Language

The markings on the wall were beautiful. They were fascinating in their shapes, their turns, their… something.

They were also incomprehensible.

Probably language. Probably writing. But not a language we could understand. Not a script that we could read.

We had tried our best to decipher it ever since we got here. Several weeks now. But we had yet to succeed in interpreting even a small part of it. Let alone the whole beautiful thing that went around this entire chamber.

I was standing in front of what I considered to be the prettiest bit of the markings when something happened. Some kind of a ‘Whoosh!’ occurred, and suddenly I could understand it all.

The markings were a warning. Instructions to get out of the chamber before it was too late.

It informed visitors about the recurrent timing at which deadly radiation swept through the chamber we were in.

I could read it now, I could understand it, because I was dead. My spirit was not as limited in its understanding of alien languages as my physical form had been.

I looked at the bodies on the floor. Wondered what had become of the spirits of my companions. Shrugged, and decided it no longer concerned me.

Whatever afterlife or lack thereof my former companions had or had not chosen was up to them.

It was time I said farewell to their remains and to this place. Time I joined my own ancestors where my spirit belongs.