Artist's commentary
A note from a missing squad member
Last night, he suddenly took off his gas mask while on patrol duty, and letting out a strange cry, disappeared into the Needle Valley. The next morning, the search party found and collected only a scrap from his notes. Written on it was the following passage.
"Since the mother ship crashed down on this planet, we can no longer return to earth. The more days I spend on this pit of a planet, the more clearly I remember the aromatic green forests of my hometown, the clear, sparkling streams, and the night of the village festival I spent with my childhood girlfriend...I'll never be able to go back there. What can there be but despair? I can't stand it anymore. I'm going back to earth. Please forgive me for leaving my comrades and returning alone."
No doubt he died in the Needle Valley. The extreme stress probably made him unhinged, so he bolted. The one odd thing is that he was trying to get to his "hometown" on earth. The crash of the mother ship that he mentioned in the note happened 250 years ago. In other words, everyone in our generation was born on this planet. Not one person knows about the landscapes on earth or the state of people living there, due to the records being lost and the deaths of those who knew firsthand. So the place he was trying to go, right before dying...none of us can even imagine it, but it must have been somewhere like a beautiful paradise.
There's a reason I say that.
It's because I myself, writing this report, also want to return there.