"Universe 2" Recovered Sections

Excerpt 3

Note: Some parts of this were smudged by a recent rain. I did my best to fill in where I could but some parts (marked Illegible) were simply impossible to transcribe.

---->

It wasn't long ago I was on a desert planet. The air was so dry that after only minutes my tongue felt like sandpaper in my mouth. While it was very dry, the temperature was surprisingly decent, I needn't strip more than my jacket to maintain homeostasis. However, the air was also very stale and I quickly found that standing in one place made it difficult to breathe after some time. Due to the lack of wind and apparent lack of life the planet was silent as death, much like the internals of a cave but less oppressive. Only the shuffling of my own feet on the ground and my labored breathing accompanied me as I walked.

I must've walked over bare slate-like rock for hours before I saw any glimpse of civilization; what appeared to be a mushroom on the rippling horizon. I was simultaneously relieved and surprised to find signs of life on what otherwise appeared to be a sterile planet. As I approached the town I got a better look at when the "mushroom" was; it was a water tower, or half of one. It's size was deceiving from a distance, it was actually much larger than anything that I could find at home, probably having a radius of several hundred meters. Below the tower was shade in which I could see people milling about. An odd effect of the structure, I felt a cool breeze on my face, though not enough to ease my pain or move a hair on my head.

At once a group of people gathered at the edge of the shade to watch my approach, not daring to move into the harsh sunlight. Not willing to risk offending a culture I knew naught about yet needing to make some move I raised my hand above my head in a simple wave. The locals appeared to make motions between themselves that filled me with worry but after several seconds the group went still and I received a wave back.

The man at the front of the group who waved must've been some important leader the way his face was coated in a white chalk. The people's faces looked like jerky, deeply wrinkled and a deep reddish-brown, likely an adaptation to the beating sunlight and drying air. They were wearing clothes that appeared to be made out of greenish burlap except the leader who was wearing a reddish hue. Even several feet before the shade the people had made no move nor made any noise to acknowledge my presence other than staring.

The people, now seemingly every person under the tower, were looking at me quizzically as I stopped in front of the leader. I have had to speak with locals of different cultures in the past and I knew that it was often a risky endeavor as you never know what may come off wrong. I held my hands out palms up to show him that I had nothing on me and cautiously said, "Friendly". His eyes suddenly widened and the entire group took a step back. My reaction was much the same, also putting my hands up to try to further show that I am peaceful.

The man turned and grabbed a rock and stepped once again towards the edge of the shade, cradling the rock in his hands. He stuck the rock and his hands out into the sunlight and motioned with his eyes towards the rock seemingly beckoning me closer. I slowly took a step forward and, as he made no moves towards me, reached down and took the rock from his hands. He immediately shot his hands back into the shade. I examined the rock on all sides, a jagged piece of granite, and came up completely stumped. I looked up to the man for guidance but received none. I looked again and this time I felt my hand become wet. It was the greatest feeling, I hadn't realized how dry my skin had become. I lifted my hand and watched the water dry away in seconds. I turned the rock to see where the water had come from and found a hole. I lifted the rock to my lips, looking towards the man to be sure I wasn't doing something wrong and saw that his eyes were portraying a humor that his mouth didn't reflect. The moment the water touched my lips I began drinking greedily. The rock only had probably a cup of water in it but it worked to quench my thirst somewhat.

I held out the rock to the man once more and he took it from me, passing it back into the crowd. He clasped his hands together and walked through the crowd, people parting like the red sea. The man stopped and turned towards me, pointing to the ground in front of him, before continuing his way into the crowd. I stepped into the shade and the entire group stepped back even further. Once I was past the group they dispersed. Finally I had a full view of what was under the mushroom, not much. In fact, the only thing that was of note was the scraggly shrubs growing near the base of the tower, where the nozzle of the funnel penetrated the ground. It was next to one of these shrubs we stopped.

Embedded into the ground was a metal hatch. The man opened it and went down a ladder into the earth. I followed him (Illegible) a lit room with walls of stone. The ladder continued to go down but this was our stop. Inside was a table and chairs that were simply carved out of the stone. On the table were papers etched with a script I couldn't read, pictograms by the look of it. He took one of these papers and a surprisingly instantly recognizable pen and set them in front of me. He moved his hands and changed his facial expressions in a way that looked like an advanced form of sign language but I didn't understand. His eyes became humored again and he picked up the pen, drawing a symbol that looked like ע with it, and set down the pen, broadly motioning to the items once again.

I couldn't help but smile at this display which sent a wave of confusion across the man's face which he promptly shook off. I picked up the pen and wrote "My name(?) (Illegible)". The man looked at my note and sat in the chair next to me, taking the paper and writing something akin to "🖠ဉ၀". I wrote "I am from somewhere far, far away from here". I almost handed the paper back to him, but a thought crossed my mind and I drew a picture (Illegible) with an arrow pointing away from it to a circle with their mushroom shaped water tower poking out of it. I turned the paper to him, pointing to myself, then to Home, and finally dragging my finger over to their planet. His eyes grew wide and he beckoned me to follow him back to the surface.

Once on the surface he did something very unexpected, he clapped. This noise instantly captured everyone's attention and they shuffled over to find out what was going on. The man took back to that advanced sign language for nearly a minute, people's eyes growing larger as he did, ending with a grandiose gesture towards me. No one moved. Eventually people began breaking away from the crowd to go back to work with whatever they were doing. The man gestured broadly to the structure and its occupants and walked away.

I walked to the base of the structure and sat in the shrubs, back to the metal of the tower. I noticed that the shade hadn't moved since I had gotten here and it occurred to me that the sun wasn't moving in the sky. I had no sense of time on this planet, but I was weary from walking what I could only imagine was around 6 hours. My skin felt tight and my nose burned from the dry air that attacked my ill-adapted body. I closed my eyes and fell asleep almost immediately in this silent world.

When I awoke I had traveled. I wish I had stayed and learned more about this intriguing world, but by the blisters that still mar my skin I know it probably would have killed me.

------

Some parts of this were smudged by a recent rain. I did my best to fill in where I could but some parts (marked Illegible) were simply impossible to transcribe.