Welcome to Somewhere Else

Time

For two or three weeks I camped out in this area underneath the door. I felt terrible about it, however the only way I saw to survive was through theft. Jumping across the drop revealed a path there that kept going for a bit and led into a small, empty hot room. When I say empty, I mean it, and it was dark as well, however there was fortunately just enough light to be sure that there was no one in there besides myself, and the right lack of light to be able to hide in a corner as needed. Daily, I would jump back over and sneak into the area with the wheel-door, grabbing whatever I could and usually cooking it as I had that first day. I wondered if those stocking the storage were vegetarians, as the only things I ever saw come through appeared to be plant matter. Besides the cruciferous-looking vegetable from the first day, I encountered multiple other foods throughout this period. I recall crimson-red mushrooms, spotted and multi-colored seeds or beans of some sort (they resembled chickpeas), an indigo-colored lettuce that was strangely fluffy, and something that resembled a thick burger but had clearly come straight from a plant.

Realizing I would quickly be discovered if I kept using the same amount of whatever that flammable material was that I used the first time, I took half of the new stock that whoever had placed there and decided to ration it across the other days. The flames weren't as large or long-lasting as they were the first time, but they got the job done. Sometimes a flame wasn't even necessary anyway: there was a time or two where I could hear voices approaching as I grabbed the food, and in those times I simply took the food with me as I ran back toward Foxtrot (what I ended up naming my little room, due to this exact type of occasion) and ate it raw back there. For water I used the water from the sink. There was a strange-looking juice in the cool storage area too, but not having a clue what it was, I decided to forgo it as potentially it wasn't even a juice at all. Such was my life for this period... with no clue of where I was, and little clue of where I was going. Fortunately that room was hot enough to be able to sleep in without any blankets, and having grown up sleeping on the floor, no pillows was no problem. Outside of those times I heard voices approaching the kitchen room, I was in abject silence throughout this whole period. I wondered if this would be my new existence from here-on out, if I should just embrace it or reveal myself to those in the area and turn myself in. On one night I almost did, but as I approached the kitchen room, I heard deep growling noises and decided that that was probably not the best course of action. So instead I returned to my hiding area and to the thief-in-silence lifestyle, wondering what I was going to make of my life now.

Of course, I needed somewhere to perform other faculties as well.

Without much else to do and admittedly with this specific need in mind I began exploring the tunnels a bit more on day two and it turned out that I had missed a pathway on my initial journey up. Hidden in the dark there was a very small entryway on a corner turn and through it was a drop to a lower level. With little to lose at this point I dropped down into it and splashed right into some hot water.

Now, knowing that where I was was clearly not the most hygienic spot to be I started wondering what could possibly make this water so warm. Generally speaking warmth in water wasn't a good sign, particularly when wherever I was reminded me most of a sewer. I splashed about, wanting to get out of it as quickly as possible until I realized that underneath the ceiling and invisible from above the drop were some beautiful lights of a sea-turquoise nature, and below my feet were rocks in the water. It was the strangest thing, but it turned out that I had dropped into a hot spring that was clearly the cleanest spot here wherever I was. There was a floor and door to my left, and in it was what I made out to be the bathroom of this place. Inside the room was a hole that, thanks to the light, I could see went down quite far and then ended up dropping off into flames. A flaming toilet. You can't make this stuff up. I debated using it or not before it hit me that it wasn't really a choice anymore. And that, my friends, was how I used the restroom from there on out. Adjacent to the hot spring was a separate, small hole of water in the floor, and as I went to wash my hands in it it sprang up out of nowhere. I thought it was going to shoot me in my eye or that I'd set off some sort of alarm before I realized that this was intentional for cleaning of other sorts, and after such a cleaning I laughed at the fact that despite being in one of the uncleanest spots of my life I felt the cleanest I had in a while. Then I noticed that inside the wall to my right was a pocket of water and placing my hands in it realized that it was instead here that was designed for the washing of hands. Life is full of surprises.

I returned to this spot as needed and was relieved to not only have a restroom in the formal sense but quite literally a spot to rest as well, even with a bath included. With little else to do during my initial days it was nice to have a spot to relax and to think, but I still worried about being caught here as anywhere and thus spent the majority of my time back at Foxtrot. Eventually after contemplation and thought I decided I needed to make a plan for what direction I was going to point my life in now. After all, this was little of an existence, and I had no answers up until this point. And so about halfway into my time spent underground I began opening the small door in the ceiling, essentially a trapdoor, that led outside and peeking out of it, holding my breath to see what I could gather about the world outside. My sense of time had clearly gotten morphed in my subterranean life as at times I would peek out and it would be pitch dark outside with few noises, at times evenings and at times beautiful, bright days. Other than when it was pitch dark (at those times, I would close the door pretty quickly, with nothing to see), I could always hear voices out in the distance, and on one of the evenings I opened it I actually caught a glimpse of some people from behind at what appeared to be a ring of market stalls. I could hear the happiness in their voices too. I guess this place, as foreign as it was, wasn't so foreign to the concept of a farmer's market. I tried to make sense of what they were saying, as perhaps I could recognize the language and then make some sense of where I was. Unfortunately the others were too far to be able to hear though, and by the time I could piece a few words together I was usually out of breath.

About the same time I began opening the trapdoor I began stashing food at Foxtrot rather than going for it piece by piece; hopefully this would minimize the risks of my being caught and plus, it gave me a way to start mixing food together rather than only having a vegetable here or there. I noticed that on average the food here was way more flavorful than the food I'd been used to where I come from. The succulent and well-seasoned taste I had to work so hard to achieve back home here was a simple matter of a plant and my random seasoning attempts. That being said, "seasoning attempts" is the correct way to put it: once or twice, I ended up just caking the food in seasoning and it ended up feeling like eating a piece of dirty bark. All's well that ends well, as little by little I learned the ins and outs of what made for good food in this place, and since that was essentially the only activity I got to partake in while down here, I tried to make the most of it. At least I had food to survive.