Toxic Swamp

The place itself

Warm, wet, faintly humming

• The water moves when nothing touches it, always toward the same corner.
• Every surface is soft. Metal here has the give of fruit left too long.
• Warning signs stand at the edges, painted over so many times the words have thickened into ridges nobody reads.

Noticed, not explained

• Nothing has drowned here. Frens who fall in are found later on the bank, cleaner than before.
• The hum drops a note at dusk. Long-term residents lower their voices to match it without noticing.

How frens change here

Things spread. A trait that appears in one fren tends to show up in a neighbour within a few days, slightly altered, as though it were copied by hand.

Frens here gather at the waterline and stay there. They do not appear to be waiting for anything. Asked to move, they will, and then drift back.

If you liked it here

• FLORABoth are places where growth outran whoever was tending it.
• INFERNO CITYBoth run warm, and both pretend not to.