The Curse of Chimera

amart29 (68)in #esteem • 5 years ago

Greetings to everyone, the following story was inspired by the digital art of @xpilar, I invite you to visit his blog. The picture that motivated this story is the following.

Fuente

The Curse of Chimera

-Is it true that a woman died here? -Patrice asked in an apprehensive tone. As I looked at the readings from the sensors -. One of your companions told me that his ghost was around here.

-That I understand, I don't know, how true it is, but the legend circulates among all the Biology students at Cerbero's academy, apparently she was a biologist from the Environmental Engineering Division and a researcher at the academy. - replied Silvio, who was piloting the small submersible. -Apparently the information was hidden.

-I had never heard of it in the engineering faculty, the only legends that circulate there are those that explain the disappearance of girls from some specialties; in the first years of aerospace engineering there is only one girl for every ten children, -he said in a mocking tone, without taking his eyes off the projection of the readings -. You believe that about the ghost.

-Of course not, those are nonsense. But to be honest, there has always been something mysterious and frightening about this planet, many of those who have worked here, for a long time, have suffered from sleep disorders, nightmares and depression, - replied Silvio, in a gloomy tone. -A former teacher of mine, apparently had to be hospitalized with symptoms of dementia, after spending a year carrying out an investigation here.

-And what did the woman die of? -Patrice asks.

-According to legend, it was more than five thousand years ago, the girl went mad and committed suicide or was killed by accident, some versions say that she removed her helmet because she could no longer stand solitude and others say that it was because of some kind of delirium, the case is that she died poisoned by atmospheric gases - replied Silvio.

-The truth is that this planet is rare, it is true that crystalloderms are the only form of life that exists in the whole place, - continued Patrice.

-It is true, no evidence has been found of the existence of any other form of life, neither macro nor microscopic, here only crystallodermes live, -he replied as he approached a large group of about twenty, submerged several kilometers from the coast.

The submersible surrounded the group, which was organized in a compact formation resembling a circle, then stopped about ten meters from them. Hours later Patrice and Silvio began to feel a strange feeling of uneasiness, the peculiar grouping of crystalline columns was particularly disturbing to them, it was as if strange beings could somehow know what they were thinking, as if they could see through them.

-I think we should get out of here, -said Silvio, who only devoted himself to seeing strange creatures.

-Yes, I don't feel well at all, I think I'll return to my stomach at any moment, -corded Patrice -. Let's wait a couple more hours, I think that, with that and the data collected by the satellite sensors, will be enough. I hope we can find something in them that works.

During the night, in the ship, neither of them managed to sleep, strange dreams beset them, in them they saw the image of a woman dressed in a space suit, without her helmet, floating on the shores of a beach surrounded by crystalloderms, in her face a grimace of anguish and despair, around her strange forms that twisted like clouds of gas, stretching and spinning compressing as if they had life, seemed to float in air on that beach where she floated without life.

The next day, disturbed by it, they decided to return to Cerberus, one night in Chimera had been enough. They devoted most of the twenty days of the trip to analyze the data collected by the sensors, so as not to find anything that would demonstrate any type of communication between the crystalloderms.

Everything changed a little less than a day after entering orbit around Cerberus, in an ignored radio wave frequency almost to the limit of 3 Hertz, Patrice found a signal, a strange train of pulses that seemed to propagate from the very center of the location of the group of crystalloderms, immediately communicated their findings to the biology faculty of Cerberus Academy, the financiers of the project.

Shortly after sending the data package, when the ship that transported them entered the planet's atmosphere, a failure in the heat shield plates caused an explosion that ended the life of biologist Silvio Buonaffina and radio astronautical technology engineer Patrice Fernandez. Both would be recognized post mortem as the discoverers of the communication mechanisms of Chimera's crytraloderms, mechanisms that still remain unexplained.

Text of @amart29 Barcelona, Venezuela, August 2019

The Curse of Chimera

The Curse of Chimera

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