Wonder’s first day in Ur turned
into Wonder’s first night, which then turned into her second day, and on and on
for several more days while she and Koro walked, jumped and flew through
Groddle Forest. It turned out that Wonder did quite enjoy jumping—though she
would have also liked to try flying—and she did a lot of it, even when it wasn’t
strictly necessary. As they walked, jumped and flew Wonder would ask Koro
questions and Koro would answer to the best of her ability. Whenever she would
ask about Koro’s past Koro would try to steer the conversation toward other
things which turned out to not be much of a problem because Wonder was still
extremely easily distracted by all of the things around her.
Over first few days she asked
about the world and its people, where it had all come from and where it all
went. Koro, not being a Glitch herself, tried to tell Wonder whatever she could
recall. It turns out she had been watching the Glitchen quite a bit before
everyone disappeared and had learned a good amount about their beliefs and
practices. She didn’t have an answer for everything (“Why do the streets have
such funny names?”) and not all of the answers she gave were accurate, but she
did her best to be helpful.
And so they wandered aimlessly
for a while without a clear goal in mind. When you live in a world after it has
ended there doesn’t seem to be much point in having a point, or so Koro
reasoned. They never did encounter any other Glitchen, but they did
occasionally come across a piggy or butterfly ambling as aimlessly as they
were. Koro wasn’t much help in explaining how they might be useful and the
animals themselves weren’t very forthcoming, so they mostly just let each other
pass.
While they never found another Glitch they did find
plenty of evidence that there had been many around at one time. There were
objects and food and drink strewn about everywhere. “What happened here?”
Wonder asked one day while they were trekking through a particularly messy
street. Wonder had shown much interest in individual objects and their
purposes, but this was the first time she really considered the mess as a
whole.
“Well, as far as I can tell
everyone knew the world was ending—or at least they thought it was—so they
figured why keep the place tidy? Instead they threw a giant party and this is
what’s left.”
Wonder considered that answer
for the rest of the day and much of the next. She appreciated all of the new
items she was learning about and she especially appreciated the food and drinks
left around since she didn’t know how to prepare it for herself and Koro
couldn’t teach her, but the thought of a world so suddenly abandoned made her
sad.
They continued wandering through
the forest until they came to a meadow. After the meadow they found themselves
climbing higher up into the mountains. They had been hiking through the
mountainous region—Groddle Heights according to Koro—for going on three days
when they reached a dead end street.
This wasn’t the first dead end
they had come upon. Ordinarily they would just turn around and walk the
opposite way for a while, but this walking and jumping and flying had been
going on for ten days and Wonder was beginning to wonder if they were just
going to continue to do this forever.
“Can we stop here and rest a
while?” Wonder stood near the stone that marked the end of the street.
“Sure. Is everything OK?” Koro
landed on a low hanging tree branch nearby.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I know I
don’t understand a lot of things about this world, and I really love walking
with you and seeing it, but I feel like there’s got to be something more than
this. I mean, what did all those other Glitchen do that lived here before?”
“I don’t know, kid. I really
don’t. I mean, I can tell you what I saw, but I didn’t really know any Glitchen
personally so it’s hard for me to know their reasons.”
“OK, well, that’s another thing.
How do you know so much about the Glitchen without really knowing anything about them? I thought you said you were
from before?” Wonder started to pace uneasily. Talking about these things was
starting to get her worked up, which had never happened to her before, and she
wasn’t sure how to deal with it. Pacing seemed like a natural thing to do.
“Well,” Koro started, but was
already at a loss of how to answer. “The thing is, I saw quite a bit of
their—your culture—“
Wonder cut her off. “You keep
saying that, but it seems like you can’t even answer half of what I ask you!” She
was really getting going.
“I know, it’s just—“
“Like this thing,” Wonder
pointed to the stone carving. “We’ve seen a dozen of these or more, one at the
end of every dead end street, but you can’t even tell me what they’re for!” And
with that she slapped the top of the stone and everything went black.
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