I don't know what time it is. I don't know where this is. I don't know when this is. I don't know what I am.

Right. Deep breath, Ryan, we can do this. We can do this. I can do this. Okay, good. The others can't hear me here. God only knows how this recording is going to turn out when this is all said and done, but if I don't get it all down, then I never will.

I'm going to die in this desert, and no one will ever find it. But hey, at least if future archeologists ever find this voice recorder they’ll be able to know everything I went through. Presumably those future archeologists are themselves explorers of this impossible portal. You came here through Paris just like we did, right?

You ended up trapped here, just like we did. And probably you died of dehydration between here and some unpronounceable alien city. I guess you didn't, since you found this. But okay.

Deep breaths Ryan, you can do this. Come on. So a lot has happened since my last recording, which would have been right before we went into the catacombs.

I expected to be telling everyone about all the exciting historical artifacts we saw. There is supposed to be a movie theater down here, and a speakeasy, and all kinds of other relics. All that shit leftover from… it doesn't matter. The point is, we didn't find what we were looking for. It seemed like maybe we were going to die instead.

I guess I should go into a little of the detail, but it doesn't matter right now. We planned on making a few hour expedition for our first trip. Then we would return over the next few days to explore further out. But now the good cameras are sitting in the hotel room, and here we are sitting in another universe.

I couldn't give you an explanation for how we got here. Short answer is that we found a way across and apparently something didn't like that we found this place because it chased us back in here. Or maybe it was just trying to kill us? We escaped either way. We're here now on the other side of who knows where.

What I can say is that it seems to have a single moon, single sun, and a day and night, similar to what you would expect from Earth. Maybe this is Earth far in the future, or some other insert your own dystopian explanation. The physical transportation to another place might actually make the trip interesting, except that unfortunately it had a significant physical effect on all those who traveled to this side.

None of us are human anymore, some less so than others. Unfortunately, I appear to be the most severely affected. Maybe in a future entry I'll go into biological detail. When I understand what it is I've become.

Two of the others appear horse-like, that would be the best description. Kaelynn is a fish or a fish horse. But not a seahorse, that's something else. I appear to be some kind of insect, and that isn't close to the most disturbing reality. Nor is the inevitable death waiting for us.

We can’t go back. There’s something in the catacombs, something we pissed off by opening the door into this place. Our only chance of seeing Earth again, of being human again, is a map Jordan found on the Earth side. Looks leftover from when people built and used this portal, though I couldn’t tell you what they did with it or why.

Apparently there are numerous cities on this end, perhaps the descendants of those first explorers from long ago. I guess they decided to adapt to the strange bodies they've been given.

I can't imagine doing that. It's not just that I resemble an insect. There's something wrong with me. Let me try to explain.

We didn't have food. Of course, we intended to only be down for a few hours, but we found some old cans leftover in the ruin. Simple vegetables and familiar things, not alien fruits to go with this alien planet. String beans and barley. The others ate them and seemed to tolerate them, even Kaelynn. She ate them soggy. But I couldn't. Couldn’t make myself swallow, no matter how hard I tried. God, what does this body eat?

Just made sure no one's listening. I know how they’re thinking, or at least how they’re feeling. It’s like a smell they leak around them, bad BO I can’t ignore except by running away. I know when Blake is frustrated. I know that Kaelynn is growing increasingly fearful, trapped in her spring. She only has two legs, and her body is worse off for the setting than the rest of us.

I don't know why that portal would have created a creature that can’t exist in the desert. But there is so little we understand.

I guess I should back up.

So we returned, we fled here for our lives. No one even got a good look at the damn thing. But I saw the eyes glowing in the dark, and I wasn’t the only one. We didn’t know whether the monster would follow us across and kill Kaelynn in the water. But it didn't, so little blessings.

No one quite had the courage to turn around and go back to Earth, not after that. It was resolved by unanimous consent that we would go with Jordan's original plan, which was to cross to the city on this side. According to this map, it connects to New York back on Earth. Thus we forfeit our hotel deposit and likely lose our expensive DSLRs.

But if we returned to Earth, we'll still be the greatest explorers to live. Suck my dick Lewis and Clark.

But once we were sure that creature wasn't going to come through after us, we searched the nearby buildings for supplies. There was food here. Almost as though the stockpile was left intentionally for us. There were a number of other supplies, camping gear, nothing as good as what we carried. A couple of cargo carts.

There are landmarks on our map. Not very many, but after walking some distance, we should be able to confirm whether or not we're heading towards the city. Based on Jordan's map, I believe the city is approximately 150 miles away. At a fast human pace, that trip would take a week and a half, minimum.

But these are alien bodies, and we will have to bring water for Kaelynn. No telling how hard it will be for horse-creatures to pull a cart.

At least the portal gave Kaelynn one mercy. One detail I haven't mentioned yet is that it isn't just our bodies that have changed when we crossed. Everything we carried transformed as well. Clothing adapts to fit these new bodies (but it doesn’t cover anything useful anymore).

All gear that we carry is altered in subtle ways to be more usable. For instance, my emergency lighter no longer has a guard around the activation button. Instead the button is large and rotated to the side so that it's easy to press with these flat hoof-things. This transformation applied to Kaelynn’s fancy rebreather. It holds water with a strange mechanism that attaches to the side of her neck. She has tested it and found it seems to work, allowing her to leave the water without drowning.

She is still nearly mute, and you need to stand right beside the mask to make sense of what she's trying to say. The bigger problem is that she still has two legs and a large muscular fin, which will not permit travel across this desert.

When the sun comes up again, we'll make use of all the plastic sheeting we have and attempt to adapt one of the carts here to hold as much water as we can. The one advantage to being quadrupedal creatures is that we can pull a cart. Indeed there are harnesses on them that would fit either of the other two. Not me, though—I’m smaller than either of them. More bug more problems.

Perhaps extended use will prove the rebreather will allow Kaelynn significant time outside the water. But none of us are willing to take the chance of the other, darker possibility. What if there’s only a few hours of breathing in that thing, and she suffocates out in the desert somewhere?

We did consider another plan. The water appears to source from a spring on this side and is not in danger of draining. We could pile all the food beside the spring and leave her here. Then the rest of us would cross to the city on this side, travel to New York, build some apparatus or prosthetic for her, then return through New York City. Cross the desert again on this side, return to this oasis, and finally bring her back with us.

Kaelynn rejected that plan. She doesn’t want to be alone for so long. Personally, I'm glad she decided to risk the desert. She's the only one who doesn't look at me like I'm some sort of monster.

Hopefully we'll be able to set out tomorrow. But the food here does seem like it would last for several days. We won't leave until we're sure of whatever we build for her. That should give Kaelynn a little more time to test her rebreather.

Unfortunately, there are no surviving records within the buildings on this side, only supplies. There are empty shelves and storage drawers, which may have once held written records, but either they've been stolen or have decayed to nothing. The construction of the ancient portal room we found looked to be centuries old.

It's possible no one has been here in that time. Though I don't think canned food brought here after Napoleon would still be edible.

We've been trying to figure out more details about where we are. I can confirm that none of the familiar constellations are present in the sky. Though with only a single night and a few minutes of observation, I don't know whether there might be familiar stars yet unseen. This would allow us to determine whether we've shifted in time or space. And of course, there are stranger possibilities. We don’t really have a precedent for people who traveled universes to compare against.

If we survive, we will be more than just the greatest explorers who ever lived. We'll be famous for life. So hey, at least I won't be unemployed anymore. I can go on an interview circuit.

I feel bad for Kaelynn in the water like that. Who knows how long she'll be alone? And once we set off, she'll be trapped in an even smaller space.

The others have already fallen asleep, even her, but I just don't feel tired anymore. I don't feel a lot of things in this body. Part of me wonders if I even have the same range of biological interactions. What I can say with grim certainty is that the familiar organs of mammals are present on the other two members of the group.

Maybe I shouldn't be looking a gift horse in the mouth, considering what happened to Jordan. While I have become some kind of insect, he has become a she. I don't know a she of what, since none of the species we've become are even familiar. We don’t resemble any earth species enough to guess at what animals these are. But none of the others have said a word about instincts or strange thoughts. I’m jealous.

I can tell that Jordan isn't taking this change very well. Silent consent between the rest of us has left us with the unanimous decision to continue to use male pronouns for Jordan and politely pretend that it has not happened.

I wish the others would be similarly polite for the strangeness of what I have suffered. But there’s no justice. Jordan and Blake don’t say they’re disgusted by me, but they don’t have to. I can taste it whenever they look.

Maybe I should make better use of this time and sketch some crude prosthetics. I doubt we'll get our hands on a welder in here, the ball and socket joints necessary for a decent prosthetic. But at the very worst, a brace with large wheels on the end that she could drag along behind her would be better than having no independence at all.

Then maybe she'd be in here with me instead of swimming around in circles. I wish I couldn't know what they're feeling. They don’t mean it, but I think they can’t help their instincts. I’m repulsive. I’ve seen my reflection, I can see why.

I’m so screwed.

Next Chapter: Chapter 5: Jordan Estimated time remaining: 12 Hours, 19 Minutes