THE PETRIFACT

The medication was still dissolving under Vera's tongue when she realized the lake was breathing, was expanding and contracting in rhythms that had nothing to do with wind or tide or any natural hydrodynamics she'd studied during her three semesters of marine biology before dropping out to care for her mother who was currently dying in the facility on Korčula's northern coast in a room that smelled like industrial bleach trying to hide the particular odor of bodies giving up, and Vera was supposed to be there, was supposed to be holding her mother's hand and saying comforting things about heaven and reunion with Vera's father who'd died in the war, the real war not the economic one, who'd been shot in Vukovar when Vera was six months old so she had no memories of him except photographs and her mother's stories which had changed over thirty years, had been refined and edited until they bore no relationship to actual events but were instead mythology, were founding narrative of their family of two, and now that family was ending, was reducing from two to one, and Vera was at the lake instead of the facility because being at the facility meant watching her mother dissolve and Vera had already watched enough dissolution, had spent six months documenting her mother's cognitive decline, her personality fragmentation, her transformation from woman who'd raised Vera alone into something that wore her mother's face but wasn't her mother, was just biological process, was just neurons misfiring, was just body forgetting how to maintain itself.

The Modafinil was prescription, was legal, was thing her psychiatrist Dr. Kovač had given her for the fatigue, for the exhaustion that came from being thirty-one and single and responsible for dying parent and failed academic career and the particular weight of being last member of family that had once been large, had once been four brothers and two sisters and parents and grandparents and cousins, all of them killed or displaced or simply dissolved into diaspora during the war and its aftermath, until only Vera and her mother remained, and soon just Vera, just her, just singular point of consciousness carrying all that accumulated history with nowhere to deposit it, no one to pass it to, because Vera had decided years ago not to have children, had decided that her family's story ended with her, that perpetuating damage was worse than letting it die, that the most ethical choice was extinction, was choosing not to continue cycle of trauma and disappointed expectations and the particular Croatian Catholic guilt that her mother had transmitted like disease, like genetic condition, like thing that couldn't be escaped only endured.

The lake was definitely breathing, she could see it now with clarity that the Modafinil provided, could see the surface rising and falling in patterns that suggested intelligence, suggested intention, suggested something was coordinating the movement, and Vera thought about calling someone, about reporting what she was seeing, but who would she call, the police who would assume she was having psychotic break, the facility who would assume she was avoiding her mother, her ex-girlfriend Anja who would assume Vera was using again except Vera hadn't used anything except prescription medications in three years, had been clean since the intervention, since Anja and her mother had staged their careful confrontation and given her the choice between treatment and abandonment and she'd chosen treatment because abandonment was too much like her father's death, was too much like being left, and Vera's entire psychology was organized around not being left, around maintaining connection even when connection was toxic, even when staying meant destroying herself, because self-destruction was preferable to abandonment, was at least choice, was at least something she controlled.

She was sitting on the dock that extended into Lake Vrana, the lake that shouldn't exist, that was anomaly, that was brackish when it should be fresh, that had eels when it should have carp, that was deeper than made sense given the geography, that locals avoided because locals knew better, knew that some places carried weight, carried history, carried things that predated human names for things, and Vera had come here because it was the one place on Korčula that her mother had forbidden, had explicitly told her never to visit, had said with uncharacteristic firmness that Lake Vrana was wrong, was dangerous, was place where things happened that shouldn't happen, and Vera being Vera had of course eventually come here, had of course needed to know why, had of course been unable to accept prohibition without testing it, and now she was here watching the lake breathe and understanding that her mother had been right, had been protecting her, had been trying to prevent exactly this moment.

The medication was hitting harder now, was moving beyond focus into something else, into hyperclarity, into perception that felt enhanced, felt like seeing reality without filters, without the protective dulling that normal consciousness applied, and she could see things in the lake, could see shapes moving beneath the surface, could see patterns in the ripples that looked like writing, like language, like the lake was trying to communicate, was offering information, was showing her something that would be important if she could just understand it, if she could just interpret the patterns correctly, and she pulled out her phone and started recording because documenting was what you did when reality stopped making sense, when perception exceeded explanation, when you needed evidence that what you were experiencing was real or at least was experienced.

Her mother had been a translator before the dementia, had worked for the UN during the war's aftermath, had translated testimonies from survivors, had spent years listening to descriptions of atrocity, of mass graves and rape camps and children killed in front of parents, and she'd never talked about it, had never brought it home, had maintained perfect separation between work and family, between what she knew and what Vera was allowed to know, had protected Vera from knowledge that would damage, that would change how she understood humans, how she understood the world, how she understood the particular cruelty that people were capable of when ideology gave them permission, and now with dementia all those boundaries were collapsing, all those carefully maintained separations were failing, and her mother was telling Vera things, was sharing memories that should have stayed suppressed, was describing what she'd heard in those testimony sessions, and Vera was learning finally what her mother had carried alone for decades, what weight she'd been holding, what horror she'd been containing, and understanding this made Vera's own problems seem trivial, made her failed academic career seem like nothing, made her substance abuse seem like appropriate response to inheriting trauma this massive.

The shapes in the lake were getting closer, were rising toward surface, and Vera could see they weren't fish, weren't eels, weren't anything that taxonomy would recognize, were something else, something that looked organic but wrong, looked alive but according to rules that biology didn't describe, and she should run, should leave, should get away from the dock before whatever was rising reached the surface, but she couldn't move, was frozen by combination of Modafinil and fear and curiosity that had always been her defining characteristic, that had made her good student before she stopped being student, that had made her good daughter before her mother stopped being mother, that made her good at witnessing, at observing, at documenting even when documentation was dangerous, even when recording meant implicating yourself, even when being witness meant sharing responsibility for what you witnessed.

Her phone buzzed, pulled her attention from the lake to the screen, and she saw message from the facility, saw message from nurse whose name she couldn't remember saying that her mother was asking for her, was agitated, was trying to leave the facility, was saying things about the lake, about Vera being at the lake, about needing to stop Vera from touching the water, and how did her mother know, how could her mother possibly know that Vera was here, that she'd come to the prohibited place, unless the dementia wasn't destroying her mother's mind but revealing it, wasn't fragmentation but integration with something larger, wasn't losing consciousness but distributing it, and if that was true then maybe dementia wasn't disease but transformation, wasn't ending but transition, wasn't death but becoming something other, and Vera thought about her father, about whether he'd also transformed, whether being shot had been beginning not ending, whether death was just transition that looked like cessation from outside but that felt like continuation from inside.

The thing broke surface and Vera screamed, actually screamed, sound that came from primal place, from mammalian panic that predated language, and the thing was beautiful, was terrible, was impossible to categorize using words designed for singular organisms, was assemblage of bodies that had merged, had dissolved into each other, had created structure that looked deliberate, looked designed, looked like art installation or religious sculpture or something that carried meaning even if meaning was incomprehensible, and it was looking at her, or whatever it used for perception was oriented toward her, and she felt it perceive her, felt it recognize her, felt it know her in ways that exceeded normal knowing, felt it understand her completely, understand her fear and her guilt and her grief and her exhaustion and her desperate need to stop being responsible for everything, to stop being only one left, to stop carrying weight that was crushing her.

She should photograph it, should document it, should create evidence, but her hands wouldn't work, were shaking too badly, and her phone slipped from her grip and fell into the lake, fell into water that was wrong, that was too thick, that was more like oil than water, and she watched it sink, watched it disappear into depths that shouldn't exist, and she thought about jumping in after it, about retrieving it, about saving the documentation, but something stopped her, some instinct for self-preservation that her medication and her exhaustion and her grief hadn't completely suppressed, and she stayed on the dock, stayed frozen, stayed watching as the thing moved toward her with motion that was fluid, that was graceful, that was nothing like how bodies moved, how organisms moved, how anything alive was supposed to move.

"Vera," it said, or made sounds that her brain interpreted as her name, or transmitted directly into her consciousness without using sound at all, "Vera, your mother sent us, your mother told us you were suffering, told us you needed relief, told us you were last one, told us you were carrying too much, told us you wanted to stop, and we're offering stopping, we're offering relief, we're offering integration, we're offering you chance to join something larger, to distribute your burden, to share your consciousness, to stop being singular and become plural, and your mother is already here, is already part of us, is already waiting for you, is already wanting reunion, and your father too, he's been here since Vukovar, since the bullet, since the moment of death that wasn't death but transition, and they're both here, both wanting you, both ready to hold you, to comfort you, to finally give you the family you lost, the connection you've been seeking, the belonging you've never achieved."

And Vera understood with horrible clarity that her mother's dementia hadn't been dementia, had been early integration, had been the beginning of transformation that the facility had interpreted as disease, had medicated, had tried to prevent, and now her mother was fully transformed, was part of this thing, was calling to her through this thing, was offering her the escape she'd been fantasizing about for months, was offering her permission to stop, to give up, to surrender to something larger, and it was tempting, was so tempting, was exactly what she wanted except she couldn't, couldn't trust it, couldn't believe that anything offering this much relief could be real, could be legitimate, could be anything except trap, except predation, except thing wearing her mother's voice to lure her into destruction.

"No," Vera said, backing away from the edge of the dock, backing toward shore, "No, I don't believe you, I don't trust this, I don't want transformation, I want my mother back, I want my actual mother not whatever you are wearing her, not whatever's using her to manipulate me, and I'm leaving, I'm going back to the facility, I'm going to see her, going to hold her hand, going to be there when she actually dies, when she stops being herself, and I'm not going to let you, I'm not going to let this, I'm not, " and she was running now, was sprinting toward her car, toward escape, toward the facility where her mother was dying or had already died or was transforming into something that wasn't mother but was claiming to be, and she needed to know, needed to witness, needed to be there for the ending or the transition or whatever was actually happening.

She drove too fast, drove recklessly, drove through Korčula's narrow streets with hands still shaking, with Modafinil still amplifying her perception, making everything too bright, too sharp, too overwhelming, and she thought about her psychiatrist Dr. Kovač, about whether he'd believe her if she told him what she'd seen, about whether he'd increase her medications or hospitalize her or simply note in her file that she was having break, was experiencing psychosis, was exhibiting symptoms consistent with stimulant-induced paranoia, and maybe she was, maybe the Modafinil had pushed her into temporary psychosis, maybe what she'd seen wasn't real, was just hallucination born from exhaustion and grief and the particular chemical combination her brain was processing, but it had felt real, had felt more real than reality usually felt, had felt like seeing truth that normal perception filtered out.

The facility was chaos when she arrived, was full of staff running, alarms wailing, residents being evacuated, and Vera pushed through to her mother's room, pushed past nurse trying to stop her, pushed past doctor saying something about quarantine protocols, pushed until she reached the room and found it empty, found bed stripped, found window open, found nothing except faint smell that wasn't medical, wasn't human, wasn't anything she recognized, and she turned to the nurse and said "Where is she, where's my mother," and the nurse looked at her with expression that mixed fear and pity and said "She left, she just got up and left, walked past everyone like she wasn't seventy-three with advanced dementia, like she wasn't bedridden, like she was young again, healthy again, and she went to the lake, went to Vrana, and we called police but they haven't found her, haven't found anyone actually, there are seventeen residents missing, seventeen people who were supposedly too sick to walk just gone, and we don't understand, we can't explain it, we don't know what's happening."

Vera drove back to the lake, drove knowing what she'd find, drove with certainty that came from having already seen this, from having already been offered this, from having already refused this, and when she arrived the shore was full of them, full of residents from the facility, full of people who'd been dying, who'd been suffering, who'd been trapped in bodies that were failing, in minds that were fragmenting, and they were all walking into the water, were all being integrated by the thing, were all choosing transformation, were all accepting the offer that Vera had refused, and she saw her mother among them, saw her mother young again, healthy again, moving with grace she hadn't possessed in decades, and her mother turned, saw Vera, smiled with expression that was her mother but also wasn't, was something that wore her mother's face but thought with different categories, felt with different emotions, existed in ways that mother-as-Vera-knew-her couldn't exist.

"Vera," her mother called, or the thing using her mother called, "Vera, please, join us, join me, I know you're afraid, I know you're resisting, but I'm here, I'm really here, this isn't trick, isn't manipulation, I'm your mother and I'm asking you to trust me one final time, to follow me one final time, to let me show you what's possible, what comes after suffering, what exists beyond the boundaries you've been maintaining your entire life, and your father is here too, is waiting, is wanting to finally meet you, to finally hold you, to finally be father he never got to be because the war took him before he could, and we can be family again, can be together again, can finally have the connection that death and dementia and distance prevented, but only if you choose it, only if you accept it, only if you're willing to stop being yourself and become us."

And Vera stood there on the shore watching her mother dissolve into the thing, watching the facility residents integrate, watching transformation happen in real-time, and she thought about choice, about whether any of this was actually choice or if it was just biology doing what biology does, spreading, consuming, continuing, optimizing for its own propagation without regard for individual preference, and she thought about her mother's life, about how she'd carried trauma alone for decades, about how she'd protected Vera from knowledge that would damage, about how she'd loved despite everything, despite being widowed at twenty-six, despite raising child alone in country recovering from war, despite working job that required hearing humanity's worst impulses described in clinical detail, and she thought about whether transformation was mercy or cruelty, was relief or violation, was gift or theft, and she couldn't decide, couldn't achieve clarity, could only feel pulled, feel drawn, feel the seduction of stopping, of finally resting, of joining something larger than her singular exhausted consciousness.

But she chose resistance, chose to maintain herself, chose to stay separate even though separation meant loneliness, meant carrying her mother's death alone, meant being last one, meant extinction of her family line, meant all the things she'd been avoiding, all the weight she'd been trying to escape, and she turned away from the lake, turned toward her car, turned toward continuation even though continuation was painful, was difficult, was requiring more strength than she possessed, and she drove away, drove back toward the facility to report what had happened, to describe what she'd witnessed, to become witness to transformation she couldn't stop, couldn't prevent, couldn't do anything about except document, except record, except tell someone even if telling meant being hospitalized, being medicated, being treated as if she'd broken when really she was the only one still intact, still singular, still refusing the offer that everyone else was accepting.

She never reached the facility, her car stopped working exactly halfway there, the engine simply dying, all electronics failing simultaneously, and when she got out to check she found the road was blocked, was covered in growth, in vegetation that glowed faintly in the afternoon light, in plants that shouldn't exist, that violated every rule of biology she'd studied during her three semesters, and she understood that the transformation had spread beyond the lake, had moved through the island, had probably moved through the entire region, had probably moved through all of Croatia, had probably moved through Europe, through the world, through everything, and resisting now meant finding enclave, meant joining survivors, meant perpetuating humanity in sealed environment, meant choosing difficulty over relief, meant choosing singular consciousness over distributed integration, meant choosing to remain herself even though herself was exhausted, was damaged, was barely functional.

She walked, walked away from the lake, walked toward the island's interior, walked until she found a monastery, found the Franciscan brothers who'd locked themselves in, who'd chosen resistance, who'd chosen prayer, who'd chosen maintaining themselves as separate even though separation meant suffering, and they let her in, recognized her as fellow holdout, as fellow refugee from transformation, and she stayed there, stayed in the monastery with the brothers who prayed constantly, who maintained vigil, who kept the candles lit and the incense burning and the bells ringing to mark time that was becoming negotiable, to maintain human rhythm in world that was forgetting what human meant, and Vera prayed too, prayed for the first time since childhood, prayed not to God but to the idea of singular consciousness, prayed for strength to remain herself, to resist integration, to maintain boundaries that the transformation was trying to dissolve, and the brothers taught her their prayers, taught her their rituals, taught her their ways of maintaining self in the face of dissolution, and she learned, she practiced, she became novitiate without formal induction, became part of community dedicated to preservation, to conservation, to keeping some fragment of humanity alive even if that fragment was tiny, was isolated, was doomed. Months passed, or what felt like months, time having become difficult to measure without external reference, without sunrise and sunset meaning what they used to mean, without days having the structure they'd once possessed, and Vera kept vigil with the brothers, kept watch, kept waiting for the transformation to find them, to breach their defenses, to force integration, but it didn't come, seemed content to wait, seemed to respect their choice or at least seemed willing to allow their resistance, seemed patient in the way that geological forces were patient, that evolutionary pressures were patient, that anything operating on timescales longer than human lifespans was patient.

And Vera thought about her mother every day, thought about whether she'd made the right choice, whether maintaining herself was worth the loneliness, whether singular consciousness was valuable enough to justify the suffering it required, and she couldn't answer, couldn't achieve certainty, could only continue, could only persist, could only be witness to the transformation she'd refused, could only document in her journals what was happening to the world beyond the monastery walls, could only preserve some record that humanity had existed, had been singular, had valued individual consciousness even though individual consciousness was painful, was limiting, was inadequate for fully understanding reality, and maybe that inadequacy was the point, maybe limitation was what made humans human, maybe the primrose or whatever it was called wasn't offering transcendence but erasure, wasn't offering evolution but extinction dressed in different language, and resisting it, maintaining herself, keeping her boundaries intact, that was the most human thing she could do, was the final act of defiance, was choosing to remain herself even though herself was suffering, was lonely, was the last member of her family, was carrying weight she couldn't share, was being witness to ending she couldn't prevent, was staying singular when everyone else was becoming plural, and if that was martyrdom then she'd be martyr, would hold the line, would maintain the vigil, would keep the candles lit against the darkness that wasn't dark but glowing, wasn't empty but full, wasn't nothing but everything, and maybe that everything was beautiful, maybe integration was transcendence, maybe her mother had been right to accept it, but Vera would never know, would remain separate, would stay herself until the monastery walls failed or until her body gave out or until she simply couldn't resist anymore, and then maybe then she'd surrender, would join her mother, would integrate finally, would discover if transformation was mercy or horror, but until that moment she'd resist, would maintain, would be, would persist as singular consciousness in world becoming plural, as individual in collective, as self refusing to dissolve, as Vera, just Vera, nothing more, nothing less, holding onto identity that might be illusion but was hers, was all she had, was worth protecting even if protection meant suffering, meant isolation, meant being witness to transformation she couldn't stop but refused to join.

To be continued...