Solitude

Cléo and I dig around in old dirt piles in the temple first. I give her some pointers and make sure we can find the most out of it. Together, we dig up the base of an Observer Relic. I can’t wait to complete the relic and try it out.

Cyril ran down, all the way down past three gates to find a port-a-potty. He doesn’t see the irony in going against the plants and the jungle animals and the possible traps just to get to a fancy toilet. And then complaining about the insects he found there.

In other news, the food I brought was in my bag. You know, the one that now lives below quicksand. It was going to be okay though, because I thought we shouldn’t put all of our provisions in the same basket, and handed half of them over to Cléo before we left!

So Cléo has some food for us to munch on as dinner, right? She didn’t forget it, right?

Yes, she did. It’s very fresh, recently picked, but uncooked avocado and tomatoes for us tonight. I don’t mind, but Cléo and Cyril are a bit disgruntled. I promise them we’ll get a much more satisfying meal tomorrow morning, but I can tell from their hateful stares I’m really only making it worse.

In the meantime, the best I can do is also what I do best.

I get solving on the temple’s enigmas.

Some of them under the watchful stare of the omiscan llama god. Well, his statue.

I’m not saying I get it right every time. Far from that, in fact. I get the very first interaction with the temple guardian very, very wrong, and I get my first mystical touch of this trip.

And it’s a curse. A bad curse. I would rather have been turned back into a shiny blue skeleton.

Like a wave crashing on tired shores, I get overwhelmed by loneliness. The feeling that there’s no one in this world with me, no one who even wants to be with me, starting with my family.

And the dark side glances my siblings have been shooting at me don’t help.

Well, the side glances Cléo has been shooting at me. Cyril is still outside, trying to find more avocados, he said. Really, the three of us know he’s avoiding me.