The Ruin Of A World

The Ruin Of A World

Large eyes stared intently at the alien world around them, darting across the lush green of the area. The gravity on this planet was totally different to what the cosmic explorer expected, it was far heavier than back home despite being a similarly sized planet. The fact that the green color came from plant life was incredibly exciting, although the main focus was on the potential sentient life here. For hundreds of years previously, it had been observed that the planet was emitting radio waves on specific frequencies and in consistent patterns. Small masses also left the planet on a semi yearly basis. As of late the signals had stopped and various forms of radiation leaked out of its atmosphere. Whatever was leaving the planet stopped too, and the faint glow of what some debated could be cities winked out.


Over a hundred years had passed since the radio waves silenced. Whatever had happened to this world should have been resolved by its inhabitants by now. But as the traveler continued his search, he found only evidence of life long gone. Massive square buildings toppled and corroding, huge waterworks collapsed and overgrown as rivers gouged new paths unhindered. The giant urban sprawls and extensive infrastructure in ruins. There had been extremely intelligent life here once. The most telling sign of all, the enormous craters dotting the land. The holes where miles wide and each depression reeked of radiation, he could smell it, and it made him shiver.

His landing site was chosen for its proximity to several theorized inhabited areas, though upon landing it was readily apparent there would be no welcoming party. As the explorer strode down the ancient paths he noted a few things; one, that the creatures had an apparent obsession with straight utilitarian lines, and two, that they used some sort of stone to construct most of their buildings. The distinctive look of the alien's architecture was composed of simple geometric shapes forming towers in the larger examples. Surrounding the towers sat grids of smaller structures, serving as what seemed to be personal residences.

This was the research opportunity of a lifetime, to see how this civilization lived and to preserve its memory. The first house he visited was in bad shape, plants grew through the windows and moss covered the stone strip leading to the door. Said door disintegrated the moment he touched it, and he had to duck to get through the entryway as these aliens were significantly shorter than he.

The inside of the complex was somehow intact, though mold and plants covered the floor, ceiling and walls. To his left sat a large rotting red object, it looked soft and upon touching it he found it to be quite squishy. In front of the red object was a box shaped device on a pedestal, it had several knobs on the right and what appeared to be a bulbous rectangular display covering the rest of its face. On one of the walls hung the remains of a board with a grid covering the lower half, eighteen squares of which were crossed off. The upper half contained a picture of some plants with some runes in the middle. ~October 1962~ He didn't understand what they meant, but it seemed important so he grabbed it to study later. He continued down a hall to find several smaller rooms, one of which contained something extraordinary.

This room was in better condition than the others as he could actually discern the blue color of the walls. In the room's center sat a large rectangular frame covered in a similar material to the red thing he had seen earlier, upon it lay the body of an alien. At this point it was nothing but bones, however he could still discern much from it.

The bones in its two legs were much straighter than his own and they appeared to only have one major joint in the middle of the leg. His legs had three. He wondered how they could jump properly when they lacked a dedicated jumping bone. The arms of the creature seemed like his own in that both possessed a wrist, elbow, and attached at the shoulder though theirs notably lacked the hard carapace of his forearms. His hand had four long fingers covered in carapace and tipped with sharp talons. The alien had five fingers protruded from the wrist area tipped with dull plates of cariotin, they seemed quite vulnerable. The torso was likewise poorly protected as instead of a flexible shell it only had a thin cage of bone to keep everything "safe". Most interesting was the skull, as it was large and rounded, not disk shaped like his own. The lack of horns left them vulnerable to attack, and the skull was only connected with a single spine. The single piece mandible attached to the bottom looked like it could only eat small bits of food. All three of his mandibles opened in shock as another concerning thing about this alien became apparent, it was missing holes for half of its eyes! Where the third and fourth eye should have been there was only more smooth bone! He had little trouble seeing how their society collapsed, they were far to frail, heck he reckoned they couldn't even metabolize radiation!

"What a strange creature, it's a wonder they got this far."