Before dying, the psychologist tells the biologist that the border is expanding slowly northward, toward the Southern Reach's facility.Īs the biologist returns to base camp, she has a close encounter with the moaning creature that the team has heard every night in the reeds. Perceiving the biologist as glowing and frightened by her approach, the psychologist screams the word "annihilation" repeatedly in an attempt to induce suicide in the biologist through hypnotic suggestion. Near the base of the lighthouse, she finds the psychologist seriously injured after having jumped from the top. She also finds a photograph of someone she thinks is the lighthouse keeper from 30 years previously, when Area X had been abandoned. One of the journals belongs to her late husband.
She leaves for the lighthouse while the surveyor stays behind.Īt the lighthouse, the biologist finds a large pile of journals from past expeditions, indicating that there have been many more expeditions than they had been told about. The next day, the biologist is conscious of a "brightness" growing within herself, which she attributes to the spores. That night the biologist sees a light from the area of a distant lighthouse. Returning to the top, they find the psychologist missing, and after a fruitless search decide to return to base camp. Eventually, they come upon the body of the anthropologist, who they believe came into fatal contact with the writer of the text on the wall (which the biologist names "the Crawler"). The biologist sees that the tower is made of living tissue, which the surveyer is unable to perceive due to lingering hypnotic suggestion. The group then make their way back to the "tower", where the psychologist stands watch while the surveyor and the biologist descend the stairs. The group decides to return to base camp, and at dusk, they hear a moaning noise from far away.Īfter a night at base camp, the anthropologist is missing the psychologist claims that she decided to leave and returned to the border. By saying the phrase "consolidation of authority", the psychologist hypnotizes all except the biologist, who believes that the spores she has inhaled have made her resistant. After returning from the tower, the biologist discovers that the psychologist, who is the appointed leader, has programmed the group with certain triggers via hypnosis.
While the biologist is examining the writing, she accidentally inhales spores from this material. Inside the structure (which the biologist repeatedly calls a tower), along the staircase, they find cursive writing that begins with the words "Where lies the strangling fruit." The words appear to be written with a plant material growing several inches from the exterior wall. The other members of the 11th expedition had shown up similarly, and a few months later, her husband and all the others had died of cancer.Īfter the first night spent at the base camp, the 12th expedition comes upon a structure containing a set of spiral stairs descending into the ground. It is revealed that the biologist's husband was part of the preceding 11th expedition, from which he had returned unexpectedly, showing up in their kitchen without any recollection of how he got there. The story is told through the biologist's field journal, written near the end of the expedition. The group comprise the 12th expedition into Area X, and consists of a biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a surveyor, none of whom are ever identified by name. Plot summary Ī team of four women (a fifth having abandoned the team before entering) crosses the border into an uninhabited area known as "Area X", an unspecified coastal location that has been closed to the public for three decades. Marks Lighthouse that inspired one of the settings in Annihilation. In March 2014, as part of a piece on VanderMeer and Annihilation, VanderMeer visited the St. He has said that someday he hopes to do a "Weird Nature" anthology as well. Many of the animals and vegetation that VanderMeer has seen on this hike over the past 17 years appear in the novel. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Florida. The inspiration for Annihilation and the Southern Reach Trilogy was a 14-mile (23 km) hike through St.
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