Entry 36 - Day 18 (Part 3)

How am I supposed to describe what that felt like, when I don't even know what just happened?  Entering the archway was sort of like wading into liquid electricity, or maybe it felt the same way that super-sour candy tastes?  

I don't know.  I feel like I'm trying to describe something unique but I only have my own mundane experiences to rely upon.  How do you describe the sky when you've only ever lived inside?

Well, I guess this experience has got me feeling philosophical, so I should probably stick to saying what happened rather than trying to explain it.

Okay, I set my PDA to automatically take pics every couple of seconds for as long as it could, in case I wasn't able to operate it.  I had considered leaving it behind with some kind of final message, but thought better off it.

I waved my fingers through the energy field inside the arch and it seemed to ripple like water.  Through my gloves, it felt warm and slightly viscose, like heated syrup, but it didn't leave any residue behind.  I took a deep breath and stepped through.

There was no sensation of movement, and yet, when the green light cleared, I was somewhere else.  My flashlight was running out of power, but I could see that the rock formations in the cave were different from where I had just been, as were the plants around me.

Pieces of broken alien architecture littered this cave, looking very similar to the artefacts I'd encountered inside the Quarantine Enforcement Platform, and I could see light coming in from an gap somewhere above my head.

I decided to follow the rough path that my flashlight highlighted until I found an exit and could find out where I was.  What came next was a shock...

I stood at the cave mouth and stared, dumbstruck.  There, in the distance, was the aft section of the Aurora.  I was still on the same planet, but the island I'd been on before, where I had originally found that alien archway, had been past the fore section of the ship.  

My heart fell into the pit of my stomach.  I'd been hoping for an escape, and instead I'd been translocated maybe 5000m, at most.  Undeniably impressive, but I was still stuck here.  Alone and trapped.

I was starting to lose the light at this stage and suddenly thought that I should quickly perform a self-scan, just to check whether the alien archway had affected me in some way.  Thankfully, apart from showing a minor bacterial infection, there didn't seem to be any adverse effect whatever.

So, that's it.  I'm going to have to spend the night in this cave and investigate this new island in the morning.  Thankfully I brought some dried Peeper and disinfected water with me, so I'm doing okay.

I would start a fire if I knew how, although that might not be a good idea.  I mean, who knows what lives here.  

I'll keep my knife nearby, just in case.

Ryley out.