Primordial spark

Super-kamiokande, Japan.

Adachi descended into the underground cavity under the mountain. Slowly but surely he descended on a rope above the corrosively pure water. He held his camera still and slowly panned it around, slowly filming the upgraded detectors. The atmosphere was still and surreal. The air was a bit stale, which was not surprising, considering there were many tons of rock above his head.

As he was floating a few meters above the water, he had a sucking feeling in his stomach that kept on going for a few seconds, then it stopped and the world seemed to come into focus. Like existence had suddenly gained resolution.

Adachi did not feel too surprised, he chalked it up to a spiritual awakening at seeing such a marvel of engineering. Similar too seeing Earth from orbit for the first time.

He proceeded to calmly film the neutrino detectors around him.

When he was raised onto the gangway again, he asked: “Did anyone else feel that?”

Tamaki looked at him oddly: “What do you mean, did you touch the water by accident?”

“No I didn't touch it. That's not what I meant. I just suddenly had a weird feeling.”

“You sure that you're fine?”

“Yea, let's go.”

On the ride home in their company van Tamaki asked him: “So how's your wife doing with her pregnancy?”

“She is constantly hungry and wants to eat odd things, but she's feeling fine. Except in the morning. She gets cranky in the morning.”

“How's your son taking the news that he won't be a lone child for much longer?”

“Well, at first he was surprised and happy, now he's a bit more thoughtful. I think he's considering the implications.”

“Sounds like he's a smart kid, just like you.”

“Oh you char-... What was that!”

“What do you mean?”

“I suddenly had a feeling in my stomach and then my vision became weird.”

A thought came to Adachi: “Try taking off your glasses.”

“That helped, but what happened? Why don't I need glasses anymore?”

“It's probably due to the general weirdness and the stuff happening to the animals. Maybe it's started making the jump to people.”

“We should hurry and talk to the boss.”

“How will telling Arata about this do anything, he'll just call me crazy.”

“No, he won't. I had the same feeling happen to me when you guys were dangling me into the detector. This is something new. Something important.”

They hurried back to the office.

They found Arata talking to three other journalists in the conference room. Adachi opened the door to the sound-isolated room and interrupted them: “Arata, we have a problem!”

“What is it?!” He answered angrily.

“We might've discovered another oddity stemming from the odd animal behavior.”

“That's great, why don't we-... What the hell?”

There were other outbursts ranging from “What the fuck?!”, to “Oh, damn,” from the surrounding people in the office.

“I think we have a problem.” Adachi said.

“Yeah. We sure do.”