Coming tomorrow.
----------------------
	Its real name was Hashima Island, but no-one called it 
that. It was known as Gunkanjima, Battleship Island, and would 
probably be called that until it slipped back under the sea.

	It was easy to see how it had earned the name. The 
barren, thornlike spar of rock was ringed all about by a high 
seawall, parapets and towers rising from the rocky ocean like 
the walls of a fortress. The diamond of high walls, with the 
mountain of the island rising inside amidst clusters of 
buildings, gave it the appearance of some great ship of war 
slowly making its ponderous way into Tokyo harbor.

	Buildings it had in abundance, towering structures of 
crumbling concrete and brick. For it had been an island of no 
worth, except for the huge deposits of coal in and under it.

	Meiji had brought industry to Japan, and the presence of 
an entire island of coal just outside Tokyo was no resource to 
be ignored. Workers were rushed in, and shafts sunk deep 
beneath the seabed to mine the black fuel. The first concrete 
building in Japan was built on Gunkanjima's rocky side, a 
dormitory for the miners and their families.

	Industry boomed in Japan. More coal was needed.

	Shaft after shaft was sunk, and more and more miners 
were sent to crawl down into the guts of the island. The first 
concrete building was duplicated all across the face of the 
island, the structures rising higher and higher, the rooms 
barely enough to live in.

	The seawall was built, and the foundry known as Jigoku-
Kado, the Gate Of Hell. And the workers streamed in.

	Nothing grew on Gunkanjima. It was hard to imagine a 
place less suited for human habitation; storms lashed it, all 
water and food had to be shipped from the mainland, fire was a 
constant threat.

	When there was no more room for new dormitories, they 
stopped building up and started building down. Underground 
warrens of apartments crisscrossed the mine shafts, housing 
families and workers.

	War came, and Chinese laborers were imported to work 
the mines. They died in fearful numbers, falling screaming into 
the black depths or devoured by the unending fires of Jigoku-
Kado. Many tried to flee, despite the wall and the towers and 
the angry sea. Few succeeded. Fewer still survived their 
failure.

	Peace, and the need for coal was greater than ever. The 
workers flooded back in waves.

	It says something about humanity that in 1960, 
Gunkanjima - one of the most blasted, desolate, and unsuitable 
places for mankind to live - had the highest population density 
in the entire world.

	Temples, stores, a hospital, salons, schools... all the 
trappings of a modern community. All on an island only a little 
larger than a football field, a city more like an anthill than a 
town.

	And then oil replaced coal as the fuel of modern Japan.

	All of a sudden, Gunkanjima wasn't needed.

	And so, on a rainy day in 1974, the last of the 9,637 
inhabitants of the island stepped onto a boat for the mainland, 
holding an umbrella up to the slight drizzle. Only a few stray 
cats remained.

	Decades passed, and the concrete and brick decayed. The 
wind whistled down the empty tunnels of the living blocks, 
fluttering the papers and posters left behind by the former 
inhabitants.

	Deterioration happened swiftly, violently. Shattered 
windows, smashed furniture, defiled temples. Some said that 
it was the ghosts of the Chinese laborers, finally masters of 
their lightless prison. Others just put it down to vandals and 
the elements. For the most part, no-one cared. No-one ever 
came to Gunkanjima.

	The iron mouths of Jigoku-Kado gaped black and cold, 
waiting for the fires to return.

	They did.

^_-  ^_-  ^_- ^_-
Life. Death. Love. Hate.
And the thin, fragile line in between.

Ill Met By Starlight
Chapter 13 - The End of the Matter
Coming Monday.