The first time I was exposed to knowledge about pollution control was when I was seven years old.
That year was the Polar Night.
The sun had not appeared for a very long time.
The underground city relied on its energy core to maintain lighting.
People worked at fixed times.
They rested at fixed times.
If you did not look at a clock,
you could not even tell whether it was day or night.
My father held my hand as we walked through an underground passage.
Heavy metal doors kept opening and closing.
The air was filled with the sound of heat-energy equipment running.
At that time, I did not know
how Northveil was different from other countries.
I only knew one thing.
It was cold here.
Even though we lived underground,
the cold still existed.
It was simply not as terrifying as it was outside.
My father told me
that the people of Northveil had to learn three things.
Identify minerals.
Handle pollution.
Survive.
If you could not,
you would die.
That was why every child had to learn.
There were no exceptions.
The next day,
the teacher placed a gray-black mineral on the desk.
Dark red patterns covered its surface,
like dried blood.
The teacher did not teach us words.
Nor did the teacher teach us numbers.
Instead, we were told to memorize it.
"What do you do if you find this kind of mineral?"
Someone answered.
"Report it."
"What must you never do?"
"Bring it into a residential area."
"Do not heat it."
"Do not let it come into contact with drinking water."
The teacher nodded.
Then continued asking questions
until everyone could answer.
That day,
I learned for the first time
that knowledge was sometimes not meant for progress.
It was meant for survival.
As I grew older,
I learned that children in other countries studied music.
They studied painting.
They studied literature.
But the children of Northveil
studied how to avoid death.
Because this place had never been suitable for living.
It was simply a place where people could survive.
When I was twelve,
the school organized a field trip to a mining area.
For the first time,
we put on proper cold-weather protective suits.
We took a transport capsule out of the underground city
and arrived at the surface.
The moment the hatch opened,
a storm of snow and wind hit us in the face.
I could not even open my eyes.
The temperature was terrifyingly low.
There was nothing but white in the distance.
The sky was white.
The ground was white.
The frozen plain was white.
The entire world seemed frozen.
The teacher stood in the snowstorm
and pointed toward the distant mining area.
She told us
that it was what kept the entire city alive.
If something went wrong at the mining site,
many people would die.
If something went wrong with the energy supply,
even more people would die.
If the pollution spread,
everyone would die.
That day,
I truly understood the words passed down by our ancestors for the first time.
Do not waste anything that can help you survive.
Because survival itself
is a difficult thing.
Later,
I joined the Environmental Management Department
and became a technician.
The work was not glorious.
Every day was simply inspections.
Recording.
Maintenance.
Containment.
Handling abnormal minerals.
Checking pollution reactions.
Confirming equipment status.
Most of the time,
it was painfully monotonous.
I thought I would spend my entire life like that.
Until that facility was discovered.
At first,
it was just an ordinary exploration mission.
An exploration team at a mining site discovered an abnormal structure beneath the permafrost.
There was a metallic reaction underground.
The scale was enormous.
It did not appear to be naturally formed.
The information was sent back to the administrative center.
At first, no one paid much attention.
There were many relics from the Old Era buried beneath Northveil.
Abandoned power stations.
Military bases.
Underground mines.
Discoveries like this happened every year.
But three days later,
everything changed.
The first investigation team lost contact.
Communications were cut off.
Their location signal disappeared.
Then a second investigation team entered.
The first report they sent back contained only one sentence.
"We have discovered a large man-made facility."
That night,
the military entered the mining area.
The entire region was placed under lockdown.
Transport trains ran day and night.
Large numbers of armed personnel arrived at the site.
The Environmental Management Department was placed on standby.
No one knew what had happened.
All we could do was wait.
Until a month later,
when part of the information was declassified.
It was not a relic.
It was a secret experimental facility.
Someone had been conducting illegal research
using the polar environment.
The exact nature of the research remains incomplete to this day.
Many records had been damaged.
Many documents had been destroyed.
But one thing was confirmed.
They had created a source of pollution.
A true source of pollution.
The military spent several months clearing the facility.
The fighting continued without end.
Many people died.
Eventually, the experimental facility was destroyed.
The members of the organization were eliminated.
Everyone thought it was over.
So did I.
But the real problem
had only just begun.
The pollution had not disappeared.
The laboratory could be destroyed.
The equipment could be dismantled.
The researchers could die.
But the pollution could not.
It remained there.
Continuing to spread.
Continuing to erode.
Continuing to alter the surrounding environment.
The initial solution was destruction.
It failed.
The second solution was relocation.
It failed.
The third solution was isolation.
It failed as well.
The pollution kept breaking through every restriction.
Eventually, everyone understood one thing.
It could not be eliminated.
It could only be contained.
And so the containment project began.
Large numbers of technicians were transferred underground.
I was one of them.
I was nineteen that year.
No one thought this would become a lifetime job.
Everyone believed
that the country would find a solution within a few years.
We were only maintaining it temporarily,
waiting for the future to arrive.
The first year passed.
No progress.
The third year passed.
Still no progress.
The fifth year passed.
The pollution was actually becoming stronger.
The containment structure was becoming increasingly complex.
Yet no solution appeared.
The maintenance roster initially had forty-three people.
The underground facility was not quiet.
People conducted inspections every day.
People carried out repairs.
Some complained about having too much work.
Some discussed when it would all end.
Some even made bets on how long the containment would last.
Back then,
everyone believed the future would get better.
Later,
the roster became twenty-eight people.
Some retired.
Some were transferred.
Some died in accidents.
But the facility continued operating.
Later,
the roster became seventeen people.
The project was downgraded.
Funding began to shrink.
A new administrator took office.
Many people did not even know what had happened in the beginning.
Then,
the roster became nine people.
The underground facility began to grow quiet.
Sometimes, I would not see another person for several days.
The corridors contained nothing but the sound of machines running.
The maintenance logs grew thicker and thicker.
While the signatures became fewer and fewer.
Later,
the roster became four people.
That was when I began to realize something was wrong.
Because fewer and fewer people knew the truth.
Once,
I took a maintenance report to the administrative department.
The person in charge was a young official.
He went through the documents.
He looked at them for a long time.
Then he asked me,
"Is this project still operating?"
I froze.
Because I did not know how to answer.
He did not even know this place existed.
He knew nothing about the pollution.
He did not even know that there were still people underground maintaining these things.
When I left the office,
I felt a strange emotion for the first time.
It was not anger.
It was emptiness.
As if something I had devoted years to
had already disappeared from the world.
Later,
my last companion died.
The funeral was simple.
Record the name.
Record the time.
Then it was over.
That was the Northveil way.
As I left the cemetery,
I looked back.
And suddenly,
I realized
there was only one name left on the roster.
My name.
From that day onward,
I was the only person left in the containment zone.
One year.
Two years.
Five years.
Time began to blur.
Every day became a fixed cycle.
Inspection.
Repair.
Reinforcement.
Recording.
Then repeat.
The pollution grew stronger.
The containment grew more fragile.
And I began to change as well.
It started with my arms.
Gray-white patterns appeared across my skin.
The doctor told me I needed to rest.
But there was no one who could replace me.
Later,
the pollution entered my bloodstream.
My body temperature became abnormal.
My senses began to dull.
Then,
my hair started falling out.
My skin gradually crystallized.
The person in the mirror became more and more unfamiliar.
I knew what was happening.
The pollution was consuming me.
But I still could not leave.
Because the containment was still there.
The underground city was still there.
The mining area was still there.
If I left,
all of these things would disappear.
So I continued.
Continued repairing.
Continued reinforcing.
Continued living.
Friends died.
Family members died.
People I knew died.
Fewer and fewer people remembered me.
Eventually, no one came to see me anymore.
Later,
I even forgot what year it was.
I forgot what many people looked like.
I forgot many names.
The only things I never forgot
were the containment.
The pollution.
The work.
I do not know how much time passed.
My body no longer looked human.
My consciousness was becoming increasingly blurred.
Many times,
I did not even know who I was.
I simply continued maintaining it on instinct.
Continued holding on.
Continued supporting it.
Continued waiting.
Waiting for a solution that would never come.
Until one day,
in the darkness,
I suddenly sensed an unfamiliar fluctuation.
It was not pollution.
Nor was it equipment.
It was an ability.
An ability I had never encountered before.
It was touching the containment.
Observing this place.
Trying to understand it.
The consciousness that had been asleep for so long
slowly awakened.
I had forgotten many things.
I had forgotten many people.
But at that moment,
I knew.
Someone had finally come.