An Explorer's Journal - The Cleft - The Tree

I’ve searched every inch of the Cleft, so the two remaining Journey cloths must be somewhere above me in the desert. After a moment or two spent blinking in the bright sun at the top of the ladder, I head off to my left to explore the area around the volcano. A barbed wire fence surrounds the rising mass, so I can’t go too far up the slope. Two birds… desert birds… wheel and cry overhead. As I near the outer fence, I see what looks like pieces of junk. Sheets of metal and an odd cone-shaped tank. Further ahead, curved white stakes jut up from the ground. I walk over, and discover that these are not stakes. They are bones. The bleached white rib bones and skull of some huge creature. How did this get here? These bones are from no creature I’ve seen or read about here on Earth. Inside the skull I find the sixth Journey cloth. The now familiar, even welcome rush of sound and feeling wash over me.

My feeling of triumph is short lived. I still have the seventh Journey cloth to find. Further searching around the volcano turns up a couple of lizards and more dirt, but no cloth. I guess it’s time to visit with Zandi again. He must think I’m an idiot.

I ask about the last cloth, and I can hear the exasperation, albeit with a touch of good humor, in his voice…

”Sometimes you've got to close one door to open another.”

Zandi is back to speaking in riddles. Close one door... What doors have I seen? The one in the tree, the door to the kitchen, the door to the workroom with the imager, and the door leaning against the wall next to the storeroom. The door in the tree is my goal… what I’m trying to open after finding the cloths, so that can’t be it. The door next to the storeroom was too heavy to move. The door to the kitchen is already closed, so that just leaves the door to the workroom.

For what feels like the umpteenth time today, I climb down into the Cleft. In the workroom, I press the glowing blue button next to the door to close it. Now… “to open another.” The only other door I can open is the kitchen door, so I go down the stairs and press the button next to the door there. The door slides up and I am able to walk out onto the ledge. I don’t see anything new, nothing different from this side. I cross the bridge and turn to survey the other wall of the Cleft. There it is! On the closed door to the workroom! I make another mental note to go with “always look behind you”; always look behind the DOOR, too.

A quick scramble over the planks and up the broken bridge takes me to the final Journey cloth. I am exhilarated to see the entire hand symbol light up when I touch it. I remember Zandi’s cryptic words of encouragement… “Follow her. Find the Journeys and then enter the tree.” I have followed Yeesha, called through dreams before I even knew I was following her. I have found the Journeys. And now, with capital letters firmly in place, The Tree.

Standing before The Tree, I place my hand on the door. The symbol glows, and the door slowly slides open. Looking into the darkness beyond the opening, I have the feeling that this is not just any door. There may be just another room behind it, a space like any other. There may be a wholly different world behind it, with things I’ve never even begun to imagine. Either way, it will be a new beginning for me. As I had remembered Zandi’s first clue, I now remembered his last. Walking through this door would be the closing of one door, the door to my life as I had known it… and the opening of another, the door to the world of D’ni… to URU.