the peregrination has finally paid off –

at a cost:

Someone steps on a fragile spot in the landfill. The ground cracks open. The poor sod drops into the orifice, never to

be found again:

And that's how a troop of explorers stumbles upon it, a millennium after The Big Meltdown. The ancient freeze is thawing. Things long hidden

are coming up:

Under mounds of non-biodegradables – glass, plastic, pesticides, petroleum jelly, alkaline batteries – is a clandestine cavern 10km

below the surface:

The sonar detecting weak signs of movements. Life forms? Or just a rickety transmitter emitting a lo-fi signal

help or warning:

One by one, the visitors rappel, swallowed into the dark. Greeted by a rotting smell so strong, one almost passes out. They land, turn on their torches, and slowly

scan the insides:

They stare, slack-jawed – a labyrinth of organs and appendages fused, pulped, pulverised. Dust roused in the rush of fresh air; planktons adrift

in aqueous tomb:

And there, he finds you, barely bones and flesh. Curled up, naked, feasted upon by creepy-crawlies now scuttling away

from the glare:

A sixth finger saw off, phalange exposed, prehensile tail trimmed, oxygen mask clasped around face. Eyes in a glaze, starring at him (through him)

into the ether:

All around, heaps of papyrus, placenta, slashed flippers bound with raffia. He wants to call out, but decides not to, realising he is far

from the rest:

They have gone toward the furthest end, their lights zigzagging blades. He steps on a squishy object. He shines his torch downwards, only to find a tattered

book flip open:

He picks it up, and is transfixed. Scrawled across pages: beings beyond imagination, those who don't look like him, are

alien to him:

Webbed feet. Others on all fours. One couple embrace, wings wrapped around each other, skin mottled pink and translucent. Who jolts him

to the core:

His own kind cut to exact dimensions: shiny cone head, three eyes, one hooked nose, a dewlap. A chill comes over the replicant's face before something grabs

his left foot:

Your claw hooks his ankle. He looks at you, askance. Glaze melts away. A gleam. You smile, a worm wriggling in your watery eye