Healon

Healon, Candidate of X

Guardian of The Wild Creator of Theory: Healon’s Game Healon’s GLYPTIC is: The EverWatch [永守恒望 ·영수항망]

Background Healon, Candidate of X, first comes into the lives of Ea, Nyeve, and Shone as a rescued victim of kidnapping. Healon dismisses the cases in court against her kidnapper, a presumed serial killer and physician who takes his victims out into The Wild. The kidnapper did not return to The City with Healon as his last victim, and in combination with Healon refusing to press any charges, it was widely assumed that Healon had killed her kidnapper and returned to The City in an attempt to save herself.

After Nyeve goes missing, Ea searches through all news records to find that there have been no kidnappings for almost one and a half years. With the exceedingly high crime rate in The Pinnacle of Man-Kings, she puts all hope of finding Nyeve on one person: Healon, the last recorded kidnapping victim in history.

Healon, Candidate of X & Ea, Candidate of Airson

Ea locates Healon and tries to visit for any clues that can help find Nyeve. Finally, after the assistance of Healon’s mother, the three meet. Healon at first is cold to Ea and knows Nyeve cannot have gone through the same thing she has. Ea cannot understand why Healon can be so sure even when Healon does not know anything about Nyeve. Healon also does not express a strong interest in the case of Nyeve; however, she leaves Ea with the remark that is Nyeve is anywhere in The Wild, Healon herself will go out to find Nyeve for Ea.

“I will do it personally. Walk out there into the cancerous wild for you. In case, she [Nyeve] is the one I have been waiting for…” - Healon, Candidate of X

The Wild: Backstory The world of Ea is split into three: Yemog, The Pinnacle of Man-Kings, and The Wild. Aside from the metaphysical Yemog, The Pinnacle of Man-Kings, which is a hyper-conglomerate of skyscrapers housing all of humanity, was constructed as a direct response to the rise of The Wild.

The Wild is the result of a highly infectious case of CTVT, the only form of cancer that can transmit via touch known to mankind. Although CTVT primarily affects canines, the first case of canine-to-human transmission became an uncontrolled pandemic which killed close to forty percent of the population. Population-wide hysteria and mistreatment of victim’s bodies resulted in many samples of CTVT being found near the edge of Ea’s world. There, the CTVT continued to thrive, eventually crossing the animal-plant barrier to infest various forms of flora and fauna. Routine extermination by fire proved to be ineffective, with many frontline occupations no longer wishing to risk contact with CTVT.

Elronde (non-candidate), rises to power with his solution for mega-skyscrapers to house humanity. Over four hundred nations converged in the growing conglomerate of skyscrapers, later named as The Pinnacle of Man-Kings, or simply The City, which occupies less than 1 percent of the original landmass of Ea’s world. The rest of the world is overtaken by CTVT cells, thriving in The Wild. Humanity controls CTVT by uniting efforts to maintain one common boundary between The City and The Wild, as well as aggressive quarantine which keeps death rates at 0.1% of the population per year.

“I see it now, rising in the deep. It is like an atom....the nucleus is so dense, you would not believe it.” - the Unnamed Little One, candidate of X

The Kidnapping of Healon

Healon willingly followed her supposed kidnapper, a physician named Akroe, into The Wild. The physician used his charm, appearance, and grand wish of saving mankind to lure many women into his mission. The physician secretly infected various single women with samples of CTVT. When the CTVT begins to show any form of spreading, he comes into their lives to save them via treatment - at early stages, as CTVT is primarily skin-based, only minor surgery is required as effective treatment.

However, once every so often, he will encounter women that have resisted multiple attempts of CTVT infection. He courts these women, and takes them into The Wild to live with him.

“If she is the One....then the Wild will definitely accept her.” - Akroe the Physician

Akroe, being unable to save multiple of his patients through CTVT, dedicated his life to CTVT research. After losing many of his research colleagues to CTVT as well due to transmission in the lab, Akroe makes the discovery that he is unable to infect himself with any CTVT strain known to mankind.

“Either I am completely immune or I am not - what is it within me that saves me? Can anything ever be truly immune though, to a specimen that ever evolves, and is not one but one million different things?” - Akroe the Physician

Attempting to ensure his complete immunity to CTVT, Akroe secretly crosses the boundaries to set up a living space in The Wild. After nearly one year of surviving in The Wild without being infected, he begins his second mission to find his partner: the other immune female specimen that will give rise to a new humanity.

His repeated attempts to infect many women in The City has resulted in a number of promising females who show immunity to CTVT. A total of 23 females lived with Akroe in The Wild over his lifetime; 4 dedicated their lives to researching in The Wild. Out of the 4, none survived aside from the last one, Healon.

Healon’s Return to the City

Akroe’s quest ends with Healon as his last kidnapping when Akroe develops CTVT. Instead of returning to The City for treatment, Healon tearfully watches a defeated Akroe die as he insists on letting nature run its course.

“I am not the one, Healon. Don’t worry, you never have to cry Healon. You still have a chance.” - Akroe the Physician

2 months after Akroe’s passing, perhaps due to her manic attempts to experiment all strains of CTVT on herself, Healon develops CTVT. She returns to The City, much to her mother’s relief, as a cancer patient. Healon remains in remission when she meets Ea. And, knowing what she knows about The Wild, she remains its guardian for the rest of her life.

The Council of The Five

Akroe and the Four Women make various discoveries about the nature of The Wild, which eventually unlocks Healon’s GLYPTIC: The EverWatch

The Archive of Lanmis Lanmis was the first woman to stay in The Wild with Akroe. Lanmis hypothesized that these cancer cells which are able to exist outside of a host must derive nutrients from other sources, and that the different strains should exist in a competitive, or even predator-prey relationship. Over the course of her life, she documented over ten-thousand strains and constructed a complex food web, resulting in a document Akroe named Archive of Lanmis after her death. The document is one of humanity’s earliest attempts to use cell types to suppress other cell types, utilizing natural competition as a way towards a cure.

“Did we ever think that they worked together as one tumor? No. Each cell only have its own survival in mind, whatever it takes, even killing their own kind. I wish I will never be that way. ” - Lanmis

The Club of Santhia Santhia was the second woman to stay after Lanmis, who did not live until the arrival of Santhia. Santhia realized that Lanmis’ research had to be refined, as cells unfortunately behaved differently in The Wild versus on a human host. She described it as the difference between killing a fish stranded on a beach versus killing a fish in deep waters, and knew that human experiments based on Lanmis’ Archives must be completed for Lanmis’ work to have value. As a knitting hobbyist, Santhia was able to use her network to recruit people who would help them - as Akroe and herself were immune to most strains. The knitting club met, let their skins be infected, then treated with a competitive strain documented by Lanmis. The club lasted only a little over one year.

“It is the sin of cancer to only treat us as their environment...they don’t see us as a living being. We are just their container. Maybe this is humanity too, when we see nature?” - Santhia

The Elixir of Akroe Akroe, unlike what most people assumed about him, was not only interested in finding a wife so he could give birth to children that are immune to CTVT. As a physician, very early on into the plan, he had realized that even if a woman with immunity is found, not 100% of their offspring will inherit the immunity.

“And which child do I give up? Same question as our world right now...0.1% death rate from CTVT is low, but it is someone, and which someone do we give up on treating?” - Akroe

Akroe’s research ran parallel to Lanmis and Santhia; he focused on a developing The Elixir, a virus that could inject the apoptosis sequence back into CTVT. Apoptosis, or the programmed suicide that a cell executes when it accumulates too many DNA replication errors, is a function that CTVT lacks just like other cancer cells. Akroe knew that the masses of cancer cells in The Wild are not just enemies: every single cell in The Wild originated as a healthy, normal cell in a dog, a plant, a mother, a father, a child. Yet over repeated DNA errors, these cells have lost the apoptosis command, and in place of apoptosis, the command (or Zeata) of “priotizing one’s survival over everything else” becomes the only focus of the cell.

“Apoptosis is what stops the cells between our fingers from growing so they are not connected. It is what draws our face, our smiles. As a multi-celled organism, apoptosis makes us who we are, and without it, we are just a featureless conglomerate tumor….These cancer cells have a quest for eternal life...and like us, that quest ends up looking ugly when we strive for a better life at the sacrifice of other people.” - Akroe

The Game of Healon The game of Healon was developed when Healon discovered an area in the wild where strains reach stability, and the same strains of cancer cells can replicate to form colonies the sizes of small hills. Healon cultivated predator-cell types based on the research of Lanmis and Santhia in large amounts to drop onto these hills of cancer cells - to her amusement, the hill-sized colonies were able to split into smaller colonies in response.

Healon quickly realized that this was the advantage of cancer cells: cancer cells do not respect being in a multi-cellular organism. They can form tumors/colonies if they wish to, but for survival, they can easily revert back to a single-celled organism.

Healon realized that single-celled organisms have an ultimate advantage as they cannot get cancer. When a multi-celled organism mutates, the new mutated cells must be compatible with the entire organism - or else the new mutated cells will overtake the rest, and kill off the larger multi-celled organism. However, when a single-celled organism mutates, there is no danger of incompatibility: there is no larger multi-celled organism for it to kill. It simply is the new, stronger version of its previous self, and therefore a single-celled organism can never get cancer.

“For a 2-celled organism, when one cell mutates, it must be compatible with one more cell For a 3-celled organism, when one mutates, it must be compatible with two more cells Human beings...we have trillions of cells. When one mutates, what are the chances the other trillions will be compatible with the new one? Mutation to a single-celled organism is gaining superpowers The same mutation to a multi-celled organism is cancer. ” - Healon

Healon’s GLYPTIC: The EverWatch [永守恒望 ·영수항망]
Due to the nature of single-celled organisms not having to worry about incompatibility between different cells after mutation, this results in immortality in the face of cancer. Multi-celled organisms, on the other hand, face risk of cancer after mutation - and yet mutation is supposed to be the only driving force that caused single-celled organisms to become into multi-celled organisms. In other words, through mutation, single-celled organisms evolved into a form that is more at risk of dying to mutations.

“Single-celled organisms never have to worry about getting cancer after a mutation. If survival of the fittest is the only rule in nature, we should all be single-celled organisms. What gave rise to us? What gave us a chance?”

Whatever it is, one’s own selfish survival cannot be the only rule. What an ugly world that would be. Whatever it is, we are under its overwatch and care. Thank you, for giving us a chance in history.” Healon, Candidate of X