Diane de Anda, The Perfect Environment

They had built a dome over their city for protection, but the caustic wave that washed over it at varying intervals had begun to pit and wear down the outer surface.  It was clear that they needed supplies to repair and coat the dome's surface.  But getting the supplies to their location had been impossible so far.

It had seemed like the perfect location, warm and moist, with a never ending food supply for the city's residents.  Besides, getting in had been easy; there were multiple orifices, some large enough to fly in all the building materials they had needed.  But, once inside, they lost all communication with the mother ship, especially with the multitude of gurgling noises around them.  They would have to go outside again to send a signal that more supplies were needed to shore up the dome's protective surface, but none of the teams they sent was able to make it out, and some were not even able to make it back to the city.  Taking the path they used to enter the orifice didn't work.  They had ridden liquid and debris laden streams into the interior, but these same streams washed the reconnaissance teams away from the entrance or caught and suffocated them in a mushy wash filled with boulders.   A few had tried the southern route, but it went on endlessly in looping curves so that it was finally abandoned.

At least there was plenty of nutrition, and the perfect temperature and humidity did not require any energy supply to the residents' living spaces.  The nutrition engineers suited up each day and exited with their vacuum hoses and containers.  They attached the hoses to small purple streams and sucked out the red liquid that fed the population.  They had recently sliced pieces off the moist, rubbery surface and used them as patches for a few small pinholes in the dome.  The pieces took hold and had even begun to enlarge, giving some hope that they might eventually form a barrier that would safely seal the dome.

Recently, there had been some unusual and worrisome events in the environment beyond the dome.  A strange creature, long and thin with a glowing eye, had wandered through the main orifice, explored the geography, and then left.  Strange substances polluted the streams, coating the surfaces, making them white and opaque so it was harder for the nutritional engineers to find the smaller streams and clean pieces of surface to remove.

Their data analysts have been trying to decode the sounds that emanate near and are flung from the large orifice.  Smaller orifices on either side of the terrain also resonate with these sounds.  They have been able to copy the most recent sounds into chains, but have not yet been able to translate them.  Here is a compressed sample of the last sounds they have captured, written in their language: 

 ^^^///...)))vvv########**((((((,,,,,*<<''''''''+++++:::::::::>>>>>//////)))))#######*************

(Translation for the reader:  “The results from the endoscopy show ulcerations in your stomach wall and some hemorrhaging of small blood vessels.  We're going to have to try something stronger than the Mylanta you've been using.”)