My OperaSkyline
Sunday, January 16, 2011 1:51:30 AM
Author's Note: Apologies for this story being pathetically bad, it was a challenge to construct a story around this series of ten photographs.
A murky, filtered daylight illuminated a small cave. Within the cave, a young woman awoke and rubbed her eyes in confusion. She had no memory of how she came to sleep in the cave, nor of where the cave might be.
Fighting back panic, she stepped outside to survey the area. There were no familiar landmarks, nothing to provide a clue of where she was. After taking one last look back at the cave,
she set off down a trail.
Coming around a bend, the woman found a distinctly unnatural structure looming over her. Heavily overgrown with moss-covered rocks and two small openings visible at the back, it appeared to be a forgotten remnant of an ancient civilization.
It was here that the suspicion crept into her head that she might no longer be on Earth. She looked to the sky for confirmation. She could see no sun or moons. At a glance she'd taken it to be a cloudy day, but on more careful inspection she realized that the sky was in fact a featureless gray dome through which the light shone moderately.
Curious to learn all she could about the extinct alien civilization, she walked to the back of the structure and climbed through one of the openings into a cramped tunnel. It led her out to the other side of the hill where she discovered an ancient stone staircase leading upward.
The young woman ascended the stairs, and noted the lush green ferns at the top.
The stairs had led her to a strange old building. Stepping inside, she discovered an odd crevice in the wall from which she sensed a strange power and portents of doom.
Bracing herself, she reached a hand into the crevice. Nothing happened. She reached further, and scraped against the back. There was nothing there.
Bored and discouraged by the lack of alien artifacts or dramatic action, the woman walked out the back door of the building. In the faint hope of spotting something she'd missed, she turned back to look at the overgrown house she'd just exited.
Stepping back a distance, she realized that the body of the house was a mere foot deep. She discovered a series of similar houses nearby, all equally flattened.
There was no possible conclusion but that the doors were portals to other dimensions which fit more than our three dimensions of space can display. She realized that the extinct civilization which built these structures must've been highly advanced.
The young woman pondered what could've happened to such an advanced civilization. She wandered over toward the nearby lake and quickly spotted a clue: an orange patch of ground, suggesting that an orange-blooded alien was murdered and bled to death there.
She dug around for bones or other evidence, and ended up finding a strange box. It appeared to be a time capsule containing the ancient civilization's most cherished cultural items.
The young woman decided that any civilization whose greatest achievements were travel bugs can't be worthy studying, so she closed and re-buried the box. While doing so she heard creaking noises intensifying behind her. Finally she turned around and noticed a strange tree staring at her.
The tree was telepathic, and told her of how its once great civilization became progressively more lazy until they put down roots and evolved into trees. The tree felt deeply insulted by her dismissal of its civilization's greatest time capsule, so it poked a root up through the ground and strangled the young woman with it until she died.
The End
A murky, filtered daylight illuminated a small cave. Within the cave, a young woman awoke and rubbed her eyes in confusion. She had no memory of how she came to sleep in the cave, nor of where the cave might be.
Fighting back panic, she stepped outside to survey the area. There were no familiar landmarks, nothing to provide a clue of where she was. After taking one last look back at the cave,
she set off down a trail.
Coming around a bend, the woman found a distinctly unnatural structure looming over her. Heavily overgrown with moss-covered rocks and two small openings visible at the back, it appeared to be a forgotten remnant of an ancient civilization.
It was here that the suspicion crept into her head that she might no longer be on Earth. She looked to the sky for confirmation. She could see no sun or moons. At a glance she'd taken it to be a cloudy day, but on more careful inspection she realized that the sky was in fact a featureless gray dome through which the light shone moderately.
Curious to learn all she could about the extinct alien civilization, she walked to the back of the structure and climbed through one of the openings into a cramped tunnel. It led her out to the other side of the hill where she discovered an ancient stone staircase leading upward.
The young woman ascended the stairs, and noted the lush green ferns at the top.
The stairs had led her to a strange old building. Stepping inside, she discovered an odd crevice in the wall from which she sensed a strange power and portents of doom.
Bracing herself, she reached a hand into the crevice. Nothing happened. She reached further, and scraped against the back. There was nothing there.
Bored and discouraged by the lack of alien artifacts or dramatic action, the woman walked out the back door of the building. In the faint hope of spotting something she'd missed, she turned back to look at the overgrown house she'd just exited.
Stepping back a distance, she realized that the body of the house was a mere foot deep. She discovered a series of similar houses nearby, all equally flattened.
There was no possible conclusion but that the doors were portals to other dimensions which fit more than our three dimensions of space can display. She realized that the extinct civilization which built these structures must've been highly advanced.
The young woman pondered what could've happened to such an advanced civilization. She wandered over toward the nearby lake and quickly spotted a clue: an orange patch of ground, suggesting that an orange-blooded alien was murdered and bled to death there.
She dug around for bones or other evidence, and ended up finding a strange box. It appeared to be a time capsule containing the ancient civilization's most cherished cultural items.
The young woman decided that any civilization whose greatest achievements were travel bugs can't be worthy studying, so she closed and re-buried the box. While doing so she heard creaking noises intensifying behind her. Finally she turned around and noticed a strange tree staring at her.
The tree was telepathic, and told her of how its once great civilization became progressively more lazy until they put down roots and evolved into trees. The tree felt deeply insulted by her dismissal of its civilization's greatest time capsule, so it poked a root up through the ground and strangled the young woman with it until she died.
The End
