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© OGO, 2023
ISBN 978-5-0060-6725-7
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
Foreword
Hello dear friend! Before you get acquainted with the reality of this fantasy world, I would like to share with you my observations that contributed to the creation of this work, fiction or alternative universe – whatever you want to call it. Although some of the research and interpretations below may seem unreliable or dubious, they still inspired me to write a little story with their unusual content. Should we take this story seriously? You decide!
***
A long time ago, our planet looked different than we are used to seeing it today. Two hundred and fifty million years ago, on Earth in the middle of a single World Ocean, instead of the current continents, there was only one supercontinent that united Africa, Eurasia, Antarctica and Australia, North and South America into one whole plateau. This supercontinent is called Pangea by modern scientists.
At the time of Pangea, life was already in full swing on Earth: its expanses were covered with the first coniferous and tropical forests, bennettite fields and other vegetation, very different from what today envelops the earth’s firmament, but it was fully populated by all sorts of insect creatures that were not similar to representatives of insects our time; other microorganisms from the ocean made their way to land and reincarnated as reptiles – the first reptiles, the same reptiles that eventually evolved into dinosaurs. And on the territories of the present continents, researchers and hunters of ancient cultures have found evidence of this in the form of preserved remains of both dinosaurs and their ancestors. And in the middle of the 20th century, during regular archaeological excavations in North and South America, other amazing finds were discovered, which, by their uniqueness, contradicted the scientific idea of the era of the appearance on Earth of the first hominids – anthropoid apes, the predecessors of homo sapiens:
1. In the early 1930s, Dr. Hilbary Greeley Burafs, chair of the Department of Geology at Bern College, discovered ten well-preserved and a few more partially preserved human footprints in sandstone in Kentucky. They were left on the banks of an ancient river about a quarter of a billion years ago! The scientist carefully examined the tracks of a bipedal creature and only in May 1953 told reporters: «Three pairs of tracks look like prints of the left and right legs of a person. The distance from track to track is 45 centimeters. The footprints are parallel to each other, and the distance between the footprints is the same as that of an ordinary person. But man, according to the data of modern science, appeared in these places only one and a half million years ago!»
2. Amateur archaeologist William J. Meister traveled with friends on June 1, 1968 to an excavation site called Antelope Springs, located northwest 70 километрахof Delta, Utah. On the third day, his wife and daughter discovered the fossilized remains of trilobites – ancient mollusks, the first inhabitants of the ocean. They lived during the Cambrian period of the Paleozoic era, that is, 600 million years ago. The maester broke off a piece from the rock, and then split it lengthwise with a hammer, opening it like a book. To his surprise, he found on one side the footprint of a man with a trilobite underneath. The other side of the stone exactly matched the imprint. The size of the imprint was quite consistent with the size of the foot of a modern person. It turns out that the imprints of a humanoid creature were left half a billion years before the appearance of modern man?!
3. Volunteer archaeologists have found numerous traces of ancient man in the bed of the Paluxy River in Texas. In one place, having bulldozed the soil down to a layer of clay, they found five human footprints diagonally crossing fifteen dinosaur footprints! In the article «The Mystery of the Carboniferous» in Scientific America, anthropologist Albert Nigolls admitted that if a human or ape-like ancestor existed in the Carboniferous, the whole of geological science would be fundamentally wrong.
4. In November 1972, English anthropologist Richard Leakey discovered a crushed human jaw near Rudolph Lake in Kenya. The age of the find is about two and a half million years, and this is the oldest find of its kind.
5. In the 60s of the 20th century, strange stones with strange patterns began to appear on the black antique market in Peru. These stones were collected in the vicinity of the Peruvian city of Ica, at least according to those who collected them. Many collectors and hunters of ancient cultures considered these stones to be fakes, despite the fact that the engraving on the stones was not the first freshness and was clearly not made yesterday. No one was able to determine the age of the stones in a scientific way, since there was no organic matter on them, which caused great doubts about their authenticity. Strangely, there were about 50,000 of these stones made of andesite, an igneous volcanic rock, from small to huge, weighing half a ton, and for some unknown reason they were sold to collectors for a penny by local treasure hunters. If it was a whole series of fakes, then it clearly did not pay off. The architect Santiago Agurto Calvo was one of the andesite collectors and personally organized an expedition to excavate in the town of Okukahe before 40 кмIca in 1966 to verify the authenticity of these stones. He eventually discovered two specimens in burials from pre-Hispanic cultures. Professor of Medicine, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Lima Javier Cabrera has identified a pattern in the images on the stones. The images are grouped in series from 6 to 200 stones, creating a coherent library. In each plot, the size of the stones changes, as well as the way the image is applied: from engraving to low relief technique. The images contain erotic scenes that are widespread in the culture of the Andean peoples, plots on organ transplants, observations of celestial bodies, hunting, animal life, including dinosaurs. The appearance of such stones called into question the whole science of human evolution and refuted Darwin’s theory.
***
I was inspired to create the trilogy «The Last Days of Pangea» by the above-described paleontological studies, which, from the point of view of certain sciences, contradict each other and may not coincide with reality or cast doubt on certain theories. And the plot of the first book – «The First Sense» – tells about the fantastic appearance of the first people in the prehistoric world and about the mysterious events that once occurred on the supercontinent Pangea.
Retreat
The dialogues in the novel are the conventional language of the first people – a completely unformed speech, which is partly accompanied by conventional signs and mannered hand movements.
Prologue
The Universe… How many secrets are in Her universe and how little I know about Her… Is there any sense in Her creation? Does She give birth to such worlds? Does life end in Her abode, or She herself does not know the final life, just as I do not know anything about Her beginning?!
The Universe… I feel how Its dense nebulae erupt luminaries, forming innumerable Galaxies. Dispersing them among the streams of chaos and emptiness, filling absolute Nothing, She embodies in reality new dimensions and states, new forms of life and peace… What is the purpose of Her manifestations? What drives her?
I have seen how planets are born. How asteroids collide and phenomena change shapes and structures. How comets break on stable bodies and destroy weak entities, leaving cosmic dust instead… I have found harmony and the will to accomplish. I saw the first life and accepted its sudden death. She created beings of numerous shapes and forms and taught them longevity and creation. And what is her intention? Maybe when the flame of my fire goes out, I will find myself where the fruits of the Universe take their origins, and the meaning of the worlds generated by me will become available.
***
Like all such stars, one day my Star also lit up – a gift to the Universe that created me for free or for a specific purpose, I don’t know. I remember how I felt the first warmth. As the first ray absorbed my unnatural essence. Your first warmth…
Having flared up once, the fiery source of origins blinded the universal desert with its body and awakened the beginnings of lives in it. Attracting with rays everything and everyone whom and what he could touch, he called from the wastelands to the beginnings food for creation, which nurtured the born essences with its warmth. Obviously, he warmed me too. Warmed and nourished long before I had the ability to live. How else? Without his touch, his light, my essence would not have gained consciousness, and my sphere would not have felt the Cosmos…
Do you hear me, my star? Tell me, do I have a name similar to what I called you?! My Fire Star is my Sun, you touched me, and for the first time I was able to breathe in the coolness of flickering lights, trace your creation of the world…
When it happened, there was no one like me and the Sun. But there were other incarnations nearby. Countless multitudes of solitary particles – mindless substances – in a chaotic stream sought shelter in the boundless harmony of the Fiery Star. They united in pleiades and rushed about in the arms of the Sun’s light, just as I was in the rays of its warmth. It happened that larger particles ignited for a moment with a red flame, as if they were beckoning with radiance the smaller forms of natures. Those, in turn, with an unknown force soared to the bewitching glows. Circling in the heat of their orbits, they slowly approached the source of attraction, and when they collided, something mysterious and chilling happened! Consuming the smallest essence, the substances spewed out flames, similar to the ardor of my Sun, and grew into red-hot elementals – another kind of manifestation. Elementals blazed, attracted and absorbed other sophisticated particles, and the consequences of their mergers again became substances.
The rebirths of forms were reversed in an endless circle… I looked at this reality with bated breath. Can a similar stream of perfection still occur in the Universe, incomparable to anything?! Possibly… The countless number of luminaries, so distant and inaccessible, going beyond the limits of the concept of boundaries, around me, my Star and these phenomena, only allowed me to imagine similar worlds.
Sometimes, after a flash of flame, the substances partly rejected the entities and pushed them back in the form of hard and cold comets. This reality seemed to take away a piece of one essence from another, leaving instead of it only an unnecessary residue. The absorbing phenomenon became more perfect, and the rejected comets moved away with incredible swiftness, bequeathing behind them clots of cosmic dust.
Keeping the warmth of the Fire Star, my body was gaining strength every moment. My content was reborn, turning into something more than the original essence. Then I felt how other forms began to reach out to me. Like comets flying nearby rushed towards my flesh, leaving the universe on their prepared path. Other entities emerged from their unstable orbits and strove for my reality. At first I was afraid. I was afraid that they would absorb me, as substances absorb other entities, or destroy my still fragile body. I wanted to free myself from my stay and… rush towards the Sun. But I couldn’t. The pull of my Star kept me from moving. And when the first inside touched me, instead of being lost and oppressed, I felt a familiar warmth. The same warmth that I felt before, as if the Sunlight touched my camp for the first time, freeing my mind from chaos and emptiness! With trepidation, I accepted the previously alien manifestation, allowing it to dissolve in the streams of my prana. The essence gave itself to me without a trace, filling me with a new feeling. I desired!
It happened over and over again! Substances, comets and elementals rushed towards me, and I absorbed them and was imbued with energy. My saturation knew no bounds!
The warmth of the Fiery Star in my body over time enveloped the foundations of the absorbed manifestations, and their shell mixed with mine and grew into an inhomogeneous sphere. I became perfect!
Soon, incarnations similar to me began to take off around me, but their contents were not quite similar to mine. Cold and hard, empty and transparent, they did not retain the warmth of the Fiery Star, and perhaps that is why their reality did not acquire meaning. Absorbing essences in the district, the bodies of the like became soulless planets. Those that were closer to the Sun took only the rest of the natures, spraying the shell into the endless space. Comets of other elementals constantly crashed against their warehouses, leaving giant scars on their folded camps. Others, on the contrary, absorbed everything except the basics. Inflated to exorbitant sizes, the planets made me worry about their sustainable existence.
I tried to talk to them, but they did not hear me, just as my Sun did not hear me… Then I could not understand what was the meaning of my loneliness. Oh, how I longed to see what was going on outside of Firestar Realm! Go out of your mind beyond its borders. To know the Cosmos of other luminaries. Maybe there, in other worlds, there are lives similar to me, capable of listening to me, accepting my existence, telling me the plan of the Universe and leading me to Its origins along the Star Way?
A small core – a tiny essence, like my image on the first day of realizing reality, lost in the arm of the Sun among the inanimate elementals – appeared out of nowhere. It slowly moved towards my habitat, gradually attracting other entities to itself, like a second Self, born long before its appearance. The essence merged with other entities, and with the same desirable feeling inherent in me, dissolved their cosmic flesh. Who are you? A living planet – a gift from the Fire Star or the Universe, born to brighten up my solitude?!
I asked her and received meek outbursts in response. Warm streams of prana excitedly touched my shell. With all the fibers of the absorbed reality, I felt her mutual «Yes». Is she talking to me? Does she really feel the course of my thoughts, the flow of my essence?
My satellite stopped very close. In the world of the Sun, among silent planets, cold comets and gloomy asteroids, he was beautiful and unique! Its fiery core, wrapped in absorbed energy, was like a Star Flower. With every moment, the sphere of cosmic petals of its mixed manifestations blossomed and shimmered with the light of the Universe. The abundance of vital matter of the satellite with constant impulses made me feel the Cosmos again and again! My lover, as if playing with me, absorbed the particles in the area and with each merger with them sent incomparable rays of illumination to my body. I could not restrain my attraction and reciprocated his presence near. My desired planet, my new understanding of the world awakened in me an extraordinary feeling, without which it was impossible to continue my existence!
Since then, I have not been alone. He was with me – my faithful companion! We endlessly danced around ourselves, one of one and the Sun, beating particles of its warmth into our foundations. Reflecting the rays of the Fiery Star, we took turns warming the sides of our forms that were inaccessible to it. We absorbed the remnants of mindless entities and replenished our bodies with their energy. Sometimes our attraction clung to the same reality, and we pulled it to each other. Competing with him in perseverance and gravity, sometimes I conceded essence to him. My blissful source, my vital inspirer of accomplishments, as it turned out later, needed substances more than I did, and his Cosmic touch after that was stronger than any light!
Constantly burning on the scorching rays, the lifeless planets nearby did not stop repeating the meaningless ritual of being around the Sun. The persistent planids healed their former scars long ago, while the transparent giants exhausted the nearest phenomena and remained frozen on the borders of the creation of the Fiery Star.
The eternal time of the Universe continued to surf the infinity of the worlds. Not feeling its duration, limits and variability in space, my satellite and I were transformed again and again! We gradually wrapped the saved warmth of the Fiery Star in solid matter, and our shells became more receptive to other forms. Sometimes stray comets hit them. Before merging with the elementals of the foundations, they were fairly overheated from elemental resistances. Penetrating the spheres, the comets turned into soft structures by the moment of a complete stop and smoothly connected with our bodies. So we ate. Thus, with time passed our careless constancy. Rotating in the streams of heat of mutual energy, we did not notice how almost all non-intelligent particles around disappeared. Once again, sparking with the force of gravity in the game «Absorbers of Substances», I saw how my blessed one moved. Its orbit again rushed to my location. I felt it and could not agree with the fate of the universe! My satellite, having released the invisible shackles and overflowing with prana flows, was confidently approaching. I tried to stop him, talked to him, rejected him with cold impulses and currents of the spheres. I started spinning faster and created a cosmic dust storm around me to express my denial. But he didn’t listen! My patron of harmony and prosperity accelerated under my attraction, and nothing could stop him…
I knew what would happen to us… I knew what would happen to him!
The torture of hopelessness completely permeated my body. Resisting to the last, I accepted his invasion. My spheres mingled with the petals of the Star Flower, currents and compounds boiled in the flames of fused essences! His energy penetrated to the very foundation. I felt the Cosmos and blazing pain at the same time!
And in one moment our camps touched. The shiver of collision and cosmic vibrations splashed out beyond our habitation. The waves of concussions spread over the abode of the Fiery Star and stirred up even the soulless planets… I accepted a part of his essence and, concentrating all the life streams, made an attempt to repel the disturber. The satellite succumbed to power and left my flesh, leaving a share of the inside in my depths.
Everything is mixed up! Many elements intersected in the spheres, blinding flashes, thundering in a mixed avalanche of two entities, shook my consciousness. I paused for a moment to take in what had happened. The soulless body of my companion headed for the expanses of the Fire Star. It gained momentum, moving away faster and faster, but my pain did not allow me to let it go into the abyss of countless luminaries, and I, not wanting to look at how it would become a comet, overtook the lifeless remnant with my attraction.
The extinguished satellite stopped opposite and silently froze… He never spoke to me again. His camp – colorless, dumb and cold – remained forever near, revolving in the bonds of my gravity. Only the Sun’s light was reflected in the mirror body of the now soulless planet and reminded of its once vital stay, constantly warming and pouring rays on my dark side of existence…
* dbaya – taking in.
***
The mirage of memories was filled with green beams of light. Glows emanated directly from the canvases of the walls of the building – from the inscribed drawings and carved symbols. The play of lights completely clouded the Tent of Unity, and in the center of it, through a thick haze, a mysterious stone was visible, wrapped in equally mysterious luminous shoots of plants unseen in Her abode. Suddenly, somewhere very close, muffled children’s laughter and echoes of the conversation were heard:
– Who? Who remains…
«Ar… Wa… and Iri…» came another unintelligible echo.
– I’m here! – I heard a girl’s voice. – I sing…
The child’s speech was interrupted by the displeased order of one of the adults:
«What are you doing here?! Well, run from here! This is no place for Seekers!
BONFIRE – the first night
A warm wind touched the foot of the Great Volcano*. With a light impulse, he stirred the tops of the araucaria and froze. The elements were replaced by cool air. Drawing it in deeply with his nostrils and enjoying the freshness of coniferous incense, Roshan fixed his eyes on the infinity of the night sky. The full moon rose over the valley. She illuminated the silhouette of Roshan – a hunter, shaman, husband and first leader of the first people. He stood on a viewing platform, dressed in everyday garb made from the skins of herbivorous reptiles. The tall, full of strength and self-confident leader thoughtfully rubbed the bone beads. The incisors of small predators were woven into his black strands, collected in a braid. The scythe hung gracefully just below the man’s waist and displayed his position in the tribe. Why, everyone knew Roshan! Only a child less than a hundred moons old could confuse Roshan with an ordinary hunter. The dark thick beard of the leader was also braided. It stretched to the very stomach, and its ending, pulled together by the claw of the Vulture, forked into thin pigtails. Despite the thousands of moons lived, the shaman’s blue eyes still glowed with determination. But his tanned and middle-aged face had long ago worn furrows that hid the scars that were once obtained on the hunt, already forgotten under what circumstances. Only a deep scar from Ostrothorn’s thorn on the scaly cheekbone on the right was reminiscent of the restless camp near the liana forests.
Scratching his hooked nose, the leader focused his gaze on the stars: an infinite number of heavenly stones illuminated the vault as never before; they shimmered with colorful lights, and it seemed that all the colors of the rainbow shone in the crystal clear sky. Roshan saw such a phenomenon for the first time! He furrowed his jet-black brows and thought.
– Roshan! A woman’s voice interrupted his thoughts. «Varn and future hunters are waiting for you. You did not forget?
The shaman pricked up his ears. Behind, in the settlement, through the splashing of a nearby brook, the voices of his young tribesmen were barely audible.
Ana stepped closer and draped the cloak over the leader’s shoulders.
«Everyone is already here,» she added.
The chief adjusted his blue robe of Longneck’s hide.
«Thank you, Ana. Look at those stars!
The woman carefully squeezed under Roshan’s arm, pressed her back against him and looked at the sky. A stream of moonlight touched Ana’s pale, scarless face – the spirits of Zavrin protected the fair-haired huntress from encounters with the claws of reptiles, and the Great Fire did not darken her skin. She was not tall, just below the leader’s shoulders. Her curls protruded carelessly from the pile of hair collected on her head so that her hair, fastened with a bone hairpin, resembled the fruit of a palm tree. The small rough nose of the huntress modestly stood out between the large cheekbones, and dark thick eyebrows emphasized large gray eyes. The woman’s ears were adorned with Lazunov’s fangs, and on her slender neck Ana wore beads made from the teeth of herbivorous lizards – an exquisite gift from Roshan.
– They are beautiful! Very bright, don’t you think? the huntress asked defiantly. Do they bother you? Changing tone, she immediately asked.
«Yes, they are beautiful,» the shaman replied. – Worried? I don’t know yet… I’ll go around the watchtowers. Wait for me at the Fireplace. The leader carefully turned the huntress around and pressed her to him. Smelling the familiar scent, Roshan cautiously inhaled the scent of her hair. – Oh no! You smell like fried meat! he growled playfully. – How I want to eat!
Ana smiled and slid out of the leader’s arms, heading towards the Pavilion of Flame. The shaman looked after the huntress. Her green robe of Longneck’s skin gleamed in the moonlight. The torso was tightly tightened with flaps from the shoulders and almost to the waist. A bandage sat on her hips, decorated with the colored wings of swamp dragonflies. She skillfully covered the bosom. On her feet, Ana wore sandals made from the rough hide of Tailtail, and on her forearms were bracers made from the same reptile. The woman’s hands were smeared with soot in places, which, under the glow of the moon, was visible on pale skin. Judging by the stains, Ana helped the youths build the Fireplace.