The cave is silent for now. Eager eyes look up at me in wonder and curiosity. Some, disgust, and some, an unspoken emotion, a cross between dread and longing. Even the air seems to reach out and wrap its wispy tendrils around me in something like a yearning embrace. I start. “This new planet we dubbed, ‘Turmoil’.”

“Why is it called Turmoil?” Jamie looked, one of the ones who looked with no judgment, only interest, and wonder for the world. 

“ Why? There was always a sense of unease, discomfort. Something always felt off, wrong, a smile too wide, the feeling that someone was always watching you, weather a smidge too hot or too cold be comfortable, a sign maybe just a little bit crooked, the clock ticking slightly off-beat, the hung-up painting slightly off-kilter. And when you inhaled, it always felt like there wasn’t enough air, like when you stay under the water for too long and you need to come up for air, but without the gasping and spluttering. How I loved the colors. Each day, they varied. Would today be too saturated? Or would it be washed out, or would it be like one of the vintage movies the humans liked, grainy and feathered on the edges, never really clear?”

Doc stared at me with that familiar look of friendly curiosity that never failed to unsettle me. “How do they look? Those beings on this new planet.”

I thought for a moment. “They looked like us from afar. But up close? Clearly only humanoid. Sizeable, wide, eyes, with deep, expressionless pupils. Unproportionate bodies with gangly limbs. Where they lived looked like Earth as well, but more bland, less foliage, and no underlying buzz of transportation or birdsong. It was quiet. Too quiet. There were many things in our eyes that were free to refine. So naturally, us souls embraced them. Strangely, there was little to no resistance, and soon, things seemed flawless, perfect. But nothing is ever perfect, we found out. The sense of unease was always there, lingering, looming, present, as if they never really left.”