The Village

I want to tell you about that strange village, Kiurana, as they once called it. I wonder if you ever heard of it. I first visited it some ten years ago but ‘visited’ is probably not the correct verb as I simply found myself there one foggy morning. I always liked roaming in the forests around our tiny village, discovering new paths, but that day I got lost, and I just could not find the way home. I used to watch the position of the sun or observe the flights that I already knew, namely at what time and which direction they flew, but that day there was a sudden fog and I got totally lost.

It was slowly getting dark and I knew I should go to the north to get near to our village, but without the stars I probably missed the direction several times. I was tired, I felt I had just been going around and around for hours. Then I heard bats flying over my head, I could hear the clattering of their wings. I thought I had finally reached the high cliff with the cave near our village. I knew the neighbourhood of that cliff quite well, but the trees were not familiar at all.

It felt as if the fog had dissolved for a moment because I could see a light over the treetops. From its height I thought it might be the star Rigel from the constellation Orion, but it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared a few moments ago. Finally, the fog started to clear up and suddenly there I was. Elderly people in our village used to tell legends about Kiurana, which they also called ‘Porte au Soleil’. They say you can only get there by mistake, when you are lost, but if you are looking for it, you’ll probably never find it.

As I arrived there tired as hell, the night was already over and the first rays of the sun illuminated a huge cliff emerging from the fog and the few remaining buildings of the village. They were mostly ruins, abandoned for many many years, as I had heard, and no one dared to live there any-more. On some buildings, there were signs or letters that looked like Chinese characters, but I know some Chinese and I could not make out any similarities to any of the letters.

On the rock over the ruins there was that sign that I thought I knew from somewhere but could not recall from where. Later I asked some elderly people in our village, they said it was the sign of the gods and they had left it there for us as a guide to find them when we were ready to meet. The village itself seemed rather strange to me, a half circle of buildings with an elevation in the middle, just like a spaceship from one of my favourite sci-fi series, covered by soil and vegetation.

Several years passed after my adventure in Kiurana, that I met Zoeigh. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, with a face probably even more captivating than her name. From my side it was love at first sight, but I could never find out what she had seen in me. Even after more than one year together, I still felt a kind of mysticism about her that I could never explain to myself.

Once I told her about the village and that raised her interest immediately.

“You have to show me that village!” that was her first reaction. I told her that, according to legend, we could never find the village if we were looking for it, but she said I should leave it to her.

As I could not talk her out of her idea, a few months later, as I was visiting my parents, she came with me to have a look at the strange village. After I had introduced her to my parents, we just took a walk in the neighbouring forest when she suggested we should go to the village Kiurana.

“We could get lost in the forest; we had better wait until tomorrow”, that’s what I told her but she was determined, so we started on a trip full of surprises.

I realized immediately that she knew or, more probably, she felt the way somehow, because in half an hour we were already there. She went into one of the small crumbling buildings and the earth started to tremble and a semi-circle shaped object emerged from the vegetation. I immediately recognized the shape of a spaceship, just like I thought it could be.

As she came out from the building, the strange thing already took the shape of a spaceship and I was wondering how I could have mistaken it.

“Come with me! This is one of the greatest opportunities of your life” she told me, and probably rightfully, but I could not decide. I just stood there watching as she vanished behind an oval door; as the spaceship emerged and Kiurana disappeared somewhere between the stars.

The months passed and I was really trying to forget Zoeigh without any success, so I was not surprised that a few days ago she appeared in my dream. She told me she would like to see me again and that there was an easy way to get there where she is right now. She told me there was a village called Machu Pichu, where in one of the buildings, behind a stone wall, I could find the controls to the spaceship.

I am not sure what I should do but I booked a trip to Peru a few days ago. I have made a sketch of the building, as far as I could remember it from my dream, and put down the details as well, how to start the spaceship. I am not sure whether starting an alien spaceship on Earth is allowed, especially if it is in part of a nature reserve, but I am afraid I do not have any other choice if I want to see Zoeigh again.

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