, half-expecting a landmine or a hidden Autobot trap.

Instead, he saw... a rock.

Optimus skidded to a halt, mid-leap. “...Are you alright?”

Megatron roared and shoved himself up. “WHO PUT THIS RIDICULOUS... LUMP OF ROCK IN MY PATH?!”

Optimus stepped over calmly, peering at the object Megatron had tripped on. Embedded in the earth was a large, spiral-shaped fossil.

The Prime paused mid-charge, optics flicking from Megatron to the object. Then his expression changed.

“Oh—oh, no way.” He stepped forward quickly, crouching beside the half-buried stone. “Is that a fossil?”

Megatron blinked. “A what?”

Optimus’s entire demeanor shifted, tension evaporating like mist in sunlight. “It’s a Brachiopod. Look at this—still partially embedded, but you can make out the hinge and the ridges across the shell. Perfect symmetry.” He brushed away some soil with careful fingers. “And the preservation? It’s Devonian. Has to be. This entire region used to be seabed over 400 million Earth years ago.”

Megatron blinked. “Prime. We are in the middle of a battle.”

Optimus continued excitedly monologuing.

Megatron just stared.

Optimus was... smiling.

His voice had gone light and enthusiastic, the way it never did during war. There was something unguarded in him—something Megatron hadn’t seen in millennia.

“You're monologuing about sea bugs,” Megatron said flatly.

But Optimus wasn’t listening anymore.

“This one likely lived anchored to the ocean floor, filtering particles from the water. And here it is—untouched for eons, until you stepped on it.” He chuckled softly. “Poor thing.”

Megatron grumbled and leaned on a nearby tree, rubbing his helm. “This was supposed to be a combat operation.”

Optimus didn’t even glance up. “Do you remember when I used to do this full-time? Study, document, preserve? I spent megacycles in the Hall of Records, cataloging ancient systems, reading about long-dead civilizations. Back then, nothing was more important to me than understanding the past.”

Megatron didn’t answer. Not right away.

But he did remember.

He remembered a younger Optimus—Orion Pax then—hovering over datacores and relics with the same reverence he now gave the little fossil. Megatron had walked those archives once, long before revolution burned away what they’d been. He’d argued with Orion about injustice and philosophy in the low-lit vaults beneath Iacon. They’d fought then too—verbally, eloquently. Earnestly.

“You were different then,” Megatron muttered, his voice low.

Optimus finally looked up.

“You talked about knowledge like it was sacred,” Megatron continued. “You wanted to build something with it. Something with me. Not—" he gestured vaguely at the broken trees and scorched earth, “—this.”

Optimus’s gaze softened. “I never stopped wanting that, Megatron.”

“I know.” He looked away. “That was the tragedy, wasn’t it?”

For a long moment, neither of them moved. The wind whispered through the trees, stirring branches and memories alike.

Optimus turned back to the fossil. “Do you ever miss it?”

“What?”

“The people we were before war turned us into this.”

“…Sometimes,” Megatron admitted. “But then I remember who I was forced to become.”

Silence again. Not tense—just... quiet.

Optimus stood and gently set the fossil back in the dirt, carefully packing soil around it.

“You’re preserving it?” Megatron asked incredulously.

“Of course. Some things are worth protecting.”

Megatron huffed. “You’ll never change.”

“Maybe not,” Optimus said. “But I still remember how to value something ancient and fragile.”

Megatron stared at him. “You’re talking about the rock, aren’t you?”

Optimus smiled faintly. “Mostly.”

Megatron shook his head, a reluctant smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth.

“You’re lucky I tripped on that thing,” he said. “Any longer and I might’ve hit you hard enough to shut you up.”

“You could try,” Optimus replied, tone amused. “But I’d probably start quoting paleontology terms while half delirious anyway.”

Megatron groaned. “I hate that I missed this part of you.”

Optimus tilted his head. “You didn’t miss it. It was always there. You just stopped listening.”

Megatron shook his head, rising. “I’m leaving before you start talking about trilobites.”

“I do love trilobites,” Optimus called after him as Megatron transformed and blasted off.

“You’re unbearable,” he called as he lifted off. “Tell your fossil goodbye for me.”

“I will,” Optimus said softly, watching him disappear into the sky.

He turned back to the ridge, brushing his hand once more over the ancient shell, then sat down beside it.

And for a while, he simply watched the wind move through the trees.

[bethanythebogwitch]

Wet Beast Wednesday: common carp

Welcome to the first WBW of fresh-uary. All my Wet Beast Wednesday posts this month will be about freshwater species. And where better to start than one of the most prolific and invasive freshwater fish, the common carp. Introduced worldwide as a food species, the common carp population has exploded due to them being masters of survival. Lets see how they have become so prevalent.

(Image: a common carp seen from the front and side. It is a large fish with a pointed head ending in a downward-pointing mouth with short barbels at the sides. The scales are large and orangeish. End ID)

The common carp, Cyprinus carpio, also known as the European carp or Eurasian carp is a large bony fish with a robust body and large, yellow-brown scales. Common carp have a downturned mouth with two pairs of short barbels, one emerging from the sides of the mouth and one from the lower lip. There are distinct wild and domesticated forms, with the wild ones being longer and slimmer. Most wild type common carp reach an average of 40-80 cm (16-31 in) long and 2-14 kg (4.5-31 lbs), but under the right conditions, they can get much larger. The largest common carp on record weighed 45.59 kg (100.5 lbs). Domesticated common carp can get much larger than wild ones and grow at almost twice the rate. Common carp have also been selectively bred into additional morphs, the most common of which is the mirror carp, so named for its much larger scales. Carp that are missing some or all of their scales are called leather carp and they often lose their scales as the result of a mutation. Mirror carp are especially prone to losing scales. The Amur carp, Cyprinus rubrofuscus, was previously considered to be a subspecies of the common carp before being reclassified as a closely related species. The two species are capable of hybridizing. They can also hybridize with goldfish.

(Image: a common carp seen from the side. From this angle, it is easier to see a small hump behind the head where the back begins. End ID)

Common carp are native to southern Europe and west Asia, particularly in the Danube river basin. Their preferred habitat is warm, still or slow water, but they are notorious for their ability to survive fairly extreme conditions. Carp can live in a wide range of temperatures, in highly polluted water, in more salty water than most freshwater fish, and in low-oxygen water (by gulping air at the surface). They also tolerate very shallow water for their size. I've personally pulled 2-foot long carp out of ankle-deep water. Carp are bottom-feeding omnivores that feed by rooting around in soft sediment. Food includes aquatic plants, algae, fish eggs, worms, small invertebrates like crayfish, and small fish. Carp feeding kicks a lot of sediment into the water, which can reduce water quality and encourage eutrophication. They will pick up sediment in their mouths and pass it back and fourth, using their gill rakers to filter out edible material. They have a set of pharyngeal teeth used to grind up food. Carp can be found solitary, but prefer to swim in small schools.

(Image: a common carp feeding. It has its head to the bottom sucking in corn kernels that the photographer has scattered around to attract them. This one has large, irregular scales, indicating it may be a mirror carp)

Carp reproduce in spring, often triggered by seasonal flooding. They will spawn multiple times during a season, with an average female able to produce over a million eggs per year. Females lay their eggs in shallow water, where they stick to vegetation. Carp in non-vegetated areas will make seasonal migrations to more suitable habitat for spawning. Juvenile carp are vulnerable to predators and rely on vegetation to hide. They feed on plankton until they grow large enough to root around in the sediment. Males reach sexual maturity between ages 3 and 5 and females between ages 4 and 6, with those living in warmer water maturing faster. Carp can live for decades, with the oldest one on record being 64 at the time of death.

(Image: a group of 10 common carp swimming at the surface of the water. Some of them have their mouths sticking out. End ID)

Carp have been raised for food for millennia, with the oldest record of them being farmed being Roman times. This is likely also when the domesticated variety diverged from the wild type. Carp is a major food source throughout Europe and Asia, but is unpopular as food in North America because of how bony they are. The wide use of carp in food has contributed to them being spread across the world. Common carp can now be found on every continent except Antarctica and in every region except for polar ones that are too cold for them. Common carp are one of the most invasive of all fish species and tend to be highly destructive to habitats they are introduced to. Their feeding tends to uproot and destroy aquatic vegetation and native fish eggs while outcompeting native species with similar niches. Carp feeding kicks up lots of sediment in the water and can radically change the conditions of waters they are introduced into. Various carp control methods have been introduced to try to keep their numbers down. These include barricades to prevent them from reaching spawning grounds, capture and kill programs, and the use of poison. In many places carp have been introduced to, fishing for food and sport helps control their numbers. One of the problems with carp in North America is that there isn't a food market for them and many anglers don't target them. Environmentalists have been working on encouraging carp fishing and telling anglers to kill carp they catch to help control their numbers. Carp aquaculture has become a major industry. China produces more carp by weight yearly than all other fish from aquaculture worldwide. Ironically, despite their invasive nature and survivability, wild common carp in their native range are considered threatened due to habitat loss.

(Image: three excited-looking people holding up a giant common carp. The fish is so big that even with all three people standing shoulder to shoulder, the fish extends across all of them. End ID)

[globexi]

Sediment Filter

Drink pure and sediment-free water with our highly capable Sediment Filter, which has an automatic self-cleaning system that not only ensures cleaner tanks and maintains the color of water but also enhances the lifespan of home appliances. GlobeXi Pvt. Ltd. is the leading water treatment company offering water that is perfect for consumption as it is rich in minerals, hydrogen, and antioxidants.

[pwt24]

Pearl Water Technologies' carbon filter purifies water by eliminating chlorine, bad odor, color, and harmful organic compounds. It uses premium activated carbon for efficient filtration, improving water taste and quality. Ideal for domestic and commercial applications, with low maintenance needs. visit us https://pearlwater.in/ro-filter-kit/pearl-water-carbon-filter-ultra-with-sediment-filter-ultra-combo

[animalshowdown]

Phylum Round 3

Annelida: Segmented Worms. This group includes earthworms, leeches, and many classes under the umbrella of “polychaete”. This diverse phylum encompasses deposit feeders (eating dirt), detritivores, scavengers, deadly ambush predators, filter feeders, parasites, herbivores, and more. They are broadly defined by their repeating body segments and parapodia, which are nubby appendages used for both movement and breathing. Some have curved jaws for catching prey or scraping detritus off of rocks, while others have wide, elaborate, brightly colored feather-like fans for filter feeding. While able to crawl freely, a majority of marine Annelids spend most of their time in self-built tubes or burrows. Among their many important functions, they play a key role in mixing soil/sediment, breaking down decaying organic matter, and providing a key food source to countless other animals.

Cnidaria: Jellyfish, anemones, corals, box jellies, and hydroids. They have a gelatinous body with radial symmetry, a decentralized nervous system, and tentacles surrounding a simple mouth. The defining feature of this phylum are their cnidocytes, or stinging cells. There are two different body plans of the Cnidaria; an immobile “polyp” attached to a surface, or a free-living “medusa” which can swim or drift in the water column. Many polyp Cnidarians, such as corals, live in colonies. Some corals build reefs which serve as habitat for other animals. Free-living medusa Cnidarians must return to the seafloor in a polyp-like stage as a part of their life cycle.

[yellowf1nch]

Warning: Minors do not interact. Sensitive content ahead. Includes stalking, attempts at psychological terror (as a writer)

Herobrine/reader

Note: this is not game canon-compliant, this is more a mix of game (Minecraft) + real world survival situation. Might indulge a steamy part 2. Apologies for writing/editing errors, sometimes my creative eye is in poor health.

You didn't know where it was you ended up. An endless forest, seemingly, but after awakening on the beach, the sole survivor of a shipwreck, you were counting your blessings while sunlight filtered through the leaves. You recall a storm, but not much else other than your name; and you have little more than the shirt on your back, and the few handfuls of food left from your ship's supplies. Not knowing where you were, the most logical step was wandering until you found either a trace of civilization, or somewhere viable for a temporary camp. So, you set out, trying to mind the wild animals as much as the brambles and pitfalls.

There was an immense anxiety that dove from the tip of your tongue down to the basin of your pelvic floor. A kind of unease-- how did I get here? How am I going to make it? What if I don't make it back- where is back? But it remained there, swirling among the acid and the foulness of your empty stomach-- bile and seawater emptied back on the morning sand. As the sun passed its zenith, shelter, and a means of passing the night, began pressing at the front of your mind. You paused for a moment, looking around.

Trees covered the entirety of your vision, though what little space breathes between them the odd fauna would pass into view. It was quiet, and no creatures seem to pass you too closely; for what are you but a stranger to their place, a foreigner to the wilds without name. A faint trickling catches your attention, pulling you from a standstill, and as you glance rightward, you spot the shimmer of water a short way off beyond the trees.

You find yourself on the bank of a sizable stream, trees continuing down both sides of the water, clay wedging between your feet. Aside from the moving water, you can't seem to spot any fish to catch for food.

Deciding to follow the water upstream, you are unable to rid yourself of feeling... lost. Perhaps you never left the storm, still being tossed between the waves, losing your sense of direction. Perhaps you are still asleep, the odd shapes in the corners of your eyes merely the strangeness of dreams. Perhaps... No. No, you'd know if you were dead, right?

...Right?

A bee buzzes directly next to your ear, making you realize how late it's gotten. You look back, your footsteps trailing behind you in the softer sediments and soils. In front of you, a neat stack of rocks. Looking around, there seem to be a few more of the small piles, which makes you very hopeful that you may be near a village or camp of some kind. The river sinks deep, about one meter below the bank you stand on, and a fallen log-- devoid of branches and leaves-- stretches the span of the two banks above the water. There are two more trees right along the opposite side that seem to be close to joining their friend; dead, maybe, leaning at odd angles with their leaves and branches gone.

Continuing along your bank, your feet a bit faster moving at the prospect of greeting a shelter for the night, perhaps a trader who can tell you where you are. A sign standing in the middle of no particular path, just to your left, pulls you to a brief stop. Not a language you can read, so you continue forward, but a toppling sound makes you freeze.

At your feet, another small pile of rocks. Smoothed, as if taken from the basin of the river, set in a square-- five by five on the bottom, then four by four, three by three, then the top few stones you accidentally kicked over on your route. Funny, you didn't see it before. But the sunlight is starting to fade between the lea--- no, no there aren't many more leaves. This... Must be a stretch of dead wood, or left from a wildfire. The sun has no leaves to hide behind, it's just sinking below the horizon. Well, that sign might have an arrow pointing to the nearest town...

Except the sign is... Blank. But, you could have sworn... It doesn't really matter. You are losing what little bit of daylight you have, and you need shelter. Sticks and logs are easy enough to gather, a simple lean-to against a sturdy enough looking tree, and a small fire you hope will make it through the first part of the night.

As the air cools, warmth from the ground creates a moderate fog around you. There's enough visibility out to 40 meters or so, though as the darkness creeps in that inevitably falters to about 10 feet from your fire. Distantly, you hear wolves howling, moans from the dead, and footsteps--

No, no. No one is near. Whipping your head around from what you thought were footsteps just to the right of your lean-to, you take note that you are in fact alone. It's just, quiet. Peaceful, really, if you don't let your nerves get the best of you. For some time, you sit, simply willing yourself to calm as your fire tapers out, and you turn to your shelter for sleep. Dreamless, almost meditative, is your rest, in that a kind of awareness remains around you. Conscious, only just. Walking, branches breaking, leaves crunching, is it you? When you notice dew clinging to your skin (or is it a cold sweat), you awaken, though you don't feel quite rested. It's dark, still, but the fog disperses the farthest rays of light, enough for shadows to be chased from the silhouettes of the closest ring of trees around you, and the sign...

...in the middle of where your campfire was.

Dawn creeps closer, the fog yet to lift from the world around you, and the pit of your stomach has entrenched itself below your feet, sinking down, down, a chasm that swallows you knowing that sign, being there, is impossible. Someone is here with you. It's strange. Bizarre. But if whoever this is wanted to kill you, surely they would have done it last night? The thought somehow doesn't bring you any sense of safety. Instead, you feel... Like if you turn around, you'll meet a pair of eyes not like your own. No, you- you turn, and no one, nothing, is there. Feeling like prey, in the middle of an open field, you wait completely still until it's light enough to set out. You lost sight of the river, and can't hear it, and the fog seems to extend as far as the sky so you cannot parse the position of the sun, or what direction it's rising from.

You find your feet, eventually, and make quick work of choosing a direction and moving as quickly-- and cautiously-- as you can to wherever you will find yourself. Glimpses of... Something... Flash in your periphery. Whatever it is (maybe signs of a migraine) a little too vibrant, seeing as no flowers seem to grow here. And sometimes your feet echo just a little too much, but you're just starting to panic, is all. Right, you're panicking. You're running. Panting. You can't even think to go faster, you just do-- is it enough? What if you aren't? You have to run. You aren't safe. You haven't been safe-- the ship, the storm, the sea, the river, the bank, the forest, the camp, looking around, around, around, around, when the fog begins to peter out.

Sunlight catches on shadows as the haze dances around you. Monolithic forms of land, slices of the world dredged up unlike any mountain you've ever seen. Porous caves weave between the masses, light catching unnatural angles-- but nothing about this is natural. A hand touches your---

No. You look around you, and no one is there. You begin the path forward, again, slower, if not for attempting to more concretely understand what world lies ahead. The fog remains, but is sparse enough for you to glimpse grass and trees flourishing in caves inside the sheer cliffs rising endlessly above you. Water pours from unseen peaks, straight down, down, down into an empty void you've never known to exist before. And still no... animals. No creatures, save yourself.

Is there... some way to climb? Can you climb in the condition you're in? What if- they?- it followed? With little else to do but somehow find a way through this place, you finally make your way to what may qualify as the foot as one of these land masses. The mist still wafts steadily, though you can make out enough details in your relative field of vision with minimal obscurity. The stone cliff face is practically sheer flat, no holds or ridges spaced well enough for you to climb without equipment. Looking left, then right, then upwards, you notice no structures either-- no stairs, ropes, buildings, or other.

It's strange, you don't- you don't quite feel alone. Well, you think someone is chasing you. Maybe taunting you. But it's not the feeling that someone else is there, rather... you look behind you, and for a moment, directly ahead-- not in the edges of your vision-- you saw it. But without blinking, it was like as soon as your eyes fully settled, it vanished. A chill claws its way one vertebrae at a time down your back, dragging over your ribs in some silent, haunting melody. You don't want to look away. Whatever is out there, what or who, you want to see them. See it. With the cliff behind you, it can't come from that direction. Right?

You start backing up, being mindful of the ground beneath you, arms extended ready to meet the wall. Back, back, back, the size of these land forms fully sinking in with how far you have yet to reach them, the forest of trees with no branches, no greenery, receding into fog. Back, eyes trained on the edges of the mist, waiting for another glimpse-- waiting for the glint of blue, of white, of whatever you saw. Back, darkness starting to close you in on all sides except forwards, ground firm beneath you, the slide of your feet on stone. Stone? Wait, you, when did you enter a cave? But, is this a cave? It's much smaller than the ones you saw, this one almost fits you perfectly. And... You weren't- this wasn't-- here before? But--

You turn to look behind you, down a tunnel that doesn't look like the kind that's naturally formed. In the distance, you think there might be some light, you turn back to look out of the tunnel and

See a figure staring back.

It's distant, but unmistakable. Out in the fog, static, like it's always been there, like an image seared into your mind that you cannot be rid of. You blink,

It's gone.

Turning back, down further into the tunnel, you walk as if in a haze. Maybe, if you don't make too much noise, you can slip through the dark unnoticed. Maybe, if you get through this place, you'll be okay. You barely find the need to sit and rest, adrenaline pumping strongly through your veins-- an unfamiliar sensation to you, being hunted. Leaning against the wall, you use it to support you moving, hopefully, to your salvation. Hours seem to pass, maybe a full day. Time feels skewed, what little rations you had before hardly served their purpose. Your head aches, your stomach aches, your legs and feet and eyes and a hand touches your---

NO. Swinging your arm out around you through air, you shout, batting away the contact that didn't happen, because NO ONE IS HERE.

Beleaguered as you are, eyes closing (squeezing tears of frustration from you), your back meets the wall and you slide to the stony floor. Harsh breaths meet your ears-- your own lungs are strangers to you. Every part of you seems disjointed, your mind trying to piece you back together from your fear, your right hand meets your face, your left your chest, and your knee... No. You place your right hand over your heart, your left on your mouth, and, a hand remains on your knee. Your eyelids are like the impervious bedcover, a shield such that what you cannot see, cannot see you. There is no sound but your breath. The third hand moves, fingertips gliding across you up to your right hand, over your heart, and it- it goes-- through your hand, but no further; resting inside it like you are its second skin.

[anandhitha]

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