Fiction:A Trip to Runaia/Day One

The crew of the Danku I carried on, scanning and mapping every single spot they pass. The rapid winds carry tiny slivers of ice that blow towards the Kaeiras' path. Towards north of the landing site lies a seemingly endless valley of frost. To the east lies what appears to be an enormous canyon too steep to descend safely from any point by foot. They head further north, Yunjim having left trails to mark where they came from.
 * Monowoe - (Over a portable transmitter) Danku I to mission control, this is mission commander Seoirayo Monowoe. We are into our first day on Runaia, reporting nothing of interest thus far. Sending data collected from Danku I's landing site.

The Frozen Valley
The four kept walking, with Yunjim and Kaynos trailing behind.
 * Yunjim - Brrr. There's a nip in the air on this planet.
 * Kaynos - Heh, and you call yourself a Kaeira?
 * Yunjim - Hey, not everyone's invulnerable to the cold, you know. Geez, how big is this valley anyway? I don't think we're going anywhere at this rate.
 * Kaynos - ...I've got an idea. Tell that story again.
 * Yunjim - What, that old short story I've told a dozen times?
 * Kaynos - Yeah. I mean, it'd pass up the time, won't it?
 * Yunjim - (Sighs) Fine.

"Seeing Black"
Yunjim began telling his story to Kaynos as they kept walking through the frozen world, waiting for anything of interest to pop up.

The following story is told and narrated by Yunjim

A man wakes up in a panic. It was six minutes until midnight and he dreamed about somebody in his house waking him up and stabbing his eye with an ice pick at exactly midnight. In that instance, everything felt so real that he took this as a premonition and frantically searched his house for any possible means of entrance that any would-be intruder would use to enter. He tried hard navigating his almost pitch-black room. The clocks on the wall menacingly ticked.

Five minutes

He looked around the dining area, making sure every nook and cranny did not have any holes large enough to crawl into. Making sure every window was sealed shut, he opened and closed every single one in the room. The clocks on the wall menacingly ticked.

Four minutes

After the dining area, he went to the kitchen. He locked and sealed shut every drawer and cabinet that had sharp objects in them, be it kitchen utensils or any other household tool. The clocks on the wall menacingly ticked.

Three minutes

He went next to the living room, searching under and behind the seats. He was paranoid at this point, disregarding any form of logic just to make everything sure. Doing the same with the windows, he opened, closed and immediately locked his front door. The clocks on the wall menacingly ticked.

Two minutes

He hurriedly checked the back door and the windows. Going upstairs, checking the hallways and rooms in the same manner, he almost ran out of breath as he returned to his bedroom. The clocks on the wall menacingly ticked.

One minute

He went to the bathroom and had one look at the mirror. He took one sharp look at his reflection and felt something odd: he couldn't have circled his whole house within five minutes and not even break a sweat after all of that. It finally struck him: he was dreaming again. He took one loud laugh at himself before deciding to return to bed, hoping to finally wake up this time. The clocks on the wall menacingly ticked, yet in the midst of the darkness, he was finally able to close his eyes without any worry.

...Before catching a glimpse of a dark figure with an ice pick coming out of his bedroom curtain.


 * Kaynos - Damn. See how terrifying your story is?
 * Yunjim - Heh, on the first time it was.
 * Kaleos - Hey, I heard all of that. I liked it. You wrote that one?
 * Monowoe - Heard it too. Nice story!
 * Yunjim - Oh, thanks. Heh, I wasn't expecting you two to listen.
 * Kaynos - Makes you wonder whether the black, starless night skies above are truly empty.
 * Yunjim - I don't doubt it.

Kochita's Crater
After walking for almost an hour, the crew members see an enormous, steep, circular, descending slope with an almost flat center. Mission control informs them that they have reached Kochita's crater. They all carry on towards the crater's center, with Monowoe taking samples from the impact crater as they walked. As they got closer, a low yet audible rumble could be heard emanating from below the ground. Upon reaching the center, they could now slightly feel small vibrations on the ground. At this point, the rumbling was most intense and had reached its peak in terms of volume. Monowoe knelt down and placed her ear to the ground. She heard low, muffled roars. The others soon did the same. Kaleos took a moment and pondered deeply. In a moment of realization, his eyed widened as he immediately got up, looking at the frozen surface of the planet. Taking another listen to the sound emitted underneath the crater, Monowoe and Kaleos felt they've solved something big. After doing both scans and obtaining the data, Monowoe noticed something. Monowoe's explanation struck all of them. They knew that when proven to be true, the possibility of Runaia having a planet-wide underground ocean beneath its icy surface was closer than ever. Not only would they be exalted in history as the Kaeiras who have proven this hypothesis, but this discovery would spark a breakthrough and revolution in the field of Kaeiran astronomy as a whole. Monowoe immediately informed mission control of their possibly game-changing discovery. Kaynos sets an electronic marker at the crater's center, which then immediately registers to their mapped locations. With a vital discovery having been made early on into their expedition, the four were ready to call it a day earlier as well. They retraced their steps back to the ship using their trails and the areas they have mapped as a guide.
 * Monowoe - We are 3.8 kilometers away from our ship and mission control reports that we have reached Kochita's crater. They advise us of particularly noteworthy... things at the impact crater's center.
 * Kaleos - Shouldn't we have already found impact materials scattered around, though?
 * Yunjim - With everything being ice, I guess this crater's new?
 * Monowoe - Or it was probably large enough to still remain to this day despite Runaia's ever-changing landscape.
 * Kaynos - Great, more ice and white rocks.
 * Monowoe - But no, they didn't say that we were looking for impact materials or anything. Mission control suggested that we "listen to the ground near the center" once we get there.
 * Kaynos - Imagine finding something big just by listening to the ground. Now that would be one hell of a story to tell.
 * Yunjim - You guys hear what I hear?
 * Kaleos - Loud and clear.
 * Monowoe - Something's down there...
 * Yunjim - It sounds alive.
 * Kaynos - Eh.
 * Kaleos - Doesn't it sound like... crashing waves?
 * Yunjim - Like... the ocean?
 * Monowoe - The oce- wait, that's right!
 * Monowoe - Kaynos, have that ground penetrating radar with you? Could you perform some scans here at the center and somewhere out of the crater?
 * Kaynos - Aye, commander.
 * Monowoe - Scans from the center of the crater seem to indicate a change in material 50 meters below. Taking the results from outside the crater and at the center, their differences and variations in their return signals seem to indicate that below the crater's icy center is liquid...
 * Monowoe - (Over a portable transmitter) Danku I to mission control, this is mission commander Seoirayo Monowoe. We have an interesting find on the center of Kochita's crater. Underground mapping hints at a probable change in state of matter 50 meter below. Variations in data taken outside the crater to those taken at the center highly suggests that there's liquid below the crater. We shall inform you of any other vital reports.