Notes From Another World: The Tunnels
Sleepers always left undisturbed in case they dream the waker.
Year Four
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In a corner of the empty ninth village, you find an infinitely long tunnel. You can hear voices. To complete your journey you must crawl.
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This is the antithesis of your home planet, where there is no darkness, not even a word for it, where all surfaces illuminate each other.
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They are programmed to self-destruct when their true name is invoked.
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The people in the tunnels believe the apocalypse is already here, it just isn’t evenly distributed.
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They have a way to trigger memories of past lives, but participants instantly become solemn and joyless. They suggest doing it will complete your exploration.
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Are there still birds outside the tunnels?
Are there still vampires?
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On your home planet when you were young you crashed on an island with your schoolmates. When you made a rescue signal they put it out. “Accept the world as it is.”
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In their religion the apocalypse is synonymous with the extinguishing of the sun, nothing more and nothing less.
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To enter the deep tunnels, you must take a lover from among them. Your new lover says one can fall deeper and deeper in love every day. When you return with tea, she is gone.
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You can't remember any of your dreams. But you must be doing terrible things in them and deliberately forgetting. Why else would you feel so guilty when you wake up?
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An emperor’s spiders.
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They say you don’t look like you’re from the tunnels but you say you look just like them. They laugh and say you’ve confirmed it.
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The dust has consciousness. The tremor in a voice has consciousness. The fall of a hammer has consciousness.
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This mask will protect you from memetic contagion. It isn’t perfect. If you see others taking theirs off, run and hide. Beliefs change faster than cells and most are malignant.
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On their computers are digital cults that believe there is a hidden way to ascend to the physical plane.
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They can look at a location and tell you what will happen there. The most powerful men in the world pay them to search for their deaths.
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Sleepers always left undisturbed in case they dream the waker.
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They believe the world is perfect. The purpose of life is to participate more completely in its perfection.
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Less than dust.
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It was such a good dream. You’ll write it down. On the page it looks different. Meaningless. You try again. Even worse. You suspect it wasn’t a good dream anyway.