Strange Innocence

Entry 1, July 14 20-

My name is Ramona O'Casey. This journal I now write my every thought into is my testimony. May it act as my witness for the events that have unfolded here, and prove my innocence should technology fail me. I write this down quickly, and this may end up being one of the last things I will write. I have taken great care to attempt to record the physical evidence. As much as I can without risking my own life. My doom looms before me ominously, if not by this ungodly hand, then perhaps through starvation, or being damned in the courts. But so long as I live and breathe I shall fight to stay that way.

I hide now in the dark. All I have now is this lamp I write beside to act as my eyes in this place. I don't know what lab equipment has been destroyed, but I hope the generators have at least been spared so that I may not worry about the unforgiving chill of the world outside seeping in. Hypothermia is something I wish to avoid if it can be helped, though such a fate might be nicer than what has befallen my colleagues.

It started two weeks into this expedition. I had gone on with Doctor Auerbach in a research program attempting to test the pH levels of the ocean up in the north pole. He was a renowned environmental biologist, whose study on the acidification of the oceans was vital to helping combat climate change. He had been my main system of support and encouraged me to pursue this research program with him, even though I would be giving up my entire summer for an ungodly cold winter in exchange. I was hoping that I could put it on applications to graduate school and be able to pursue a higher degree of education. Now I think those dreams may very well be destroyed. The circumstances I now find myself in gives me a reason to believe that should I come out of this alive, everyone will think of me as a brutal murderer. During our expeditions to explore different parts of this arctic, I had stumbled across something unusual in a melting glacier. A large fur shape had slipped through a piece of the ice. I had run off when I caught a glance of it, my curiosity eager to get a glance at the wildlife that resided here. The closer I approached however, I realized that the fur I had spotted was not a creature, but rather a piece of a coat sticking through the ice. Doctor Auerbach had caught up with me and opened his mouth to give me perhaps a lecture upon the dangers of running off in such a climate as this. His objections were quickly forgotten as he now glanced upon my discovery. We sat there in silence for a few moments before I began to speak.

"I thought that nobody lived up here in the North Pole."

"Perhaps it is some ancient piece of clothing preserved under the ice for thousands of years when this place wasn't nearly as cold, humans could have very well wandered these areas in the past." He crouched down to get a closer look at the coat. Slowly he reached his hand out and brushed the material gently with his gloved fingers.

"And you're sure about that?"

"Well- I'm no anthropologist but it certainly could be possible."

"Should we go back and get some of the others then?" I asked.

"I say we get the others when we know what exactly we are looking at," he replied.

I nodded and crouched down to be at the same level as him and reached my hand forward with much less tact and grace than he. I gave the coat a gentle shove and to my surprise felt something solid under the coat. I pulled my hand away in shock and looked to my professor. He gave me a disapproving frown at my handling of the object before us, but it quickly morphed into concern upon seeing my shocked expression.

"What? Are you alright?"

"It's solid underneath."

"Ramona that could easily be the ice. You look like you saw a ghost when you touched it."

"But Doctor Auerbach this- this didn't feel like ice."

He gave me a look of doubt but reached forward and gave the lump the same treatment I had a few moments before. His brows furrowed as he frowned and now rubbed his chin.