Short Story- "The Precursors"

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First draft. Mostly rambling. I did not extensively research archeology and facts for this.

The world outside of the caves was a savage and sudden place. Yes, "sudden" is the right word to express the all encompassing experience known as "The Unknown". The was no such thing as "rules" as you would call them in this day and age. You took a hunting party, or a raiding band out on arduous expiditions during the warmer times. During the "Days of Flood", my tribe was known as...actually there is no proper way in enunciated English to pronounce the name- the closest attempt sounds like "Bauk-teah."

Our clan, fractured as it was politically internally, sought refuge together in the various caves and crevasses throughout the Kludzko Valley. Again, of course, we called Kludzko something else-in our own tounge. The eons have not been kind to my memory- I've stopped pondering what it was.

Every lifetime, every family, was a whole and all emcompassing reality that ended at it's own limits, limits that were and continue to be dictated by the fact that time is relative. For myself, time had no end-only a hazy beginning. Thus, as far as my own reality mattered, every family I saw grow and return to time, every nation I chose to involve myself in, was a detatched part of me. I had no home because I had no end. With no foreseeable end, l learned that experiences and memories are things you should honor and remember while keeping those involvements at arms length. Mortals had the luxury of fitting in their experinces into a box since they conciously or unconciously knew that their time would eventually end. There was no box for me, no ceiling.

Before the "Great Floods" my clan cowered inside, fearing the elements, fearing the beasts...fearing the "Others". It is ironic in hindsight that I called my most hated and loathed enemy "others", for I am like you- a sentient. They were not of different origin or without inherent evil, yet they were not a part of the Beak-teah tribe and subsequently declared untrust worthy. I understand the reluctance of so called modern social scholars to debate if Neanderthal man was so archiac and polarized. It's an unconcious denial of information to say that we had true, functioning societies. We were a collective, yes, but not a true working, diverse social organism that can be called a nation. We were NOT complex! Every person had a function in the clan- a natural calling that was assigned to him or her by the Elders. This was really no more than giving significance to nothing and having a person, an ideal imbued within a human vessel, emerge from the nothingness. One's identity was in large part dictated by one's superiors.
In this modern globalised world you and I currently exist in, it is the opposite. People today observe others around them and pick and choose what ideals serve them best. Back then, "people" really meant those around you-and on top of that, people who you absolutely TRUSTED. Who you trusted generally ended at your immediate family and occasionally the clan as a whole. If you believe that people today are dishonest and distrustful, the humans during my emergence would be harsher than one could imagine.

"Finding yourself" is an idiom that only arose after humankind mastered the basical elements and the primal fears derived from the helplessness bred in the wilderness. The mode of being was perpetually "Fight or Flight". Outside of your family group there was little room for compassion or love, for harmony- there was only room for survival.

I vaugely recall a moment in anqituity of peering out of the cave into the frigid, barren valley I once called home. My eyes stung for several seconds, temporarily blinded by the sudden change in light and temperature. Blinking madly until my sight adjusted, I cautiously edged myself along the cave wall and ventured forth half blind. Looking down from the naturally terreced hills, I scanned left to right, capturing and taking note of the geography. You never knew what information was trivival and what was crucial. Back then there was no difference-it was safer to study and understand everything.
Early man had no inclination to work with others becaue the extent of caring for others ended at what they could do to benefit you. Nature on the other hand was easier to love. The wilderness killed people yes, but you could always trust what you saw. What you saw may not have helped you- it downright could have spelled your demise, but at least you could trust your eyes. Knowing how cautious you yourself were, empathy pushed you to distrust other humans outside the group.

Some people today have been misled by media and speculations that they take as fact into believing that their precursors were nature loving hippies who worshipped beasts and flora. This belief has elements of both truth and naive wishful thinking from a liberated intellectual standpoint. We did worship animals and flora, but it was not in the same manner one worships a diety like your Zionist "God". "God" demands unquestioning faith, a sacrificing of your deepest self to Him to be salvaged from the terrestrial realm. Worshipping the Bear or the Hawk did not require and attatchement and submission to said beasts. People were still very practical about it. Worship back then was a ritual to remind clanspeople what to fear on the Earth. Fear sometimes translates into reverence over time due to instinct to appease that which we cannot control. We want to be like it. We want things it has intrinsically and we do not. It's the basis for Stockholm Syndrome...and we lived in a nearly constant state of Stockholm Syndrome in regard to nature.

With our gradual but immense mastery of the elements around us, our fear of beasts, natural disasters and sudden raids dissapated into the fabric of the technological world. The subduing ofour primal fears opened up the spiritual path to true salvation. The salvation of the human soul as opposed to that of the human body.

Ah, I've rambled on...I'm thirty millenia young...alright don't give me that look, fourty millenia. My thoughts float in a sea of memories and lessons...lessons that often times contradict one another. I've learned that you are never correct- being a person means to never accept what you know as the complete reality and to always try to pan the scale of focus to a larger, wider frame. I am in no way saying I know everything- I'm old and my senility is growing. Now, where were we? Right-leaving the cave. The first time I went forth as an indevidual, a capable "man".

There was a stretch of trees devoid of even the slightest hints of life frowing over a frozen river. The lifeless branches arching over either side of the ice. I urged my unstable legs forward to the cave-lip while the icy wind battered and whipped my body into a numbness I could not describe. The world was emanating its call, yet it was not a call of benevolence- this was a howl of the ultimate third party. The struggle of an ice age. Almost every fiber of my being screamed at me to retreat to my lair.
A deep stinging sensation worked its way into my psyche over the preceding days until my body began to gradually weaken and forced me to leave the cave. This was hunger; the only thing as dangerous as other humans. Every life form's main adversary apart from biological adversaries in the fight for survival. I didn't leave the cave beacuse I wanted to. I left because I had to.

I climbed down the terreces and darted into the cover of a pine grove near the river. Here, down on the level earth, the air was more gentle, not as crass as it was in the open. The bare but numerous branches acted as a windbreak and shelter from the howling wind as well as beasts....and people. I desperately searched the overhead for signs of life. Anything- a bird, berries, maggots...would have sufficed.

The laws of nature are constant. You didn't change it, you adapted to it...unlike today. Inept creatures perish in the face of unkind natural elements and predators. The lack of either cunning or tenacity often times chokes out the existance of such creatures. Subeterfuge was key; so was intrinsic physical tools. The only part any creature could control was its will power to survive. If something was alive, it already had both or one of the two qualities.

So....I found nothing amonst the trees. Defeated, I trudged onward into the wilderness in search of nourishment. The hunger was growing by the day, gnawing incessantly as I pushed through the snow.
As I searched on, I let my mind wander. It was an optomistic daydream, possibley a survival mechanism built into me by my simian ancestors to inspire last ditch courage. I thought of how my kind was exclusively special and exceptional. No other creatures I've layed my eyes on had manipulated objects to the extent we did to gain nourishment from things that held no obvious nutritional value. we rarely sunk to clawing and gouging as beasts do to fight- we ran when it made sense and we hunted when we needed to. We used rocks, flora, beasts and geography to better ourselves. Surely we are the Masters of the Earth!

Snapping out of my arrogant pensive thoughts, I saw something scurry behind trees one hundred paces to my right. The sun was behind the relatively distant groves and casted this....thing's ...shadows toward me- stretching toward me. It had the vauge shape of a Bauk- teah- a head, arms, bipedal motor functions amongst other things. It had to be one of the Others. My hold on my spear tightened into a death grip- a rush of adrenaline surging through my half frozen body. Every sense intensified; every color bcame more vivid, sounds became sharper and isolated, smells richer and time slower.

Patience is the key to survival ...so I waited. I bade my time for half an hour in baited breath. I dared not move an inch, even to shift my head for a better view. I closed my eyes and honed in on the subtle sounds that became so crucial in moments like those. The foilage was quietly russling. Slow and delberate movements of intellgent caution- this was no mindless beast. I was hungry, I was weak. I didn't have the strength to fight an Other. Motionless as a boulder, I waited and hoped for the Other to pass by without picking up on my presence.

At this point I felt that a slight shift of my head and turning of my eyes was warranted. There was movement fourty paces in front of me. My heart pounded so hard I feared that this creature would hear it. I closed my eyes and calmed myself. More rustling. I cracked my eye-lids slowly and in time to see this creature pass through a small clearing without dense vegetation.

My mind flashed a thousand memories to recall any encounter or mention of such a creature. There was no memory. It appeared to be like me, of my kind. It-no, he, was male. This enigma was similar to me in appearance in many ways, yet somehow different in a less obvious way that I couldnt quite put my finger on.

To my terror and discomfort this ...this ...thing turned briefly to let loose a series of noises behind it. Another one appeared- this one female. I watched in simotaneous fear and intense curiosity. If i wern't so hungry for knowledge I would have fled then and there. They were not of the Others. This male and female were taller and possesed less hair than myself. I've never heard such melodic sounds come from anyone in my tribe, or even from foes during a raid. My feet grew roots and I became entrenched into the earth by the tendrils of fear. Half of me urged me to figth- I had the element of surprise. The other half of me pushed me to flee. I didn't know what to do. I stood there unable to budge, frozen like the environment that surrounded me.

The mysterious "Not Others" continued toward me. The male suddenly tensed, then brought a spear to bear as he motined the female to retreat a short distance. He had spotted me lurking in the dense trees. I was exposed-this was it. He kept his spear at the ready and began creeping toward me. Despite this, I remained motionless. I would not run, but at the same time I did not know if I could emerge victorious. For what seemed to be an eternity I stood there as the distance between us closed. The male stopped several paces from the tree I hid behind and watched me as closely as I did him. His mud brown eyes locked with mine and I searched them for hostility. There was none I could discern- these eyes were deep, soft and intelligent. I could sense his spiritual nature; there was less savagery there and an aura of a much higher wisdom and understanding of his place in the realm. There we were- just looking at each other. His spear raised while I kept mine planted in the tough dirt. Surprisingly, he lowered his weapon even at the sight of my lack of defensive preparedness. This creature, this male, was very unlike beasts, the Bauk-teah and the Others. Why did it lower it's survival mechanism when shown weakness? He was not like me- but I felt like I understood why he did. He was acting on a feeling that I alone had harbored in my tribe, but dared not speak. I had always wanted to live without a spear-but reality and necessity dictated that I must. This one obviously believed a spear to be necessary against me, yet he did not use it. I was amazed at his lack of concern for himself.

The Not Other beckoned the female forward; she carried a pelt satchel made of mammoth hide and averted her eyes as she came closer to me. Having something, SOMEONE, so unfamiliar close to me sent a automatic signal to my brain to raise my spear in defense, but I decided to recipricate the males actions instead. Anxiety and fear was conquered by curiousity now. I looked over the female to the male behind her and then to the groves behind both of them. They were alone. ALONE. They had taken down the largest beast and used its hide as a tool. It took many of our males to do the same...I was wading in a pool of amazement yet again.

The female was close enough to touch if I stretched out my spear. I did not. After a moment, the male came to her side and let out the same melodic, flowing sounds as earlier. His mate unhitched her mammoth satchel and opened it up while maintaining a certain dignity despite her vulnerability that comes with being within reach of my spear. Still silent, I drew my gaze to its contents. These strange beings had mastered the forests and mountains; they had impliments that were alien to me. Tools I've never laid eyes on nor knew the function of. As silently as I had studied their impliments and their nature, I rose my gaze to their faces. The male made more sounds to the female and she replied with pleasant tone. Their faces were strange- they contorted their faces in a manner that appeared to be more tedious and rapid than my people and that of the Others. I did not know how to read them, but it seemed that they understood me.

Accepting foolishly that they were not hostile, I put down my spear and knelt down to their possesions. The brown eyed male motined at my cap then to a small container of nuts and roots. He did this several times to indicate that he wished to give me his container of food in exchange for my cap. I finally started to see these creatures auras and mode of being. They were like me in that they dealt with people only when there was something to gain, but these had a much larger capacity to surpress their aggresions and to craft the elements into tools more intricate than anyone in my tribe could have.
It was in that moment when Neanderthal and Homosapien stood face to face with each other, that a conflict of sentients began. Both genuss strove for dominance, yet the rules of nature would only permit one to occupy the peak of heirarchy. There was to be only one winner- If you look around now at the archetectural mostrosities and the technological marvels that surround us, it is obvioius who had won. I am the only survivor. I do not know why I've been to live fourty millenia-that is for the Bear Spirit, or your "God" to answer when I finally succumb to time itself. That is how your kind came to be young sentient.

- Ryna Teah
Hoe Rainforest
Washington State, United States of America.
The First One to unnamed explorer.

This a good story! A really, really good story!

My only complaint is the fact that Neanderthals were never in Washington.

But other than that little detail, it's good!

He is a Neanderthal man who is immortal. He has moved around and lived in pretty much every part of the earth since hes been alive for 40,000 years!

Wait - the narrator was the Neanderthal? I thought that he was a human, and the Others were the Neanderthals.