The Infernal Pastry
A scholarly treatise penned by Doctor W.S. Phineas of The Hill in The Mass, examining temporal anomalies that defy explanation in the post-Fall world. The work takes its name from its first and most famous documented case: a pre-fall individually wrapped spongy cream-filled pastry cake found in perfectly edible condition, centuries after it should have decomposed into nothing. A scientist purchased the artifact from a Merican trader for ten bottles of hooch and brought it to The Hill for study.
The pastry was only the beginning. Audio recording devices have been recovered in working condition. Telling Visions artifacts have been found intact. Delicate pre-fall clothing has turned up undamaged by time. The structures of Old York and Under Sea remain standing despite natural wear that should have toppled them generations ago. Modern maps do not match pre-fall cartography; the topography has shifted, and more land sits above water than expected.
Doctor Phineas proposes several theories to account for these contradictions. The Infection may latch onto the brain's time-perception center, which would explain why undead chew through brain stems and why Double Tapping is necessary to ensure permanent death. Gravitational pull fluctuations during the Fall could account for the higher global temperatures and persistent radiation patterns observed today. Psionic influence on time perception was considered but dismissed as unsupported.
The treatise reaches several conclusions that challenge accepted understanding. Objects from the pre-fall era are incredibly rare but do exist in preserved states that should be impossible. Hundreds of years may have elapsed during the Fall itself, unnoticed by those who lived through it. Strains are estimated to have existed only 200 to 300 years since the final collapse of humanity. At least four generations have passed since the last true humans walked the earth. The land itself has physically shifted, and the maps are wrong.
Time, it seems, is not what anyone thought it was.
The pastry was only the beginning. Audio recording devices have been recovered in working condition. Telling Visions artifacts have been found intact. Delicate pre-fall clothing has turned up undamaged by time. The structures of Old York and Under Sea remain standing despite natural wear that should have toppled them generations ago. Modern maps do not match pre-fall cartography; the topography has shifted, and more land sits above water than expected.
Doctor Phineas proposes several theories to account for these contradictions. The Infection may latch onto the brain's time-perception center, which would explain why undead chew through brain stems and why Double Tapping is necessary to ensure permanent death. Gravitational pull fluctuations during the Fall could account for the higher global temperatures and persistent radiation patterns observed today. Psionic influence on time perception was considered but dismissed as unsupported.
The treatise reaches several conclusions that challenge accepted understanding. Objects from the pre-fall era are incredibly rare but do exist in preserved states that should be impossible. Hundreds of years may have elapsed during the Fall itself, unnoticed by those who lived through it. Strains are estimated to have existed only 200 to 300 years since the final collapse of humanity. At least four generations have passed since the last true humans walked the earth. The land itself has physically shifted, and the maps are wrong.
Time, it seems, is not what anyone thought it was.
