As luck would have it, Sarif landed in a field. It was the perfect place to gather samples of the new world to analyze and she would have done so if she had her lab with her. Sadly, it went down with the ship and all she had was her small kit, not big enough to store many samples. She tried anyway.
She picked some of the tall, bladed plant species and tucked it inside her cracked escape pod. She then patted dirt along the outside, trying to make the purple shell blend in better with the brown ground. She tucked some bigger plant samples around the pod, covered it further and giving Sarif more space to tuck in stray samples.
When she finished collecting all the plants within easy reach, she set off, pulling petals off here and picking up a piece of a dead leaf there. She kept going, far past the field, her pouch stuffed full of new things to study but still with no knowledge of where she was. Sarif never had the most common sense and her love for science outweighed her survival instincts at times. It wasn't long before she realized she was hopelessly lost, the new plant samples far and few between here. She finally took the time to look around and saw a video playing in a window. She slipped inside, hoping it was a video phone she could use to call the captain or one of the other crew members.
It didn't take her very long to get lost in the video. The creatures were strange and they didn't speak a language Sarif was familiar with but it was fun to watch. She munched on a leaf and eagerly watched the creatures play.
Darkness fell, and the screen went dark. Startled, Sarif looked around. She could barely make out where she was but there were bright lights somewhere ahead. She followed them to a loud street. Sarif hid behind a post, watching the noisy and HUGE vehicles stream by before realizing they weren't going to hurt her. She didn't see an easy way past them so she walked alongside the path they followed.
She walked a long way. It felt like days had passed before she smelled something almost familiar. At the very least, it would be a new thing to study, as there were very few life forms on this path for her to collect. She wandered on, towards the red and yellow lights, under she bumped into a glass door. Sarif rubbed her forehead and then peered inside. Everything inside reminded her of the video she had watched but she couldn't find a way inside.
The sun was finally starting to come up when Sarif found an opening in the back. She slipped inside, into the warmth of the kitchen. She could smell food somewhere and began to sniff it out. She found a tray filled with strange white food shaped like small versions of her escape pod that tastes like grains from her home. There were more leaves in another area and tubes with some sort of cream on them. She grabbed a leaf and piled some of the grains on it. Wrapping the leaf around the white food, she dragged them both down off the platform and into the front of the building.
Here was the place she wanted to be. Maybe the strange creatures from the video would appear. She took her food stash into a corner and waited.
A few hours later, giants started to file in, all wearing the same clothes. She munched eagerly on the white grains. They looked like the girl who helped the strange creatures. Soon the creatures would be here too!
Music played as the hours past, lulling Sarif to sleep. She dreamed of them there, all their crazy colors and fun abilities. Their words made no sense to her but she responded to them as best she could, mimicking the girl and her blue creature. Her favorite word they had used came to her, lee-loh. She kept whispering it in her sleep.
The music stopped and Sarif woke up, startled by the change. It was dark again, and none of the giant creatures were left. With a sigh, Sarif broke up more of the white grains to eat and tucked the rest in her overflowing pouch. Her locator popped out the other side when she shoved too hard.
"Oh..." she muttered, realizing she could have been using that the entire time to find everyone. It was easy to get distracted when there was so much science to be done. She flicked the switch on and looked at the dots appearing on the screen. "Rolf," she poked the blue dot. "Weil. Zana. Brawzen." She poked each dot in turn. She couldn't find her dot though.
Sarif crawled out from her corner, looking for anything to open up the locator. She could a curled piece of metal, a long tube that was larger than she was tall, some grainy white stuff that made her thirsty, and a brown liquid. That too made her want to find a drink. Distracted again, she found a pool of strange liquid and drank it and giggled as it fizzed in her mouth. She dragged the metal piece over, excited now, and used it to pry open the cover of her device. It took her some time without proper tools, but by the time the sun was peeking into her hiding spot, she had fixed the locator. She flipped it over and watched as a purple dot flashed on the screen.
Pressing the communicator button she shouted, "I'M STILL ALIVE!"
"Sarif?! Is that you?" she heard Zana over the speaker grill.
"It definitely is! I think I am lost but I am waiting for the lee-loh creatures to visit me!"
Though the others didn't understand what she meant, even after she tried explaining it to them, they all agreed to meet her there. She didn't know how they would get here but if they had the captain, first mate, Brawzen, AND Zana, Sarif was sure they would be alright. Eagerly, she found the drawing tools the smaller creatures had been using and some large white drawing papers and began to draw out her favorite beings from the video. She just knew everyone would love them as she did.
Sarif left behind a code. Collect all the codes from the crew to find the ship.
Visit the other caches in the series!
#1-June 29th, 2014
#2-Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!
#3-'Aliens'
#4-The Great White Fog
#6-Cars Land
#7-Twintuition
Final-The Blue Box and the Bronze Ship
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.