🌈Rainbow Veins🩸 (Day 4 of titling a story after an Owl City song)
ASHLEY’S SPACE JOURNAL
October 1, 2043
I wasn’t expecting that my first entry would be describing a terrifying crash rather than a safe landing, but here we are. The goal of this solo trip was simply to arrive on Mars and snap some photos, but inexplicably my ship crashed when I was only about halfway there. To my immense gratitude, I ended up crashing not into an asteroid or comet but another planet, one that, although it is completely new to us and was undiscovered before now, appears eerily similar to Earth from afar.
Luckily, I was just able to contact those at base and inform them of my location before all connection was lost. The rescue team will arrive in an estimated two days, so in the meantime, I suppose I should explore this foreign planet as much as I can.
October 1, 2043
It’s remarkable; from what I’ve seen of this planet so far, it is not only similar to Earth but completely identical. It’s a Goldilocks planet, thriving with a multitude of different animals, plants, and yes, even humans! Upon exiting my spaceship, I found that I had crashed in a large field filled with sunflowers and lush green grass.
I had only to walk a little before I discovered a small neighborhood, whose inhabitants were not the insect-eyed green men I might have expected to find but rather humans, humans just like us- old, young, male, female, two eyes, ten fingers, two legs- everything is the same. I was doubly shocked when I learned that every existing language on Earth is also spoken here, and also that I had luckily landed in this planet’s equivalent of America, where most of those around me speak fluent English. So, I conversed with the people living in this town, explaining where I come from and how I came to be here, and have thus far not been able to find a single feature of them or this planet that distinguishes them from what we have on Earth.
Their average lifespan is around 75-80 years. Their pregnant women carry the baby for nine months before giving birth. Their age of majority, depending on which country one lives in, ranges from 15-21. They build factories, have jobs, use currency, live under governments and kingdoms. Their children enjoy playing games and watching TV- yes, even TVs and the Internet exist on this planet. They keep pets, play instruments, create beautiful art. There are schools, and hospitals, and post offices, and amusement parks- really, it’s all so uncanny.
I will continue to observe this planet with great interest.
October 2, 2043
Well, I finally found it. It was purely accidental, but I found it nonetheless. The one difference between humans on Earth and the ones living here. When Anna (one of the town’s inhabitants who I befriended yesterday) tripped over a large stone on the ground and scraped her knee, I was astonished by the color of her blood. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet- she was bleeding a rainbow! She was puzzled by my surprise, and then was surprised herself when I told her that our blood on Earth is only crimson.
Now that I am aware of this unusual feature, its implications are both fascinating and somewhat amusing; it means that a smear of rainbow on this planet isn’t the work of an artist, but a bloodstain. The scenes featured in horror movies might include a deadly knife dripping in rainbow and painful wounds that ooze the seven colors. While a history book depicting a battlefield filled with Skittle-colored bodies of fallen soldiers might appear rather silly to us, it’s a very serious matter to them. A children’s cartoon in which an animated sparkling unicorn throws up rainbows might be entertaining and funny for kids on Earth, but for the young children on this planet it would be downright traumatizing and most likely receive complaints from angered parents. And, perhaps, it need not be mentioned, but of course this new discovery also means that all of the women on this planet are greeted with rainbows once a month.
On this planet, though, I suppose I am using the wrong word; they don’t call the seven-colored arc in the sky a rainbow, but a bloodbow, as it resembles their blood. And, not surprisingly, they refer to their lunar eclipses as simply Red Moons rather than Blood Moons, since the color red by itself carries no indication of blood to them.
Well, my rescue team arrives tomorrow, and I have much to tell and show them. I am honored to have made such an astounding discovery and look forward to learning more about these amazing people: The humans with rainbow blood in their veins.