Marooned in an icy wasteland
The Arctic is a cruel mistress. We have lost another man to the wilderness. William took the dogs out at 1300 hours, and only a few of them have come limping back. The men argue and swear at each other, the stress of close-living draining their morale. But it is the pit we came for, and the pit will be our salvation. I see it in my sleep, the gleaming metal disc. Sunlight reflects off of it like a million suns. What is inside? How did it become trapped five kilometers below the ice? The expedition chief has his theories, each as inexplicable as the other. I don't care about theory anymore. The ice sings a song that I am beginning to understand.
Day Twenty
All attempts to breach the metal exterior have failed. It is composed of some unknown material, something similar in appearance to aluminum, but seemly impervious to damage. When I tried to melt through it with the plasma torch, I saw myself in its shiny mirror, distorted, my features huge and ugly, my eyes melting black pools of darkness. I think the others see different things, past, present, futures that never will be. Artemus says that it is a test from the gods. I tell him that I don't believe in god, but I don't know anymore. The words in the wind are growing stronger.
Day Thirty-three
It came in a dream, this thing of twisting tentacles and disconnected eyes. Its words are impossible to understand, yet I know them, in my sicked heart. It tells me how to open the disc. When I wake up, I am standing in front of it, casting no reflection. Later, they apprehend me and put me to question. "You went inside!" says the expedition leader, spittle flying from his mouth. I shrug my shoulders and say nothing. What is there to say? I can't remember anything but the dream.
Day Forty
I find myself outside my prison, walking down the ghostly halls, my former comrades asleep in their bunks. What will I had is subdued, shrunk down to the size of an atom. I sit down next to the expedition leader and watch him breath. His chest rises and falls like a gentle sea. I touch his face and his eyes open, alarmed, but he does not move, he cannot move, he is like me now, subdued, a passenger along for a ride. What he does is not my concern. None of it is my concern.
The halls are empty now. I sit in a corner, my body wasting away. The disc has moved, vanished, risen to the skies. The absence of will has not left, unfortunately. I don't want to eat. There is nothing to eat. What am I to it? A plaything? A piece on the chessboard? I am discarded rubbish. The cold will come, oozing through the thin walls, and I will be no different. Why must this happen every time?
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