The Station, Part 43

Perhaps the best advantage of all has the energy I must be saving. Calories will b ea rare commodity for the moment. That may be a real concern later. As efficient as my modified body may be, it still needs food. Maybe I should have eaten more figs back there, but that’s neither here nor there. One thing’s for sure. The slope now is so that I would have to practically be a mountain climber to get back up. So even if I wanted to, there’s no turning back. A dead end is death. That’s a horrible thought. I’m going to forget I ever thought it. I saw the hologram. I know this is the right way. I must be fucking insane.

I’ve been seeing signs that there is life down here, aside from the suspected life that I carry in my hand. This life just may be intelligent. How do I know this? Along the walls there have been signs that some attempts at abstraction have been made. Not quite art, more like symbols. Wavy lines done in an ochre or similar substance. Simple etchings that could be deep in meaning, or not. Just a simple sign that says, “This way up” or something like that. They’re spaced at regular intervals, every couple of kilometers or so. What I don’t think is that, if they are indeed road signs of sorts, which it wouldn’t be done by something indigenous. Other than these symbols I’ve seen no other signs of life. I think that once I left the cave, I left the facsimile Earth environment and entered into yet another alien place. Except this one has made the least sense. This elaborate cave seems to be home to nothing more than a colony of crystals, and I’m not entirely convinced that whatever is housed inside the lattice is indeed alive. What then, is the need for a tunnel of this nature?

Since this place is no copy of Earth, then I can’t expect those typical cave dwellers, the bats and others. The pale, blind counterparts to those of the sunlight world are curiously absent as well. It’s so deathly quiet in here. It’s much more noticeable when you stop to take a breather. There’s only the sound of my breathing. No distant hints of dripping water, nor squeak or scratch of an unseen creature. It is an utterly dead place. I suddenly, desperately, want to get the hell out of this place. Not because I fear being lost or encountering this cavern’s version of an angry cave bear—it’s because I’ve ever so slowly felt less and less motivated, dragged down by the absolute silence and absence of life. This place, I think, does indeed in its own way, draw the life from me. I should get moving again. I so want to get out of here, but it’s pulling at me, draining me of energy. But on the positive, my makeshift torch is glowing somewhat brighter. I guess the little critters inside are working a little harder lately. I hope they don’t work too hard. Don’t want them to burn out to soon. That is, if they can burn themselves out.