Another eerie example: the first chapter of #Annihilation, the first book of Jeff VanderMeer’s #SouthernReach quartet.

Four scientists – a biologist, a surveyor, an anthropologist, and a psychologist (hereafter capitalised) – are sent out explore the mysterious ‘Area X,’ a coastal area kept hidden by the secret agency known as Southern Reach. This is where the weird things are. The Biologist (our POV character) observes how the wildlife always seems to watch her and her crewmates with a particular intent. A boar charges the team, but veers at the last second as if pulled by an invisible force. During nights, they all keep hearing the shrill cry of an unidentified beast, and express an eagerness to track it down at some point. Their days, on the other hand, are focused on exploring a bunker in the woods, sixty feet across. Besides the entry and stairwell, the rooms are completely devoid of any intentional trace of life. Moreover, the structure, despite being plain to see, was not recorded on any previous maps.

The crew soon descend into the bunker’s liminal chambers, and find a fungus-like colony extruded from a wall. It glows. It is arranged to spell out words that the Biologist is able to understand and parse aloud, despite the fact that they are ‘written’ in a non-human script (so argues the Anthropologist). Again, there’s the suggestion of an agency – the only creatures known to organise symbolic information like this are humans – that oughtn’t be, but is.