Writing Competition 138; "ALIEN CITY ON THE PLANET XRONI"

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Xroni is one of the planets located close to the center of the Andromeda Galaxy, the closest galaxy to the Milky way. It's atmosphere is much like Earth but a little denser. It has two moons and at night, the air gets cold you can hardly breathe. Most of the houses on xroni are built to propel heat and ensure that the temperature is warm.

The inhabitants of the planet are skilled in many regards and because of the cold temperature at night, most people engage in sporting activities at this time. Even shows are mostly done during this period as the pulled in crowd would themselves generate heat. Another activity that the people engage in is mining. At night, the heavy machinery used are stabilized and don't heat up at all. Infact you could assume that every tasks that requires breaking a sweat was done at night.

On one of their mining escapades, the miner (whom the peoples refer to as 'Xora') happened to have found a huge hole. A whole so large a thousand Xronians couldn't match it's width. The interesting thing was that the hole tunnelled down and was so deep they couldn't tell it's end on sight.

The Xora's on duty that day alerted the authorities who waited till dawn to come visit the site. But by then, word had gotten out to the populace of a whole in the middle of the planet. A public address was made to dismiss this fact as rumor but the people weren't swayed and demanded to have a look at the site. They weren't allowed to however for their own safety. With a crowd that much, no one could tell what would happen or rather how many people might fall or be pushed in because some eager lad wanted to test or prove a theory.

Without wasting any time, a five man team was assembled. The mission was to follow the hole, see where it leads or ends and bring back reports and recommendations.
The team soon set off after a couple of days and into the hole the soon disappeared. As they journeyed farther and farther they soon discovered that the hole wasn't just a hole. It wasn't lumpy or slippery. It was as though something or someone chiseled carelessly through the planet's depth like an earthworm would the soil.

After a couple of days, their descent led them to the core of the planet and at this point they were totally lost. They saw a well structured civilization at both sides of the core. There was a city right at the heart of Xroni, a city the surface dwellers knew nothing about.

Soon they were noticed and beaconed upon in their language. The surface dwellers were surprised they knew the Xronian dialect. The lad who hailed them was Babu and he made quite and impression explaining to them how they oftentimes go to the surface at night to catch a glimpse of the stars and the cold hair the core denies them. It is from this escapades that they learnt about the Xronians and their language.
At this point, they arrived at the leader's chamber who welcomed them once more and told them how a millennium ago, their ancestors crashed deep into the planet and discovered that the core went so well with their skin it helped eradicate some inborn diseases. As a result they decided to stay close to it. Centuries of years later when some revolution was led and people decided to go to the surface they found some other tribe had inhabited most of the planet and also that the 🌟 star wasn't favorable with their skins that only thrives in the night air. They accepted defeat and returned to their people with reports of the surface world and its dwellers. Ever since my people go up occasionally to see what's happening.

The divers were shocked and left the core after exchanging pleasantries. Days later they got back to an eager crowd who were waiting for answer and have come up with different absurd stories.
When called back for debriefing the divers were asked about their directives and its result.
Their response however caught everyone off guard as they answered almost unanimously;
"We found an alien city at the core of Xroni".