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Verse
Star
- Joined
- May 8, 2011
They had to travel an ocean that started brackish, both in temperature and in salinity, to get here. The waters had been cold for a while now, but three different universities would not forget to load the boat with their representatives up with isolating technologies. A trek over the ice for the machines they'd brought, and then a hike in their snow boots. A guide who was weather bitten enough to be trustable, in this environment. But who really knows what's in a man's heart? Out here, isolation was what you paid for. What happened to those who were rich in it?
He told them all manner of stories during the last leg of their outing together. The superstitious lot were engrossed and the sceptics could chalk it up to anthropology. Point was, they listened by the fire. They'd discern themes of pulling spirits out of flesh, and reforming heroes into prizes. Transformation. But perhaps not like the phoenix. In the morning they'd remember vague nightmares that had a red tint. Either individual was beholden to the state of their pajamas, and the self doubt about their hormonal state. It was this place. It's strange legends.
Eventually they'd be there. Reached it just before the sun set, just like the guide had promised. He stayed behind and pointed and shouted for them to find the entrance. They didn't think much of it when one of their colleagues pointed out his tribe was fearful of these gates. More like a hole in the ground. It would have been primitive, but the metal that lined it was well-made. Nothing in old days could have made it. There was already jokes about aliens among them. The wind whistled over the silver lips, and someone remarked how strange it was that snow didn't find its way in to the hole, despite being wide open. There would be grumbles from the group, sceptic again, but hard to argue.
The giant corridor narrowed slightly, and the surfaces around them became even more smooth. Lines everywhere from where plates had been joined. Impossible technology, even in a modern country. Out here, it was ludicrous.
But as they surveyed their surroundings, something was looking back at them. Their nightmare. A lot like them but also different. A giant thing, a replica. Green muscle fibers shining through the translucent skin. The milk of his complexion became denser from the middle of his chest, hombre, upward. His face was perfectly white and with chord hair, long, going back from his features. Large, human mouth, impossibly wide, and black eyes, blotted out sclera.
They noticed a change in atmosphere. This was not the chilling climate they'd arrived in, anymore. The hall they came to had a number of gates to other places, smaller but similarly built as the one they'd entered through to get here. The ceilings were littered with long light sources that seemed to shine from beyond the metal, as though its radiation penetrated whatever alloy that now hosted them. It was their move, thought their host, unhearable, from a corner where the shadows were thick.
He told them all manner of stories during the last leg of their outing together. The superstitious lot were engrossed and the sceptics could chalk it up to anthropology. Point was, they listened by the fire. They'd discern themes of pulling spirits out of flesh, and reforming heroes into prizes. Transformation. But perhaps not like the phoenix. In the morning they'd remember vague nightmares that had a red tint. Either individual was beholden to the state of their pajamas, and the self doubt about their hormonal state. It was this place. It's strange legends.
Eventually they'd be there. Reached it just before the sun set, just like the guide had promised. He stayed behind and pointed and shouted for them to find the entrance. They didn't think much of it when one of their colleagues pointed out his tribe was fearful of these gates. More like a hole in the ground. It would have been primitive, but the metal that lined it was well-made. Nothing in old days could have made it. There was already jokes about aliens among them. The wind whistled over the silver lips, and someone remarked how strange it was that snow didn't find its way in to the hole, despite being wide open. There would be grumbles from the group, sceptic again, but hard to argue.
The giant corridor narrowed slightly, and the surfaces around them became even more smooth. Lines everywhere from where plates had been joined. Impossible technology, even in a modern country. Out here, it was ludicrous.
But as they surveyed their surroundings, something was looking back at them. Their nightmare. A lot like them but also different. A giant thing, a replica. Green muscle fibers shining through the translucent skin. The milk of his complexion became denser from the middle of his chest, hombre, upward. His face was perfectly white and with chord hair, long, going back from his features. Large, human mouth, impossibly wide, and black eyes, blotted out sclera.
They noticed a change in atmosphere. This was not the chilling climate they'd arrived in, anymore. The hall they came to had a number of gates to other places, smaller but similarly built as the one they'd entered through to get here. The ceilings were littered with long light sources that seemed to shine from beyond the metal, as though its radiation penetrated whatever alloy that now hosted them. It was their move, thought their host, unhearable, from a corner where the shadows were thick.
