Prehistoric

[WP] Your wish for invulnerability and immortality was granted, but at a steep cost. You were sent back to the Cretaceous period. You have 100 million years before anything resembling humanity evolves.

*****

I spent years… decades?… centuries? Wandering. Thinking. Learning. …forgetting… time had no meaning any more. I had to walk a fine line between enjoying the world for what it was, knowing that I couldn’t be harmed, and pure hopelessness of not knowing how long until some forms of civilizations would spring back up.

Yet another day of wandering, and wondering. Wandering in a new area. Wondering if my mind was playing tricks on me again, or was that… another…

“HEY!” I shouted, only to realize my brain was a little slow and it more came out as a inarticulate yell. But the message had been received, the other person, THE OTHER PERSON, turned to me, paused briefly, and then started jogging my way, waving at me. Was my loneliness over?

I’d spent years… decades?… centuries? I don’t think it’s been centuries, but I’ve been with the group for a while now, they had been together before me for some time, and we picked up more people along the way through time before mankind. Watching and learning about the creatures from the history books and museums, both things of faded memories but at the same time have not yet existed. Time is a funny thing when the line gets broken. We’ve spent so much time discussing who we were, and who we might be when we are able to rejoin humanity in it’s infancy. But it’s still so, so far away. None of us can recall how long we think it was from the time of the big asteroid to the slow rise of man, maybe 50 million years… give or take… we’ve already been here for far, far too long. And have so much longer to go. Seems like even longer to go given that not everyone in the group of 60 gets along all the time, but no one is willing to leave and be alone for the rest of the time.

One thing that always kept us confused and arguing, was the “man” that gave us all the choice. The one with the ability to grant invulnerability and immortality. In the form of a little pill. We all agreed how he had a presence about him, that seemed to swallow up the importance of everything around, like a void that everyone else instinctively avoided. But not us. We were different. We saw him when others seemed to look through or past him. Oddly dark eyes, and crooked humorless grin.

And it was on another day of wandering and discussing this man, that the hunters showed up. Before we realized what was happening, our number was reduced by one. Pulled away into the trees in the blink of an eye. As we all turned and looked in the direction he was taken, the man from all of our pasts stepped into the opening. Still with dark eyes, but now the grin, was genuine. And predatory.

“I’m sure you all remember me, even though it’s been a long, long time in your feeble minds.” He said, grinning with even more anticipation and desire than before. “We are what your species would call ‘aliens,’ and while we are not a fan of that term, there are more important topics at hand. Our species is one of a small few that have found ways to harness almost unlimited energy. But, sadly for you, that comes at a cost.”

“A cost we, are so very willing to have you pay.” That grin again, it seemed to soak the life out of any chance of hope. “We have found a way to harness the energy of time, hope, despair, happiness, and loneliness from living beings. All of that essence has been building up in you and stored in the tiny being that is keeping you immortal. The creature you swallowed in a pill so very long ago.” He paused to let us reflect so briefly on all of our biggest decisions. Our biggest mistake. “As you can imagine it takes quite a lot of energy to send you back so far and allow such an amount of life essence to grow and cultivate, as well as the energy for us to be able to travel between points to make it happen, which is why this is always done with groups of humans.”

My heart dropped, how many times had this happened before. How many others have experienced the uncountable years that we’ve gone through.

“And you may have found yourselves curious about why it feels like it’s been so long, yet at the same time, it doesn’t exactly feel like millions of years, and time seems a bit disjointed. A slight byproduct of the harvesting organism I’m afraid, it needs to sleep and recharge as well sometimes, and it also makes this process just barely bearable for humans.”

“And now for the fun!” He said seeming very enthusiastic. “You may be surprised to hear that the creature in you is mature and no longer needs its sleep periods. And you will be very surprised to hear, only 5,000 years until the first scatterings of human civilizations begin to pop up. And all you need to do… is make it there.” That grin, growing somehow even wider than before. “As for the rules, we only hunt with very basic tools, to try and make it a bit fair. We will only take one person at a time. When we take a person, we will not take another human for another 80 years. So it’s possible, if you are good enough, that one, maybe 2 of you might make it, and be allowed to continue to when you first met me, at which time the creature will simply die, and you can continue as a normal mortal human. Now then, only 5,000 years to go, and you can feel safe for the next 80 of them, but as you have now come to learn, 80 years, is not much time.”

As he silently stepped back into the woods, we all stood there, terrified, confused, and speechless. We had had millions of years, of disjointed time, where we felt safe due to our immortality. But now the hunt was on, and we only had 80 years to prepare, and for the first time in millions of years, we experienced absolute fear once again.

*****

THE END