Look at this place! It's unwelcoming and the sand no longer what it seems. Beads of glass, small and sharp, give this harsh world an unsettling sparkle that stretches as far as the eye can see. This is not a place to find comfort. Each of our steps is accompanied by a crunching sound that you could be forgiven for thinking were simply pebbles under our heavy boots. It was too much for one of our crew who retreated back to the ship under the guise of preparing the survey equipment. I can't speak for the others but I didn't hold it against him. This was very different from our own thriving home.
Each building has a curved or rounded design similar to ours but with less focus on practicality and more on aesthetics. We have found ourselves in front of a library with stained glass windows in yellows and purples and pinks. The design appears to be of a flower, likely native to this planet before whatever events led it to its abandonment. Similar floral designs had been carved into both the window and door frames with an expert hand. Even the flowery font of the sign above the door was written beautifully. I'm not sure how long I spent going over the small details, trying to figure out how they managed such uniform designs without so much as a minor deviation.
One of the others calling for my attention brought me back to my senses and I joined them inside. The library's interior was equally ornate and had continued on with the floral theme as best I can tell. Outside there was wear and tear, the natural kind you'd expect to see from years of abandonment but in here it was a different story. The bookshelves are overflowing but no longer with books. It's all just ash and lost words singing their stories beyond our ability to hear. What has been lost, I wonder? Are there still remnants of their collected knowledge in this mess to be found?
Continuing on our walk through the empty city we passed by pedestals. Each one had a plaque written in a language none of us were familiar with and scrape marks that would suggest something large used to stand upon them. They were likely sculptures but why were they taken down? Strange that they would leave behind tools, weapons, machinery and the like but possibly took large statutes with them. And if that was the case, where did they take them? Were they packed away on ships and taken out into the cosmos or will they be discovered on some far away island not yet found to be flush with life?
At the centre of this city we have found a building that the city may have been built around. It is a glass dome, a theme that has not escaped us, panelled in more stained glass flower images. Once we step inside it's clear we have to be careful in here. Supporting the roof are intersecting pipelines that have corroded with time. Some sections have cracked open and reddish, almost glowing gel is dripping to the floor. Where it lands the substance bubbles away on the heated ground leaving dark patches behind that have been slowly growing over however many years have passed in the history of this place. Nothing else is in this dome however. Was it a utility? Was a place of leisure? What secrets did it once hold?
We moved onto searching the houses and found them all to be extravagant examples of homely abodes. All were large with multiple storeys and enough rooms to comfortably fit four or five families with room to spare and were all very similar in their interior design choices. I offered up kitschy as the best label for what we were seeing even though we weren't all entirely sure. Each piece of furniture, each amenity, appeared fairly normal at first glance and yet as we looked at them more closely nothing appeared functional. Why would a civilisation build an entire city without functionality, only aesthetics? Were things like chairs and tables and stoves considered a decoration and not a part of life? Even our small group, experts in our field, are having trouble grasping this strange planet.
When we set off on this expedition we knew we were going to be uncovering a strange place indeed. Even so, this wasn't what we were expecting to find; a place built with perfection in mind but no practicality. So why was it abandoned? Why were those statues more important than the rest of their achievements? It's clear there will be more questions to find before we get answers we seek and I am utterly thrilled by the challenge. We're returning to the ship, already excitedly chatting about theories and starting points. This is going to be our home for as long as it takes to learn all there is to learn and as such we've decided to give it a name befitting of such an anomaly; Dollhouse.
