Walking down the street, I lift my arm to shield my eyes from the searing brightness of the sun and look up at the looming billboard before me. Years of bleaching by UV rays and biting winds scouring the surface with sand had left the words nearly illegible, but I can just make out the words “Super Pickle” and an arrow pointing to the ramshackle building below. I approach with caution, looking out for traps. As the town’s original occupants had been fleeing, they had taken the time to make sure looters couldn’t get in. Not that it mattered—they never came back.

Peering through the door, I see a pair of glasses lying on a table. One lens is blue, the other red. I recognize them from my history class—a room full of humans, all of them wearing these strange glasses and staring up at a screen, completely enraptured in some strange ritual.

Despite recent groundbreaking archeological discoveries, I don’t know if we will ever truly understand humans.