[ CW ] Build a detailed and immersive world , without using any adjectives .

# ACROSS 
 
 `` What is this?'' he says, and realizes he's spoken aloud. Even though there's no one to hear him. It seems like it's been years since he last spoke. Or slept. He runs his fingers over the membrane in front of him, takes a step back and feels its texture on his back. He looks around, feeling like a bug bathed by the whiteness of a lab lamp. The same whiteness everywhere, the same faces staring at him silently from across the membrane. `` A wall,'' he says, `` or a door. Who are you? What do you have to say?'' 
 
 Each face is in a world; each face is a world. All of them staring at him, questioning him silently. As he runs his fingers down the membrane, the faces under his touch light up and move, as if initiating a ritual, maybe wanting to talk. But they freeze again as soon as his hand abandons them for the face that lies below. 
 
 What does it mean? 
 
 `` What does it mean?'' he asks aloud. Again, only whiteness and silence answer the question. He turns around once, twice: faces, faces everywhere. There must be a mechanism. `` There must be a mechanism,'' he says, and pushes on the membrane at random, trying to find the way, the language it speaks. 
 
 Then he remembers. Vaguely, almost as an echo of an echo of a lesson, he realizes he must ask the questions to himself. 
 
 What does *he* have to say? 
 
 Most of them are women. But not all. There are also men and kids and people he ca n't readily classify as women or men or kids. They all seem to live in a state of expectation, their eyes waiting for him to reply. What does he have to say? 
 
 Oh, lots of things. Lots and lots of things. 
 
 `` I am a man,'' he begins. He touches the membrane in the places where he finds faces of men. `` I lived on Earth. I survived.'' Now the faces light up as he touches them but do n't go back to rest when his hand moves away. The faces still look very much the same, but now there seems to be a purpose to their look. `` I do n't know where I am, but I think I know what you want. You want to know what it was like. What was Earth, and how we lived.'' 
 
 Each face is in a world. Each face is a world. None of them is Earth. Pushing from behind his eyes, he feels the heat of tears craving for release; tears pushing on a membrane, too, trying to break the dam of his gaze. Earth is no more. Earth is no more. 
 
 Has it been years, truly? Has he been sleeping all this time? 
 
 `` I know where I am.'' He says this as he realizes it. The faces do n't speak; they only listen. They never knew Earth; they all come from Earth's children. Each face comes from a world that did n't fail. `` I am between all worlds. They set this up so that we can speak.'' 
 
 The faces nod in approval. They keep lighting up, no need to wait for his hands to touch them. He does anyway, aching to make contact, to feel, to caress. He's giving them a gift, and they are giving something back. Attention. Compassion. Warmth. 
 
 They are ready. 
 
 He is ready. 
 
 `` What do you want to know?'' 
 
 -- -- 
 /r/SebastianLalaurette 

