Welcome to Blighton - The Survival Guidebook

Section 23: Rapid Aging

This portion serves as documentation for an occurrence that has repeatedly manifested within Blighton's department store of Lannon Gallery. It specifically appears inside one of the many shops located within the building, though which store is affected changes on a daily basis.

Any living organism entering an active instance of the anomaly will experience a rapid increase of cellular decay, causing their body to age at a significantly hastened rate.
The exact acceleration of the aging process can vary marginally, depending on the scope of the affected location. A large store section causes a slower advancement, while a shop of smaller size results in a slightly faster progression.
Regardless of this minor difference, as a general rule, we were able to calculate that one minute inside the anomaly is equivalent to about 52 hours of lifespan lost.

This effect only applies to organic matter and does not cause any damage to structures or objects present within the area. For humans, the drastically sped up aging is detrimental to physical health as well as mental fitness and cognitive abilities. The changes afflicted upon a subjected individual are permanent and irreversible.
If a person is exposed to its influence for long enough, this occurrence is capable of culminating in their death, induced by various common factors of old age, such as organ failure, cancer, or Alzheimer's.

Keeping track of the anomaly was a very difficult task during its initial discovery, given its behavior of repeated relocation.
With over 80 individual shops present within Lannon Gallery, it has taken longer than we would have liked to finally get a decent understanding of what caused the unnatural incidents at the department store.

Nowadays it is much easier to locate the anomaly, thanks to a routine we established among almost all store owners. As it was certainly impossible to arrange for the closing of Lannon Gallery or to stop citizens from entering the building, we had to come up with other means of protecting the population.

Shortly after we got a grasp at how the occurrence operates, we stepped into contact with the store owners and discussed a strategy to reliably identify every new manifestation immediately.
The method we developed works by placing a standard houseplant in every store, before closing up at the end of the day.
The plant must be arranged in a way so that it is clearly visible from the outside. When coming back the next morning, the plant must be examined through a window, in order to check for any signs of the anomaly.
If the plant looks the same as the night before, a manifestation in that specific store can be ruled out. Should it have withered away and be devoid of any life, the occurrence's location for the day has been found.

The store owner of the affected shop will keep the doors locked and make sure that no one will be able to enter the area. They will then communicate the anomaly's whereabouts to the rest of the department store, via a corresponding network between all store owners, specifically created for this reason.
This practice benefits everyone by ensuring a safe environment for the owners, their employees and the customers.

In addition to being an easy means of tracking the occurrence's movements, it also allows us to be notified, should it ever come to a concurrent appearance of two or more instances. At the moment, this system is utilized to observe repeating cycles, for the purpose of creating a reliable pattern, which will aid us in predicting future manifestations.

Some of the store owners have come together to join a voluntary agreement, in which every unaffected shop will share a small percentage of its daily income with the owner that had to close that day, to compensate for their losses. This insurance deal between the shops was not part of our initial discussions and has been arranged by the people themselves.

We are very delighted to find such camaraderie among a group of people that would, under normal circumstances, see each other as nothing more than competitors. These men and women serve as a golden example of what every Blighton citizen should aspire to become.

In case you should end up working in one of the stores in Lannon Gallery, refer to your supervisors for more details regarding this occurrence and how to handle it.
It should go without saying, but please be mindful of opening and closing hours and do not enter any restricted areas within the department store. They might be closed for a very good reason.