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Episode 1 – The Polar Bear

Headless polar bears—that’s the best way to describe them.
Or walking ghost mushrooms… covered in fur.
Fur is the mark of beasts. That’s what makes this so hard to explain.
I bet they find their own hairiness just as troublesome.

That’s why they can barely walk.
Each tiny step is deliberate, calculated.
Even the soles of their feet must be fur-covered.
With every movement, the surface ripples—forward, back.
Remnants of limbs.
The head is buried under hair.

Let me say it again: it’s that much hair.
And yet—they are not animals.
Not if we draw the line between animal and human.

I called them polar bears, of course, because they’re white.
But also because, for all their beastliness, they don’t feel violent.
Wild bears aren’t to be underestimated—I know that.
Up in the highlands around Wyenhadaar, even leopards play with baby goats, they say.
But at the foot of the mountains, divine presence thins out. Wild bears are not to be trifled with. Never were.

polar bears, though? Blame picture books.
We’re conditioned to find them lovable, clumsy.
Anthropomorphic animals usually walk on two legs—hence, the polar bear.
But these don’t waddle—they glide.
Massive. Hairy. Adorable.

Three headless polar bears.
They move quietly, gracefully.
Never bumping into one another.
Which means—despite all that fur—they must be perceiving one another somehow.

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Through the thick pane of glass—
or rather, using that minimal separation as an excuse—
Engineer Manavie stared, captivated, at the headless polar bears.

“I’m fine calling them Yetis,” said Eyear from behind,
chewing a banana in his mouth, dressed in a fuzzy parka with the hood up.
Red curls clung to his greasy forehead, his skin slick with sweat and sebum, and scabbed-over pimples dotted his face like freckles.

Manavie turned around.
“They look like Yetis, sure—but they’re not. They’re something else.”

His face, in a word, was ageless.
Despite his sharp eyes, he was hard to read.
He barely blinked. His irises were jet black, pupils perpetually dilated.
His original hair was black, now streaked with white like careless brush strokes.
His skin retained some youthful tension, but his sunken eyes and gaunt cheeks screamed chronic sleep deprivation.

“What I’m saying is—we need a name for them as an entirely new life form.”

The soft glow from the glass wall made his complexion look even more ghostly.
His voice, naturally assertive, now edged on neurotic.

“Ow! Hangnail—damn it.”

A muttered curse cut him off. Quizqi, the ecologist,
plucked at a bleeding finger while glancing down, clearly eager to change the topic.

“Ghost mushrooms… maybe?”

Her blond hair had once been trimmed into a stylish one-length bob—proof she cared about appearances. At least enough to go to a salon.

But now, it was matted with bedhead, dulled by days of grease and unwashed sebum.

Naming didn’t interest her. Nor the others.
Manavie felt the urge to snap them out of it.

“Mushrooms have big heads! These don’t have heads! That’s the point!”

Sleep deprivation had fried his brain. His voice rose unnecessarily.

“Jeez, loud much?”

Eyear’s round shoulders flinched.

Quizqi perched on a desk, brought a half-drunk mug of coffee to her lips, and muttered into the hollow inside,
“Why bother naming them at all?”

Manavie didn’t miss a beat.

“Naming matters! — ‘In the beginning was the Word’! Gospel of John, chapter one, verse one!
Even Adam, the moment he was created, was tasked with naming all the animals! Genesis two, verse twenty!”

Quizqi slurped her coffee noisily, drowning him out.

Eyear replied in his usual mellow tone:
“But… are they even animals?”

The half-eaten banana in his right hand pointed toward the massive, headless polar bears slowly circling inside the central chamber..

“They’re not. Not animals. Not even human anymore.”

Manavie turned back to them.
No matter how hard he squinted, the dense white fur revealed nothing.
He adjusted his angle again and again, hoping for a bald spot—
only to get hypnotized by the sheer volume of shifting fur.

They were inside the underground control room of a cylindrical tower.
The tower itself was hollow, and the headless polar bears occupied its central chamber.
Only a single pane of glass separated them.

Pale light trickled down from ducts high above, diffusing softly into the sealed white chamber,
casting a painterly glow over the entire scene.
It looked like an exhibit in a museum. They were moving, but time itself seemed frozen within.

Manavie was completely absorbed—pressing himself to the glass like a fly.
Quizqi snorted.

“Creepy,” she muttered, then returned to her desk.

“Manavieee~ should we get the pulley system ready?”

Even when she called out, he didn’t budge.

“Before the director gets back… Manavie?”

Finally, he tore himself away from the glass and turned to face her.
“Sorry, the fluff distracted me.”

Quizqi and Eyear returned his look with blank stares.

“I was just wondering what’s inside them, y’know?”

He sensed he might be coming off as someone satisfied with mere surface-level fascination,
so he hurried to explain himself.

Quizqi didn’t even pretend to hide her disinterest.
She scratched her head and dug dried flakes out from under her nails.

“You mean… inside the fur?”
“Yeah…”Just then, behind Manavie—
from the other side of the glass—
came the sound of something large and glass-like shattering violently.