Chapter 3

6 AM NT (Neuropia Time): This is the first time in days that I managed to sleep relatively well. You would think that after the trip, passing through the black hole and that landing — that no one, absolutely no one would ever clap for — I would be a little more exhausted. That was the most amazing and frightening experience, and that comes from someone who eats pickles with Nutella.

As we were approaching the event horizon there was an eerie silence, then suddenly a loud “Whoosh!”… We saw the landing target as planned, the P.O.R.T.A.L. was on our left, we had the right speed… Suddenly something hit our left hull, the ship started spinning out of control, fast approaching the ground of STEM2801.

As I opened my eyes I could only see darkness. My ears were ringing and I was feeling nauseous. Then the darkness blinked at me. Leaning over my body, in the cockpit of the crashed MINDOLLO 1, was a MIND. His face so uncomfortably close to mine, the cracked left rib I had, almost felt good.

Larry, the last MIND you would hope to save you, was helping me escape the wreckage of our ship. He carried me outside as I started to feel dizzy from the fresh air inside my helmet.

We have set up camp as planned and started emitting communications home. We have not yet established a stable connection.

The town of Neuropia is remarkably homely. We have seen a few of the city parts as the MINDS seem to carry out construction on quite a few main Buildings. The MINDS seem to have polarizing opinions on our existence. Some, I am sure never believed we were going to make it through the Universe, others maybe hoped.

We have enough supplies for now, but we wanted to check out the local produce too. They have a Marketplace where they accept swaps between products so we brought exchange various resources.

The door to the Marketplace reads: “Open 24/7. Please be respectful to other customers and staff in the Marketplace. Larry, for the last time, NO you cannot trade with pebbles! “

We got a variety of products that we’ll try in the next couple of days: Moomoo Meat, 2 kinds of cookies and some curious vegetables. I cannot believe that…

*beep beep beep* *paper starts being printed* Hey, guys… we have… Whitney on the line!