“XX1, just what are you doing. It is absorption time and your food is ready.”
XX1’s mother was annoyed. Since they had been living on the surface of the planet, the children just had too many distractions. How she wished they had remained beneath, but their leader had ordered that they could now show themselves above. The earlier inhabitants, known as humans, had almost died out. Just a few remaining settlements here and were left and the underground people had now moved up..
“I am trying some of that human stuff out mum; they certainly had some funny habits.” XX1 answered. “I still have not found out what the idea of that receptacle is. There are knobs on the wall that you can turn, but nothing happens.”
XX1’s mother decided to have a look. She climbed the stairs, which she did not like doing very much. She preferred descending and not ascending. Actually there was very little she liked doing since they had moved to the surface of the planet. Her partner and father of XX1 had studied during his youth and knew more about the planet. It seems that the underground population, their own people, had been developing over many years in their own way. They had lived so near to the core of the earth that they were never discovered.
“What is the problem XX1, and what are you sitting in? Those knobs, as you say, were for water. If you go close enough you can smell the water.”
One of the human problems was there there was no longer very much water, just a few puddles in the oceans that once existed. There was no actual weather, the planet now bearing temperatures similar to those under the surface. One of the reasons why the underground population could now survive above. They had eyes, but their usage had disappeared many years ago. They found their way without sight.
“Thought I would try it out, but it seems strange to me. You mean the humans sat in water, how disgusting. ”
“Other people, other customs XX1: they put their food in their mouth and swallowed it. We just absorb it through our skin."
“I also found something to put on my feet. They must have been funny people covering themselves up like that. Yuck, putting food in their mouth and swallowing it. That is disgusting.”
XX1 removed the strange leg and foot covers and followed its mother down the stairs to start absorbing. Today was her favourite food, earth from the core, mined by the core workers. XX1 preferred it to the surface earth, it had much more flavour.
And so life continued on planet earth. Admittedly the new inhabitants looked just a little bit different to the old, but that was the process of evolution, developing on a parallel basis to those living on the surface. Neither people knew of the other until there was no food on the surface. Only those that could adapt survived and earth was everywhere.
XX1 enjoyed life at the top and was looking forward to the next day. It found the receptacle was uncomfortable, but it had also found something much softer. It did not know that it was a bed. The days of burying itself in a mound of earth to sleep were gone. A new era was dawning upon the planet earth.
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