Forewarning: For those who wish to enter No Man's Land, we highly advise against it. Not only is it highly dangerous and volatile, but you also risk the possibility of manifesting as an EOS (Embodiment of Suffering) upon death. This document is for archiving purposes only.
Description
No Man's Land is the current applicable name for a small to a medium plot of land within the Ardennes Forest of France. This plot is usually around 200-500 cubic meters. While No Man's Land is typically localized within a clearing, it has been observed in wooded areas as well. It can be recognized at a distance from the sounds of echoing screams, gunshots, artillery fire, and general sounds of war.
Upon approaching No Man's Land, dense, sickly fog can be observed with the outside border of mud being barely visible. This fog has been given the name the Screaming Fog. When being observed, some sort of terror or instinct sets in, petrifying those who stand too near. Artillery shells can be seen arching over the roof of the fog, leaving an increasing amount behind them.
No Man's Land is the manifestation of the suffering endured during war. Some say that No Man's Land is the cause of uneasiness felt where great battles were held, when the air gets heavy on your skin and your thoughts are sent into a spiral of imagining into what horrors they felt.
The Screaming Fog
The name granted upon this thick fog was not granted lightly. When one enters, the sounds of terror fill their ears, akin to the screams of those damned to the depths of the underworld. These are not shouts of triumph or war cries, no, these are primal, the instinct to make noise as you brutalize those who stand in your way. The only noise capable of suppressing these deathly howls is the whizzing of bullets and clapping booms of explosives near and far.
The Screaming Fog has been chemically analyzed and is made of many toxic materials, including but not limited to: Mustard Gas, Carbon Dioxide and Monoxide, and Gunpowder particulates. The smell is a brave mixture of decomposition, rust, and exhaust. This seeping fog will pool in your lungs, leaving you hacking and coughing on the ground in a desperate grasp for air. Before you can even encounter the source of the screams, you will be incapacitated on the ground, lying in the mud.
Furthermore, The Screaming Fog emits radio waves consisting of old recordings of radio operators. The waves never leave the Ardennes but can be picked up as soon as one enters. These recordings are often choppy and interrupted with ear-piercing screeching.
The Grasping Mud
This name was granted upon the deep mud of No Man's Land, a half-solid half-liquid mixture of blood, dirt, and water. The sunken bodies of the fallen grasp at you from the inky black depths, trying to pull you below. The half-buried barbed wire will wrap around your ankles and trip you, sending you plummeting towards the goo-like mud. Patches of the Grasping Mud are softer than even that which has sunken the corpses of soldiers, struggling within them will only force you deeper into the sludge pulling at you.
The Trenches
fig 1.0 A picture taken from within the Trenches.
The deep pits within No Man's Land, these deep pits are void of any dangers besides the lurking fog that kills you with each breath. The Trenches are eerily silent, feeling as if you are outside of No Man's Land once again. The EOS occupy their time above ground and stay away from The Trenches.
In the Trenches, the screams are mute, feeling far away; the mud is shallow with large wood planks resting over it. Though it may feel blissful in the chaotic environment of No Man's Land, it is not a good idea to stay here. The screams will return eventually and as if making up for their absence, louder than before. The fog, though it feels unnoticeable here, still falls into your lungs, crawling into your body.
EOS (Embodiments of Suffering)
EOS is the designation for the creatures that populate No Man's Land. Their bodies once full of flesh and blood now tattered, broken, and rotting. The bodies of the fallen still live on as a testament to the suffering undergone in war. These corpses charge blindly into all that stand in their way. Some in uncanny silence, their bodies rotten to the bone, others in a shrieking howl, with flesh and blood. They are Caught in an everlasting battle, unable to achieve victory over one another.
These creatures will continue living for as long as the original bodies' suffering is prolonged. Once an EOS is absent of pain, they will fade into the fog surrounding them. It is theorized that becoming an EOS traps your consciousness within the body, unable to control it.
Translocation
Every year on July 14th, also known as Bastille Day, No Man's Land will slowly transport all of the souls, mud, fog, and remnants elsewhere in the Ardennes Forest. For this reason, archivists have kept a close eye on the location of No Man's Land as it can appear almost anywhere within the large forest.
It is disputed if No Man's Land is exclusive to the Ardennes, some say that during great translocation periods, it is located in other areas like Japan or Russia.
Origin
Reportedly, it appeared in the Ardennes Forest around 1940 after a great battle during World War I, though it has existed for far longer, transporting itself around the world wherever great blood is shed in war. It is proposed that the tormented souls trapped within No Man's Land may have been there for millennia.
1200s - 1850s | Mongolian Conquest - Taiping Revolution
Scriptures from all around Eurasia state that the savagery and blood-lust of the Mongolian Horde were so plentiful that it still lingers centuries after. That one could still see the spirits of the Khans fighting onward past death. They would perform rituals and sacrifices to the fog to rid it of their lands. One village on the Steppe would perform an annual festival to "appease" the fog.
Different from other iterations of No Man's Land, this iteration was not near as constant and would appear bi-yearly or even yearly on some occasions. They would typically fade after a week or even a day in some reported cases.
These reports went on until the Taiping Revolution.
1850s - 1914 | Taiping Revolution - World War I and II
Around this time, small newspapers began describing No Man's Land once again during the fall of Taiping. Newspapers describing this iteration of the threshold describe it as more akin to chaos rather than coordinated fighting. Other newspapers state that fog would wash over the cities enveloped in revolution, taking the souls of the dead into the afterlife.
These ceased once Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated, seeming to predict the eventual Great War.
1914 - present | World War I and II
This iteration of No Man's Land has not been documented much outside of hearsay and one or two small newspapers. This iteration appeared to combine the two World Wars into one iteration, making the currently known version of the threshold.
It is unknown when this version will fade away and be reborn, but it will most likely be soon.