Nin awakened with a start. She had been dreaming of something troubling but couldn’t recall what it was. Looking around the sleeping chamber, she saw Doon was still fast asleep. She decided not to disturb her. Instead, she’d have a quick meal and leave immediately to continue her travels. With luck, she would be able to reach Second Sun today. Assuming she could find it.

Emerging from the temporary shelter, she located the rising sun in the east. Then, turning to the west, she found the two trees that marked approximately where the sun had set the previous evening. She set off immediately to continue her search for the lost colony.

Making good time in the cool morning air, she passed through the grove of pines by midday. Leaving the woods behind, she continued down a meandering dirt path, which descended a steep slope. With the sun now directly overhead, she decided to pause and rest. Without the sun to guide her, there was a risk of getting lost. She would continue as soon as the sun was low enough in the sky to show the way forward.

Nin nestled into some leaf litter, in the shade of a scrubby bush. It was effective camouflage against being spotted by a hungry sparrow, or a dragonfly.

Falling asleep in the warmth of the afternoon, Nin awakened to find the sun almost on the horizon. Groggy, she realized the there was little daylight left and immediately fixed the left edge of the sun. Nin set off at a running pace. She was furious with herself for having fallen asleep on the most important day of her life. With so little sunlight left, the odds of finding Second Sun today were now very low.

Racing the dwindling light, she increased her pace. Descending a rocky trail, she caught a brief glimpse of something through the trees. It looked like a patchwork of geometrical structures, and green spaces, bordered by a ribbon of blacktop. It was a landscape very similar to her home of Rising Sun.

One of the structures stood out from the rest. It was surrounded, not by a closely cropped carpet of unnaturally green grass, but a lush garden. Nin checked the position of the sun as it dipped below the horizon. From her perspective, the building just touched the southern edge of the blood red orb. A strong intuition pulled her forward.

Crossing the blacktop, still warm to the touch from hours of sunlight, she scaled a curb and proceeded up a gradual incline. The terrain here consisted of a matrix of rectangular blocks imbedded in the ground. Each one was separated from its neighbors by narrow channels. She halted, confused by the symmetry of the landscape.

A few experimental scrapes revealed an impenetrable surface. Looking around, she remarked “There can’t be any colony here. There’s no way to excavate an entrance.”

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Then she saw it. In the gathering dusk, not a single massive mound, but a series of hillocks rising above the surrounding terrain. Piles of light soil, contrasting with the darker grid of blocks. Could there be multiple entrances? Nin approached cautiously, searching for any activity in the vicinity of the mounds. All was still.

She reached the nearest mound rising above the mosaic. It was constructed of grains of sand, the same shade as the sand filling the channels. Running up the loose slope, Nin crested the top and gazed down into a narrow tunnel entrance. It was exactly the width of the channel through which it passed.

Looking out across the nearby mounds, she realized that they must all contain a separate entrance. Nin didn’t recall any mention of Second Sun having multiple entrances. In spite of this momentary doubt, her intuition urged her to keep moving. She plunged downward into a maze of tunnels.

Descending steadily, she arrived at an intersection. All of the entrances converged into a single main tunnel, which dropped vertically from here. The diameter of the tunnel suggested this had been a colony of great size, with a massive population.

Looking into the many chambers she passed during her descent; Nin made a grisly discovery. Almost every chamber contained a mass of ancient exoskeletons. The desiccated remains of thousands of long dead colony members. She had to stop looking to avoid being overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the tragedy.

Finally, in the cold depths, she reached the lowest section of the colony. This would have been home to the leadership of the colony. These chambers, however, contained no remains. Either the leaders had died somewhere else in the colony, or they had escaped. Nin imagined they had been the first to flee.

While she believed that this vast underground tomb was the lost colony of Second Sun, she had to confirm it before returning home. The legend of the nighttime sun, which gave the colony its name, would provide the proof she needed. Nin made her way back towards the surface, keeping her gaze fixed on the main tunnel to avoid inadvertently peering into any of the chambers. It was just too grim.

As she neared the top of the tunnel, she glanced up to see the rim of the entrance highlighted sharply against the evening sky. Hastening up and out of the tunnel, she found herself suddenly bathed by a brilliant light shining from above. Blinded by its glare, she turned away. She could see that the nearby terrain, illuminated by the unnaturally white light, had turned into a bizarre dreamscape. It was a jumble of backlighted forms and elongated shadows that merged into the surrounding darkness. Unlike the daytime sun, and in spite of its intensity, this sun produced no discernable warmth.

Now certain that she had found Second Sun, Nin retreated into the relative safety of the abandoned colony. With exhaustion overruling her hunger, she found a small niche and curled up to get some sleep. There would be time enough to refuel in the morning, before returning to Rising Sun.

Nin briefly pondered the significance of her discovery. With the bountiful garden nearby, it would surely guarantee a reliable food supply for her colony. But would that be enough to ensure the colony’s future?

As she hung on the edge of sleep, the first threads of a dream began to entangle her thoughts. A young forager sat enraptured, listening to a storyteller recounting an ancient legend. The historic rediscovery of Second Sun, by a bold explorer.