Jul 11, 2020 by Andrew Walbrown

Journal Entry
11th of May 1899

Varmthaven. It means "warm garden" in the Norse tongue, or so I have been told. That is the name of this last village at the southern tip of the continent, which is no more than a few hastily-built structures, a makeshift market, and a surprisingly robust harbor. It is a joke, of course, to name such a place after anything warm. However, that keeps in with the Norse tradition of naming things the opposite of what they are. Immediately Greenland and Iceland come to mind, and I am sure if I had a detailed map of Scandinavia, as well as a translator, I would find many more such examples.

I say this place is the last village on the continent, but I would argue it very well could be the last village on Earth, or on a different planet altogether. I do not know much about the other planets in our universe, but as I look around, it would be difficult to distinguish if this was our Mother Planet or far off Neptune. If I did not have a clear memory of the events leading to my current location, I perhaps could be convinced that I had been magically transported across the galaxy.

In every direction I look, I only see hills and low-lying mountains, snowcapped like vanilla frosting on a chocolate cake. How I yearn for luxuries such as cake, unfortunately, I highly doubt I will find such delicacies. In fact, I highly doubt I will find any delicacies, and if I do, they will most likely be repulsive to someone with a palate such as mine. Not that I have such refined tastes, but I am sure these hardy denizens put more value in survival than pleasure. If they did not, Varmthaven most likely would be a town inhabited by only ghosts and seabirds. 

I walked around Varmthaven today for quite some time in an attempt to remember how to walk on solid ground. I knew after spending so much time aboard a ship that I would need time for my legs to be reacclimated to a surface that does not sway from side to side, but I did not quite realize how difficult it would be initially. I can only imagine how I must have appeared to the locals, though in this part of the world inebriation is quite common. Once my legs finally found their way, I managed to wander into the only tavern in Varmthaven, where I found something I was not quite expecting.

It is not uncommon for taverns, bars, and pubs to have the skull of a large bear, deer, or others displayed for all to see. It is a sort of trophy, especially on the frontier, to show all who enter the hunting prowess of the person who brought down the animal. Until the moment I walked into the only tavern in Varmthaven, the oddest creation I had ever seen was in a bar in Kansas, where the owner had a hare with antlers on its head serving as the main piece of decoration. Do such animals exist? Perhaps, as such creatures have appeared in folklore throughout Mesoamerica. But I have my doubts since I spent two years in the plains of the United States and found no evidence supporting the existence of such an animal.

But those horned rodents are nothing compared to the abomination I witnessed today. I do not know who stitched the beast together, but some morbidly creative individual combined a bear's head with what appeared to be the body of some large bird. After asking around, eventually one of the few English speakers in Varmthaven explained to me that was an "artistic recreation of a Xakki." A Xakki! I nearly laughed aloud but was able to keep my composure, simply because the man's expression was far from whimsical.

I am not entirely sure what part I found most absurd. Did this person, and the community as a whole, actually see art in this most twisted taxidermy? Or, for my sake, am I chasing after an animal that does not even exist? Will this expedition to the southernmost regions of the Earth be the death of me, all because of the demented imagination of lonely seafarers?

Quite possibly the most disturbing scenario, however, is the one that seems the farthest from the truth: the Xakki is real, and this is an accurate representation of what it looks like. And if that is so, and its voracious appetite is true as well, then the extreme temperatures of the Antarctic are the least of my worries.


 

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