History Literature / TheSickLand

** They also describe a dream where an UncannyValley deer with a jointed needle for a foot is eating grass and looking at them. Alex is suitably creeped out.

* BreatherEpisode: After the harrowing experiences of their Sick Lands expedition and working with [[NightmareFuel Subject 83,]] Alex finds themself working with Subject 407, who is basically normal except with a large right arm. They even lampshade how much of a welcome break it is.

* BodyHorror: In Alex's [[spoiler: weird dreams about Bob, Bob is increasingly decomposed with each subsequent dream. At the same time, a piece of ''mal'' keeps growing more and more and spreading across his arm and ''devouring it.'' Yikes.]]

** [[http://thesickland.blogspot.com/2013/11/eighty-three.html Subject 83.]] ''Holy shit.''

* [[spoiler: DownerEnding: The Sick Land suddenly and unexpectedly expands massively, engulfing places all around the world. The Facility ends up near the red zone, causing the staff, including Alex, to be slowly killed by ''mal'' exposure. The kicker is that it may have been Alex's fault.]]

* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler: Implied to be the cause of the Sick Lands. Alex finds the skull of something that appears to be one and it causes their SanitySlippage to become even worse just by being around it.]]

* EldritchLocation: The Sick Land sometimes does not follow normal rules. It's possible to spend more time traveling from one place than it took to get there using the exact same route and for entire research facilities to simply cease existing.

* FateWorseThanDeath: Implied to happen to people who spend too long in the Sick Lands.

* ForScience: Study of ''mal'' is viewed as this by the larger scientific community because nothing concrete has ever been found out about it.

* [[spoiler: GovernmentConspiracy: Alex gets caught in one.]]
* HumanoidAbomination: The Sick Lands used to be inhabited by beings called Birdheads that varied from humans with beaks to bizarre monsters. They supposedly weren't real, [[spoiler: but Alex finds the skull of one while in the Sick Lands.]]

* ImAHumanitarian: [[spoiler: Sergei after he gets mutated by ''mal.'']]
* InsufferableGenius: Sergei.

* LackOfEmpathy: Howard Phillips, as described under Jerkass above.

* NaiveNewcomer: Alex. They really don't seem to comprehend what they're getting into and note that the only experience they've had with the Sick Lands and ''mal'' before is reading about it in books. They get joined later by two likewise inexperienced scientists after [[spoiler: Sergei and Xi are killed.]]

* OurZombiesAreDifferent: Bob is a RevenantZombie created by Mal exposure. He's surprisingly helpful towards Alex (Unless he's a hallucination, see ThroughTheEyesOfMadness below).

* ScienceCannotComprehendPhlebotinum: Almost nothing is understood about ''mal'' and nobody knows why it affects people the way it does.

* SomewhereAnEquestrianIsCrying: Alex mentions their mule vomiting when they're deep in the Yellow Zone. Mules, like all equines, are incapable of vomiting. On the other hand, [[FridgeHorror we know The Sick Land warps physiology...]]
* SpiritualSuccessor: in many ways it reads like an unofficial sequel to Literature/RoadsidePicnic, set in modern times and from the perspective of the researchers rather than a Stalker.

* ShoutOut: A 19th century explorer who traveled to the Sick Land was named [[Creator/HPLovecraft Howard Phillips.]]

* ExistentialHorror: When the narrative isn't focusing on the CosmicHorror of The Sick Land, it highlights the utter pointlessness of Alex's actions. The Facility arc is particularly Kafkaesque, with Alex trying desperately to find ''anyone'' who actually knows what how the machines they use work and what the data they collect actually mean.

** He also describes a dream where an UncannyValley deer with a jointed needle for a foot is eating grass and looking at him. Alex is suitably creeped out.

** [[spoiler: Alex as he dies. He describes that his skin is sloughing off, hanging from his body in strips, and that he intermittently spits out his own teeth. It's no wonder he considers the Facility caving in and crushing him a preferable death.]]
* BreatherEpisode: After the harrowing experiences of his Sick Lands expedition and working with [[NightmareFuel Subject 83,]] Alex finds himself working with Subject 407, who is basically normal except with a large right arm. He even lampshades how much of a welcome break it is.

* ChekhovsGun: {{Invoked|Trope}}. [[spoiler: In a dream / vision Bob shows Alex a gun placed in a safe place and how to get it so that Alex can use it to defend himself from the mutated Sergei later.]]

* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler: Implied to be the cause of the Sick Lands. Alex finds the skull of something that appears to be one and it causes his SanitySlippage to become even worse just by being around him.]]

* NaiveNewcomer: Alex. He really doesn't seem to comprehend what he's getting into and notes that the only experience he's had with the Sick Lands and ''mal'' before is reading about it in books. He gets joined later by two likewise inexperienced scientists after [[spoiler: Sergei and Xi are killed.]]
** Then Alex is shifted to the [[spoiler: Facility, where he's supposed to be this, but most of the scientists immediately available don't seem to know any more than him.]]
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler: The Sick Land suddenly expanded across the world after Alex seemed to piss off the huge thing in the underground lake by destroying what might have been the creatures' offering to it. Granted, it was established that the Sick Land was expanding anyway, but his actions seemed to have sped it up.]]

* OurZombiesAreDifferent: Bob is a RevenantZombie created by Mal exposure. He's suprisingly helpful towards Alex (Unless he's a hallucination, see ThroughTheEyesOfMadness below).

** [[spoiler: The machines the scientists use in the upper levels of the Facility. They apparently come from the cave underground, where creatures seem to get them to work through strange and violent rituals. When Alex looks inside them, he finds that they are full of random parts, having no right to actually work. Nonetheless, the scientists use them, even though they have no real understanding of how they work or even what their findings mean.]]

* SomewhereAnEquestrianIsCrying: Alex mentions his mule vomiting when they're deep in the Yellow Zone. Mules, like all equines, are incapable of vomiting. On the other hand, [[FridgeHorror we know The Sick Land warps physiology...]]

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: Alex encounters an anomaly that he swears blind is real, but Xi and Sergei can't see it (digging underneath it nets the team a Bird-man skull though). He also has "dreams" about an increasingly rotten zombie version of Bob that may or may not be waking encounters with him.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: We never learn the eventual fate of [[spoiler: Val, Ludwig and the second research station]] - once Alex is relocated to [[spoiler: the Facility]], not a single word about them is ever brought up. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] as the story is presented in first-person via Alex' research log, so the reader does not know anything beyond what Alex [[AmbiguousGender him/herself]] knows or learns. With the working climate and the information flow at [[spoiler: the Facility]], it's not surprising s/he is not told anything about what, if anything, happened at [[spoiler: the second station]], assuming they even know/care. Although, given the fact that Alex describes his/her thoughts and suspicions in the log throughout, regardless of actual information, it's still jarring that s/he apparently does not even spare one thought about his/her former colleagues.

* FateWorseThanDeath: Implied to happen to people who spend too long in the Sick Lands.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: We never learn the eventual fate of [[spoiler: Val, Ludwig and the second research station]] - once Alex is relocated to [[spoiler: the Facility]], not a single word about them is ever brought up. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] as the story is presented in first-person via Alex' research log, so the reader does not know anything beyond what Alex [[AmbiguousGender him/herself]] knows or learns. With the working climate and the information flow at [[spoiler: the Facility]], it's not surprising s/he is not told anything about what, if anything, happened at [[spoiler: the second station]], assuming they even know/care. Although, given the fact that Alex describes his/her thoughts and suspicions in the log throughout, regardless of actual information, it's still jarring that s/he apparently does not even spare one thought about his former colleagues.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: We never learn the eventual fate of [[spoiler: Val, Ludwig and the second research station]] - once Alex is relocated to [[spoiler: the Facility]], not a single word about them is ever brought up. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] as the story is presented in first-person via Alex' research log, so the reader does not know anything beyond what Alex [[AmbiguousGender him/herself]] knows or learns. With the working climate and the information flow at [[spoiler: the Facility]], it's not surprising s/he is not told anything about what, if anything, happened at [[spoiler: the second station]], assuming they even know/care.

* {{Jerkass}}: Assuming it wasn't the ''mal'' influencing him, Howard Phillips seems to have been this. During his time [[spoiler: at the crater he showed no concern for his fellow explorers' safety or well-being, constantly made clear in his journal that he thought they were all useless, left a very sick explorer alone at the camp while he and the only other explorer went off exploring and didn't even seem to feel at all guilty when the man died. He even blamed the first casualty of the expedition on the man himself.]] Being an {{Expy}} of Creator/HPLovecraft, he also possesses the insufferable habit of derailing the recollection of events to expound upon his own brilliance and skill, peppered with casual dismissal for those of "lower" station.

* {{Jerkass}}: Assuming it wasn't the ''mal'' influencing him, Howard Phillips seems to have been this. During his time [[spoiler: at the crater he showed no concern for his fellow explorers' safety or well-being, constantly made clear in his journal that he thought they were all useless, left a very sick explorer alone at the camp while he and the only other explorer went off exploring and didn't even seem to feel at all guilty when the man died. He even blamed the first casualty of the expedition on the man himself.]] Being an {{Expy}} of HPLovecraft, he also possesses the insufferable habit of derailing the recollection of events to expound upon his own brilliance and skill, peppered with casual dismissal for those of "lower" station.

* {{Jerkass}}: Assuming it wasn't the ''mal'' influencing him, Howard Phillips seems to have been this. During his time [[spoiler: at the crater he showed no concern for his fellow explorers' safety, constantly made clear in his journal that he thought they were all useless, left a very sick explorer alone at the camp while he and the only other explorer went off exploring and didn't even seem to feel at all guilty when the man died.]]

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: Alex encounters an anomaly that he swears blind is real, but Xi and Sergei can't see it. He also has "dreams" about an increasingly rotten zombie version of Bob that may or may not be waking encounters with him.

* FesteringFungus: Zombie!Bob has a mushroom growing out of his hand. Every time Alex sees him, the infection progresses a little further, until it's all the way up to his shoulder, [[spoiler his face, and [[MeatMoss all over the laboratory wall]]]].

* FesteringFungus: Zombie!Bob has a mushroom growing out of his hand. Every time Alex sees him, the infection progresses a little further, until it's all the way up to his shoulder.

* ApocalypticLog

* CosmicHorrorStory

* IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace

* PsychologicalHorror

* TheVirus

** Early on Alex muses about the Sick Land and how it advances maybe an inch a decade, but the governments generally try to keep it quiet because people wouldn't understand the distances involved and unnecessarily panic. [[spoiler: Alex later learns that's actually a lie to keep people from panicking and that the Sick Land has expanded much further than is publicly stated]].
** In a late entry Alex asks a researcher about the possible medical applications about [[spoiler: Subject 83's regenerative abilities]]. They point out that there aren't any, since it wouldn't work away from the Sick Land anyway. [[spoiler: It turns out that most of the actual research is an attempt to get humans physically ready for when the Sick Land encompasses the world]].
* [[spoiler: GovernmentConspiracy: Alex gets caught in one.]]

* ImAHumanitarian: [[spoiler: Sergei after he gets mutated by ''mal''.]]

* ItRunsOnNonsensoleum: [[spoiler: Pretty much every single piece of equipment that has anything to do with ''mal'']] which explains why even the people [[spoiler: at the second facility can't actually explain the machinery or math to Alex]]. Turns out it all comes from [[spoiler: some species of humanoid creatures who live underneath the second facility, who seem to use a ritual involving violence and ''mal'' to make random pieces of machines work]].
* {{Jerkass}}: Assuming it wasn't the ''mal'' influencing him, Howard Phillips seems to have been this. During his time [[spoiler: at the crater he showed no concern for his fellow explorers' safety, constantly made clear in his journal that he thought they were all useless, left a very sick explorer alone at the camp while he and the only other explorer went off exploring and didn't even seem to feel at all guilty when the man died]].
* MentalTimeTravel: Somehow an ancient artifact [[spoiler: allows Alex to get in contact with an old woman who used to live in the Sick Land possibly tens of thousands of years ago]].
* MercyKill: Alex gives them to [[spoiler: Ivana]] and to [[spoiler: the old woman in the cave]]. Unfortunately [[spoiler: the second of these seems to have been what vastly sped up the Sick Land expanding across the planet]].

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Xi's reaction to the Sick Land, wanting nothing more than for all the procedures to be gone through so she can get away. [[spoiler: She's killed just after they finally get it done]].
* ShoutOut: A 19th century explorer who traveled to the Sick Land was named [[Creator/HPLovecraft Howard Phillips]].

** The March 31 Entry. [[spoiler: Bob commits suicide]].
** The May 9 Entry: [[spoiler: Just as it looked like Xi and Sergei might be allowed to leave, the ''mal'' turns Sergei into a monster and he kills Xi]].
** The ''Smith'' Entry. It's made clear to Alex that [[spoiler: all the work about measuring the Sick Land and exploring it is just for show. The only real research is how to find ways to use ''mal'' to make humans more able to survive when the Sick Land inevitably expands across the planet]].

* YankTheDogsChain: By May 7 they've finally gone through everything they need to in order to [[spoiler: have a relief sent out so Xi and possibly Sergei can get out]]. By May 9 [[spoiler: Sergei is transformed into a monster and kills Xi]].

* ChekhovsGun: Invoked. [[spoiler: In a dream/vision Bob shows Alex a gun placed in a safe place and how to get it so that Alex can use it to defend himself from the mutated Sergei later.]]

* CriticalExistenceFailure: It's rumored that this can happen to someone in the Sick Lands. No matter what state they're in when it happens they just kind of, ''stop existing''.

** [[spoiler: The huge thing in the underground lake. Nothing much is told about it, but the Sick Lands expanded all over the world after [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Alex seemed to piss it off]].]]
* EldritchLocation: The Sick Land sometimes does not follow normal rules. It's possible to spend more time travelling from one place than it took to get there using the exact same route and for entire research facilities to simply cease existing.

* ForbiddenZone: The Sick Lands, but the worst part is that [[spoiler: it's ''spreading''. It moves slowly but it's going to start engulfing things eventually. The government has covered up the fact that it's spreading in order to prevent panic.]]
** According to the old woman [[spoiler: from Alex's dream]], ''the land itself literally hates people''.

* ApatheticCitizens: Most of the world, while aware of the Sick Land, doesn't seem terribly worried about it [[spoiler: despite the fact that it is ''spreading'']]. Similarly, [[spoiler: the Facility scientists not only simply sit and observe the Sick Land as it spreads, but don't even care to figure out how the equipment they use works or what their findings really mean, just sending them to another department.]]

* BreatherEpisode: After the harrowing experiences of his Sick Lands expedition and working with [[NightmareFuel Subject 83]], Alex finds himself working with Subject 407, who is basically normal except with a large right arm. He even lampshades how much of a welcome break it is.
* BrownNote: The ''mal'' appears to be a version of this. It doesn't seem to have any physical component (bacteria, virus, etc.) and doesn't act as any known contaminant should, randomly infecting people with random mutations, with little regard to exposure or contact, acting more like a ''force'' in the Sick Land then an actual infection.
* BodyHorror: In Alex's [[spoiler: weird dreams about Bob, Bob is increasingly decomposed with each subsequent dream. At the same time, a piece of ''mal'' keeps growing more and more and spreading across his arm and ''devouring it''. Yikes.]]

** [[http://thesickland.blogspot.com/2013/11/eighty-three.html Subject 83]]. ''Holy shit''.

''[[http://thesickland.blogspot.co.uk The Sick Land]]'' is the blog of Alex Case, a researcher based at a remote station on the outskirts of an area called The Sick Land. The Sick Land radiates a malign influence called the ''mal''. It warps life forms, damages machinery, drives researchers insane, and sometimes worse...

A surprisingly effective CosmicHorrorStory, ''The Sick Land'' has concluded after a ten-month run. Definitely not for [[BodyHorror the faint of heart]].

* AbandonedArea: The Sick Lands ''used'' to be inabited, before the ''mal'' started spreading. Now all but one of it's inhabitants have just disappeared.
* AmbiguousGender: the narrator, Alex, could be an "Alexandra" just as much as an "Alexander", and the narration gives no clues as to the character's sex.

* ApatheticCitizens: Most of the world, while aware of the Sick Land, doesn't seem terribly worried about it [[spoiler: despite the fact that it is ''spreading'']]. Similarly, [[spoiler: the Facility scientists not only simply sit and observe the Sick Land as it spreads, but don't even care to figure out how the equipment they use works or what their findings really mean, just sending them to another department.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: In a late entry Alex asks a researcher about the possible medical applications about [[spoiler: Subject 83's regenerative abilities]]. They point out that there aren't any, since it wouldn't work away from the Sick Land anyway. [[spoiler: It turns out that most of the actual research is an attempt to get humans physically ready for when the Sick Land encompasses the world]].

** The ''Smith'' Entry. It's made clear to Alex that [[spoiler: all the work about measuring the Sick Land and exploring it is just for show. The only real research is how to find ways to use ''mal'' to make humans more able to survive when the Sick Land inevitably expands across the planet]].