The first search party to return to the Empty Bowl was the one led by Elzeed, whose travels had taken them back across the Hollow Sands, to the place of our origin—the ENCAMPMENT; a relic of THAT WAR, where we had sheltered in fear while the world died around us. Our world, our once holy marble, its green vitrified to glass, its blue congealed to shit—on that toxic, dead stone, we had once thought only the ENCAMPMENT remained, until, that is, Deezle showed us all a way out.

Elzeed’s news was not encouraging. Not only had they failed to find any trace of the missing children, but they had made a disturbing discovery; it seemed the Hollow Sands were expanding east.

“.raey eht nihtiw deirub eb ll’ti ylekil s’ti ,noisnapxe fo etar tnerruc eht tA” said Elzeed. “,deflugne yllaitrap neeb sah TNEMPMACNE ehT”

“?rednow I ,tsae sa llew sa tsew wolf sdnas eht od tuB” said my child.

“.no won morf ylesolc erom redrob nretsae ruo rotinom dluohs ew tub ,yaw eno ylno swolf edit eht smees ti raf os—wonk ton od I tahT” said Elzeed.

While the pair conversed, I translated for those not as well versed in kaepskcaB—as I did so I surveyed the search party, caked in the dust of the Hollow Sands, brows glittering with sweat.

“Where is Calvin?” I said, abruptly. “Was he not in your party?”

At the mention of the name, Elzeed’s face grew dark.

“,sdnaS wolloH eht ssorca nruter eht no tsol saw Calvin” said Elzeed.

“?woH” said my child.

“.rehto ro teknirt emos ro ,spahrep otnemem a—ecalp taht morf gnihtemos derevocer yeht eveileb I ,erom si tahw ,dna ti dnuof yeht eveileb I .TNEMPMACNE eht ta sretrauq gnivil dlo rieht fo hcraes ni tnew Calvin eveileb I ,rehtar—lla ta ecnesba rieht fo esoprup eht ton saw siht eveileb I ,revewoH .su dlot yeht yrots eht si siht ,denruter yeht nehw dna ,meht ot tnaem Nivlac hcum woh wenk lla ew rof ,dlihc rieht fo hcraes ni daeha enog dah yeht deveileb ew ,tsrif tA .deraeppasid Calvin ,retfa gnol toN .hcraes ruo rof esab drawrof a dliub ot gnikniht ,ereht pmac edam ew ,devirra ew retfA” said Elzeed. “,TNEMPMACNE eht dehcaer ew nehw nageb ti eveileb I”

“?taht sa hsiloof os ton erew yeht yleruS” I said. “…oN”

Deezle nodded sadly.

It was true, then—Calvin had tried to bring with them some object of their past life, across the Hollow Sands, and so laden, had succumbed to their embrace.

“.ssol rieht nruom I” said Deezle. “,TNEMPMACNE eht morf sdray derdnuh eerht ton sdnaS eht yb dewollows erew yehT”

Together, we hung our heads and, in silence, remembered Calvin, the third of our colony known to have died and the first for whom we had no body to bury—for at this time, we could only guess at what had happened to the Doctor and Rotcod, and none had yet given up hope of finding our missing children.

“Come,” I said. “You must all be weary from your journey. Rest and we shall prepare a feast tonight in memory of Calvin.”

Still life—the frame centred upon a bonfire—drunk fire, where the silhouettes of colonists blocked the light—from their shadows I recognised each of them—a human carousel, each revolution illuminated new faces before their texture dissolved once more into a flat, black cut-out—this ebb and flow mesmerised me in my octopine high, recalling the rolling of the great oceans of the world before THAT WAR transformed them into a sluggish, stagnant mire.

Had I been sober, I might not have written off what happened next as a trick of the mind.

Out of the corner of my eye, where colour and light bled in an unwieldy accretion, I thought I saw a figure I recognised—Rotcod, stealing through a floor grating, disgustingly fluid, as if his body were made of oobleck. I blinked and he vanished, moulting his form as if it were merely a skin and the darkness he disappeared into, his true body.

As I say, I dismissed this vision as a hallucination—it had been months since Rotcod disappeared into the bowels of the Empty Bowl, his parent, the Doctor, following in his wake, and I truthfully did not expect to encounter either of them ever again. That his emergence coincided with my inebriation—and that I was the only one to see it—remains one of the greatest misfortunes of our people and I have lived with the burden of guilt ever since. It is not simply that I was high and he had chosen that moment to return, but that it was perhaps one of the first times I had truly let my guard down since the conclusion of THAT WAR—such a collision of chaotic elements, aligned as they were, could only be the will of the universe itself, contorting outcomes to suit some grandiose, impenetrable scheme, like a rigged pachinko machine.

The feast and the festivities that accompanied it were starting to wind down when we heard the cry of the carnyx once more—Deezle’s party had been spotted.

Though we were all exhausted—none more so than Elzeed and their compatriots—we climbed to the lip of the Empty Bowl to watch their approach.

We knew at once that something was wrong. Many of the distant figures seemed to toil as they came, limping, or nursing injuries to their arms and torsos, here and there, white bandaging could be seen flapping in the breeze. Some were walking with the aid of makeshift crutches, or else, clinging to one of their fellows for support and, at the very front of the procession, two colonists bore a stretcher, the unmistakeable outline of a body visible beneath a wrapping of white muslin.