Aria – Nascent Archeologist
Aria’s Diary: Excavating the Drowned City
Personal Journal of Aria Chen, Nascent Archaeologist
Ang City Archaeological Survey – Post-Storm Recovery Division
Entry 47: March 15, 2098
Location: Lower Foundations, Grid Sector 7 (Pre-Storm Coastline)
They say archaeology is about studying the distant past. But here in Ang City, the past is only seventy years old, and it’s buried under thirty meters of sediment, floodwater debris, and the foundations of our vertical metropolis.
Today we broke through to the old coastal district—what used to be the waterfront before the Great Storm of 2027 changed everything. My hands are still shaking as I write this. Not from the cold of the flooded tunnels, but from what we found.
The Storm That Reshaped Everything
My grandmother tells stories about the Great Storm. She was fifteen when it hit, living in what was then called “Seaside Commons”—a thriving neighborhood of shops, restaurants, and modest homes where working families could still afford to live near the water. She said you could hear the ocean from your window at night, that the sound was peaceful, comforting.
Then the storm came. Not a hurricane exactly, but a convergence—three major weather systems colliding, supercharged by warming oceans, amplified by already-rising seas. The meteorologists had warned it would be bad. They had no idea how bad.
Grandmother said the water came in three waves. The first was waist-high, rushing through streets, forcing evacuations. People thought that was it—scary but survivable. The second wave was twice as tall, demolishing ground-level structures, trapping thousands on upper floors. By the time the third wave hit, it was a wall of water six meters high, carrying debris, vehicles, entire buildings torn from foundations.
Fifteen thousand people died in three hours. Fifty thousand more were missing, presumed dead. The entire coastal district—thirty square kilometers—was obliterated.
That was the moment everything changed. That was when Ang City stopped building outward and started building up.
What We’re Finding Beneath
Today’s excavation site is what used to be Rivera Street, a commercial corridor my grandmother remembers shopping on. It’s now forty meters below the Lower Grinds, in the flooded substructure that became Ang City’s foundation.
We’ve been pumping water from this section for three months. The Conclaves initially opposed the dig—”Why excavate what’s gone? Focus on the future, not the drowned past.” But historians and descendants like me fought for this. We need to remember what was lost. We need to recover what remains.
The artifacts we’re finding are heartbreaking in their mundanity:
Personal Items:
- A child’s backpack, contents still partially preserved in vacuum-sealed plastic
- Waterlogged family photo albums, faces blurred but love still visible
- A smartphone in a waterproof case, battery long dead, final photos showing the approaching water
- Wedding rings, still in the jewelry store display case that sank intact
- Restaurant menus sealed in protective folders, advertising meals no one will eat again
- Car keys on hooks, labeled with apartment numbers that no longer exist
The Market District: We excavated what was once a farmer’s market. The organic material is long decayed, but the infrastructure remains—vendor stalls, price signs, even a preserved chalkboard listing “Daily Specials” from March 14, 2027. The handwriting is cheerful, optimistic. They had no idea they had one day left.
Among the debris, we found hundreds of reusable shopping bags. In 2027, people were trying to be environmentally conscious, bringing their own bags, reducing plastic. They were trying to save the planet that was already killing them.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
The Library: My Most Important Find
But today’s discovery surpassed everything. We broke through to what appears to be a public library—the Seaside Branch, according to the corroded sign we recovered.
Libraries are built to last. The structure held, even underwater. We entered through what was once the front entrance, now approached through flooded tunnels, and inside… inside is a time capsule.
Water-damaged but partially intact: thousands of books. Physical books—rare enough in 2098 that most people under thirty have never held one. The paper has suffered, many volumes destroyed, but some sections remained sealed in waterproof storage during the storm evacuation.
We’re carefully extracting what we can. Fiction, history, science, children’s books. I pulled out a volume called “The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World” published in 2019. The author warned about exactly what happened. They knew. We knew. We built the coastal cities anyway.
But the most significant find isn’t the books. It’s the archives.
The library had a local history section—documents, photographs, newspapers, personal diaries donated by residents. Preserved in archival boxes, many survived. We’re finding first-person accounts of Ang City’s early development, oral histories from the first climate refugees who arrived in the 2030s, photographs of the city as it was.
One diary particularly struck me. Written by a woman named Sarah Torres, dated 2025-2026, documenting her decision to move her family to higher ground. She wrote:
“Everyone thinks I’m paranoid. They say the sea walls will hold. They say we’re overreacting. But I can’t shake this feeling—the water is coming, and we’re not ready. I’m moving my children to the plateau. Let them think I’m crazy. At least my children will be dry.”
Sarah Torres survived. Her neighbors, the ones who stayed, didn’t.
The Vertical City’s Foundation
What strikes me most about this excavation is realizing that Ang City—this towering vertical metropolis, this marvel of human engineering—is literally built on top of tragedy.
The drowned districts weren’t cleared. They were buried. When the Great Migration brought billions to habitable zones and Ang City needed to expand rapidly, there was no time for proper recovery. They pumped out what water they could, stabilized the ruins, and started building upward.
The foundations of Golden Ghetto, Water’s Edge, CliffsTop—all of it rests on the drowned homes of the old coastal district. The people who live in those pristine towers fifteen kilometers up have no idea they’re standing on a graveyard.
Or maybe they know and don’t care. The dead don’t pay rent.
Why This Matters
My supervisor, Dr. Kamara, asked me today why I’m so passionate about this dig. “Aria, why does this matter? These people are gone. Their world is gone. We can’t change what happened.”
I told her: “Because forgetting is how we repeat it.”
The Great Storm wasn’t a natural disaster—it was a choice. We chose to keep building on vulnerable coastlines. We chose to ignore the warnings. We chose profit over precaution. And fifteen thousand people in this city alone paid the price.
Now, in 2098, we’ve made new choices. We built vertically to escape the water. We gave corporations control because governments failed during the crisis. We accepted surveillance because we needed order. We created the Conclaves because democracy felt too slow when disaster kept coming.
Every choice seemed rational in the moment. Every choice was framed as survival.
But standing here in the drowned library, reading the diary of a woman who saw it coming, I wonder: How many of our current “rational choices” will future archaeologists excavate from ruins, wondering why we didn’t do things differently?
Personal Reflection
I became an archaeologist to study ancient civilizations—Rome, Egypt, Mesopotamia. I wanted to understand how great societies rose and fell. I never expected to be excavating my own grandmother’s world.
She’s coming to the dig site next week. She wants to see Rivera Street again, even drowned and ruined. She wants to show me where she bought her first bicycle, where she had her first kiss, where she worked her first job.
All of it underwater. All of it buried beneath the city of the future.
I asked her if she’s angry—that the place she loved was abandoned, built over, forgotten. She was quiet for a long time, then said:
“I’m angry we didn’t leave sooner. I’m angry we thought we could negotiate with rising tides. I’m angry at the politicians who promised the sea walls would hold. But I’m not angry at the city for building upward. They did what they had to do. We all did.”
Then she added: “But I’m glad you’re digging. Someone should remember. Someone should know what was lost.”
The Artifact That Haunts Me
Among today’s finds, one item won’t leave my mind. In the children’s section of the library, we found a book called “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss, published in 1971. It’s a children’s story about environmental destruction, about speaking for the trees, about the cost of unchecked industry.
The book is over a century old. The warnings it contained are older than my grandparents.
We’ve been telling ourselves these stories for generations. We’ve known for so long.
Inside the front cover, a child had written their name: “This book belongs to Marcus Chen, age 7.” There’s a date: “Christmas 2024.”
Marcus Chen is my grandmother’s younger brother. He died in the storm. He was fifteen. The book made it out. He didn’t.
I’m keeping it. Dr. Kamara says I shouldn’t—archaeological ethics, maintaining artifact integrity, proper archival procedures. But this is my family. This is my history. This is my uncle’s last possession.
The Lorax speaks for the trees. I’ll speak for the drowned.
Looking Forward, Looking Down
Tomorrow we continue the excavation. There are hundreds more buildings to explore, thousands more artifacts to recover. We’re racing against time—the Conclaves want this area cleared and repurposed within six months. They’re planning new infrastructure, new construction, new development.
Always building. Always rising. Never looking down.
But I’ll keep digging. I’ll keep documenting. I’ll keep remembering.
Because Ang City’s foundation isn’t just concrete and steel. It’s memory. It’s loss. It’s the price we paid for survival.
And if we forget that price, we’ll pay it again.
End Entry
Aria Chen
Nascent Archaeologist
Ang City Archaeological Survey
“Excavating Yesterday to Understand Tomorrow”
Artifact Log – March 15, 2098
- 1 children’s book (Dr. Seuss, 1971, personal inscription)
- 47 waterlogged volumes from public library
- 1 archival box (personal diaries, 2025-2026)
- 23 personal effects from market district
- 1 corroded library sign
- Photographic documentation of site (427 images)
- Water samples for dating analysis
- Sediment cores for geological record
Site Status: Active excavation continuing
Emotional Status: Complicated
Recommendation: Remember everything
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A seeker of hidden truths within the Nascent Archive.