The origin of evil
What made me notice it that evening rather than any other? I would not know. For more than two years, I had driven past it every day on my way home. But never until then had I paid attention to this immense fence which ran along the road for almost a kilometer and just behind which, thick vegetation began, overshadowed by very large trees whose high branches overhung the road like the ridge of a giant wave about to break.
What was behind it that was so important to justify the construction of such a fence? A fence at least six meters high, supported by solid steel posts, spaced every ten meters and which ended on its upper part, with three rows of barbed wire curved, a surprising detail, inwards. Now that I had seen it, I could no longer pass by without scrutinizing it carefully every evening, to try to catch a possible clue that would have taught me more about its purpose, even hoping for a slowdown on the road, which would have allowed me to observe as much as I wanted but which, for some strange reason, never happened. The traffic, although difficult on the rest of the journey, was desperately, perfectly smooth on the only kilometer that really mattered to me.
Especially since such an enclosure, located like this in the heart of Singapore, must have been worth a fortune in one of the most expensive cities in the world and for which, generations of developers must have offered crazy sums to get their hands on this location, but which nevertheless, and probably for a very long time given the age of the trees that we could see from the road, seemed to only serve to shelter a simple forest. Which, moreover, my search on Google Map confirmed. Seen from above, this enclosed space, which formed a sort of square of one kilometer by one kilometer, was entirely covered with trees whose thick canopy left nothing visible of what could possibly be hidden below. This area was a black hole in the middle of the city, at most my research allowed me to discover that one side of this square was bordered by what seemed to be an abandoned parking lot, which I promised myself to inspect on the following Saturday.
And indeed when I parked there that day, I found, as I expected, a vast empty parking lot, whose bitumen, due to lack of maintenance, had ended up hollowing out in places and whose far end was demarcated by the same imposing fence, which had attracted my attention along the main road. No doubt the fate of this old parking lot was already sealed, doomed to imminent destruction to be replaced by yet another shopping center or luxury condominium. But for the moment it was deserted, which allowed me to approach this fence to take a closer look without being disturbed. What I noticed first was the robustness of the materials that had been used to build this palisade. Obviously, the intention had not been to make it a simple dissuasive barrier but to truly make any access impossible. Then, trying to distinguish a possible gap in the vegetation which would have allowed me to glimpse behind it, I quickly had to admit that the forest was of an absolutely impenetrable density. It wasn't really a surprise to tell the truth, but all the same I couldn't help but feel a little hint of disappointment as I casually walked along the fence without much hope. How wrong I was! Because at the end of it, the unthinkable awaited me: on the other side of the fence, an immense Koompassia tree had spread its gigantic roots in the shape of a rocket tail, one of which had ended, during decades, by getting closer to the fence and opening between it and one of the posts which supported it, a gap just big enough... to let a man through.
You would have gone through, wouldn’t you? I understand you, and I would be lying if I said that at the time, the desire did not cross my mind. But in Singapore, it is good to be careful, the government can have a, well, rather limited sense of humor. So, I decided to leave the breach where it was, get back in my car and return to my daily activities. Except that the breach did not leave me.
Every evening, it came back to haunt me, as I passed the fence on my way, trying not to look at it. Often during the day, it appeared to me in my moments of reverie, as if, standing silently in a corner of my head, it was waiting for my mind to be available to come and knock on the door. Each time, the breach was standing before me, like an invitation, like a call to pass to the other side of the mirror. Something had to be done, I needed a plan. First of all, it could only be during the night, to be discreet. But that wouldn't be enough, I needed a night where I was really sure of not meeting anyone outside, a particularly dark night, without a moon, where people wouldn't want to leave their homes, a night... of thunderstorm. This is what I needed.
The rainy season this year began towards the end of November. Every day, the equatorial humidity concentrated above the city during the long hot hours of the day, until it formed enormous, suspended cumulus clouds, like Damocles swords, which invariably ended up bursting under their own weight at the end of the day, in a surge of heavy rain. It was around mid-December, when the rainy season had reached its peak, that I finally decided to take action.
That evening, after dinner, I only took the bare minimum with me, a parka, a headlamp and a knife, in order to remain as agile as possible, then closing the door of my apartment on a cozy evening that I could have spent watching a series under the blanket, I left in the night, in the pouring rain.
The windshield wipers spread long parabolas of light across the windshield in front of me as I drove through a ghost town. No cars on the road, the lights turned green as I approached them. Something was making job easier. I had my hands on the wheel but it was no longer me who was in control, my coming this evening had been anticipated, probably for a very long time. Arriving at the abandoned parking lot, I parked the car next to the fence, adjusted my hood and got out. The black flaw of the breach was there, right in front of me, it awaited me like the gaping entrance to a cave before which our body still hesitates when our will is already inside. I rushed into it.
Just on the other side, darkness fell instantly and the parking lot disappeared. I then turned on my headlamp and discovered around me, in its halo, a chaos of long jagged leaves, tangled stems and twisted vines, whose shadows moved as the light beam passed. The muddy ground was slippery, forcing me to move forward carefully, tripping over the roots that were trying to grab my feet. The branches, weighed down by the rain, leaned towards me as I passed to tear off my hood and reveal the identity of this intruder who was thus venturing into their territory with complete impunity. The feeling was shared on my side, I was a stranger here. Not far behind me, my car was waiting for me in the parking lot. All I had to do was turn back and, in an instant, I would return to the normal course of my life, and this episode would have been nothing more than a parenthesis that quickly ended. But it was at that moment that suddenly appeared in the halo in front of me, a form which had nothing of vegetal nature.
Rising from the ground, a dark stone stele stood vertically in the middle of a small open clearing, like a warning not to go any further. By illuminating its main face, I distinguished inscriptions in Japanese, practically erased by the wear and tear of time, and which undoubtedly warned of the dangers of the area into which I was about to enter.
Beyond the clearing, I nevertheless continued to sink into the forest, under the mournful croaking of thousands of frogs who seemed, through their sonorous protests, to join the warnings of the stele. It didn't take long for the beam from my headlamp to cross what looked like a large pipe, more than a meter in diameter, which ran along the ground until it disappeared into the darkness. Coming closer to examine it better, a detail surprised me, I saw no trace of joints or welding, its surface which seemed to be made of metal, was perfectly smooth as if it were made in one piece. I then began to go back up along the pipe in order to find a possible junction, helping myself with one hand against it to balance myself on the slippery ground, but I immediately withdrew it: a very powerful flow was circulating inside, from which a malevolent energy seemed to radiate to the surface. Like the current from a high-voltage line which ionizes the air around it and which is revealed on days of high humidity by an electric crackle. Staying at a distance I continued to follow the pipe, the diameter of which seemed to increase noticeably as I followed it.
The pipe led me to the remains of what looked like reinforced concrete fortifications, partly swallowed up by the jungle. The pipe, which now measured two meters wide, penetrated the wall in a strange way, which would have made me say that it had rather sprung from it. The frogs were now silent, and indeed a heavy silence now filled the atmosphere, only softened by the sound of the rain on the leaves. Following the base of the wall to look for a way to get to the other side, I finally found a tree which had grown directly on the concrete top and whose roots plunged down to the ground, and which I used as a ladder to hoist myself up and discover, once at the top, a vision of anguish.
The ruined fortifications, on which I stood, constituted a large circular enclosure about fifty meters wide, in the middle of which was a crater about ten meters deep with, at the bottom of it, a lake or rather a reservoir of liquid, from which emanated a strange glow of plasma which radiated around and from which sprang a multitude of pipes identical to the one I had followed, which fanned out in a star towards the four corners of the city like monstrous tentacles of the abominable creature that had been unsuccessfully contained in this place.