Annihilation

The narrator examines samples from the psychologist’s body under the microscope. They appear to be normal human cells. The narrator becomes convinced that the cells act differently when she is not observing them and change the moment she looks at them. She looks at the moss from the figures in the village. “The moss and the fox…were composed of modified human cells” (159). She reflects on the human-like nature of the boar near the base camp, the dolphin who looked at her in the canal in the village, and the moaning creature in the reeds.

The narrator reads her husband’s journal. Most of the entries are addressed to her. The husband was part of the 11th expedition, which had eight members. They, too, discover the tower. Ultimately the expedition splits up. The narrator’s husband and a surveyor head north, “but even though we cover a good fifteen to twenty miles by nightfall, nothing has changed. It is all the same” (163). They return when they see strange lights coming from behind them. At the lighthouse, they find evidence of violence as well as suggestions of strange phenomena such as “a strange residue on the floor” (164).