Welcome, traveller.
Big Sand is a place that’s full of stories.
You can read some of them here.
The Colony - Chapter 1
So I’d knit my bushy eyebrows together, twitch my ears, stick my tongue out and roll around to make my fellow Fledglings laugh – that could be a job! – and it would always work, until the teaching servitor would stare me down with a glare.
‘Not that,’ they said. ‘It’s unproductive.’
The Colony - Chapter 2
Our home was clean and quiet for a reason – yet here was I, ‘oooh-ing’ sneakily in corridors, like a criminal.
I reached for my cartridge to erase the recording. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
The Colony - Chapter 3
I tumbled down corridors, panting gracessly. I tripped through sanitary partitions, biofilm clinging to my hair.
I tore past a meal-prep rota of six apprentices peeling tubers, who stared horrified as frantic sobs bubbled out of me. I kept running.
Arrival
I sat totally still, panic rising in my chest as I had the unexpected realisation that I’d never experienced true darkness before.
I couldn’t tell whether my eyelids were closed or open.
Harsh Light
A vivid mess of colours greeted me. Pink, teal and red, sitting one on top of the other in sweeping, rolling layers. It was hard to see where the walls ended and the ceiling... Where was the ceiling?
I suddenly felt very dizzy.
The Archway: Chapter 1
I reached out to run my fingers over the grooves, worn and cool against my skin. As I did, a flash of pastel pink leapt across my eyes.
Have I already told you about how I see sounds?
The Archway: Chapter 2
I slid down the other side of the dune in a flurry of hot sand, and walked towards the archway as if in a trance.
Finally, I gazed into the swirl of colour.
Something was in there, inside the song. Someone was in there.