Annihilation

As she walks alone to the lighthouse, the biologist reflects on what she discovered inside the tower. She thinks about “the spores I had inhaled, which pointed to a truthful seeing” (90). She continues to feel a brightness in her chest, which she believes is an effect of the spores, and notes, “I believed I could have run a marathon” (93). She reaches a deserted village halfway to the lighthouse. There, she observes, “Only a few roofs remained on the twelve or thirteen houses, and the trail through had crumbled into porous rubble” (96). In the remains of the houses, she sees strange growths of lichen or moss that resemble human forms. She collects samples from these figures, as well as of dead animals nearby. As she leaves the village, she sees movement in the water of the canal. Some dolphins breach. One of them looks at her with an eye that is “painfully human, almost familiar” (97).

The narrator approaches the lighthouse, aware that she is visible to anyone who might be watching her from there. She notices walls and fortifications surrounding the tower, including on the sea-facing side.