Man

prologue.
It’s rough living forever. I know it’s been said. I’ve heard it said before me. The thing is, mortals would simply not understand. You, you’re a human, yes? Me too. However, I was born different. I was born, no, created, with a purpose. You see, when I was created, I was given the purpose of watching history unfold. From the beginning of man, to the end.
I cannot truly die, for when I do, I come back, changed. Different. I’m never the same person as before. The only thing that is the same is who I am inside.
Even then, I’m not completely the same there. Being reborn does change you quite a bit. However, I try to stay as my previous self. It never works. I’ve begun to accept the changes, after roughly many, many centuries.
So, would you like to hear a story, mortal?

the birth of man.
“You will not defy. You will not stop. You must watch humanity begin, and you must watch them end. It will be painful. You will not like it, and you will not resist. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I do.” The pain he had pushed upon me, the pain he had used to make me understand. His towering... body? That was no body. That was a structure. It was completely alien to anything I had seen from my life before I had died. At least, I thought I had died, but it seemed as to have not happened, as I was standing before this glass being. A black nothingness surrounded me. “I understand,” I said.
“Good. You may leave now,” The structure made a high pitched, almost unhearable screech, before it and the nothingness disentigrated.
I then woke standing alone, my young body restored, in a field of lightly brown tinted grass. It must have been November; the forest visible from my standing point also had falling, colorful leaves.
The first emotion I felt was satisfaction. The trees swaying in the wind were so beautiful. The second emotion was hunger. It was something I had known well. The colony I had lived in had a very bad foodstock. They probably had died by now. Come to think of it, there was only a few survivors of the famine, last I remember.
Scouts said we were not the only colony dying, too. I’m alone out here, I thought. I was. Every other human was dead. If they were, however, there would be no purpose for me, would there? Which meant I was alone here. However, I was not the last human. There was somebody else. Maybe many others. The only problem was where.
So where were they? Problem solving led me to solution that they were somewhere. My first quest had then begun. Find people. Find the rest of humanity, and search until I am in the same place they happen to be.
At the time, I didn’t realize they might find me.
I begun my journey by walking. I had almost forgotten the hunger. It left me in such severe pain. It hurt to walk. I had to get to the forest, which surrounded the clearing I was in, which I had realized upon looking around.
The forest was not very thick, I thought upon walking in. It was. The deeper I got, the more bramble making me fall, the more wood cutting my sides, the more poison snakes. The hunger kept biting, the hydration lacking. I needed food and water.
I tripped again, and when I did, I heard a splash. Pulling myself up required minimal strength, now motivated by the fresh water underneath me. I drank from my hands. It would’ve seemed primitive to the mortals alive now. It was primitive. Extremely.
Not thinking about that felt delightful. Nobody cared back then – it was so simple – in the net age, people were hard on others. However, I wouldn’t go back. Life was simple then, simplified now. That doesn’t make sense to many mortals I’ve spoke to. Maybe it will to you.
I didn’t stop drinking for many, many long minutes.
A hand reached out to me, touched my back. He spoke, “Are you well?” in his native language. “Yes,” I responded. I knew the language from my times in the colony.
“Come,” he said. “You shall meet the others.”
I followed close behind him, until we came to a small, quiet village. It was his, I knew. The loneliness of it was unnerving. It was nearly silent, spare the running water beside us. “Welcome,” he said, “to our home. You seem hungry.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll see you to our food stores,” He said, abruptly walking ahead after he did. I continued to follow as he led me into the village. There were only one or two tiny huts, with the open entryways showing simple rooms, with nothing but padding which resembled beds, presumably made from leaves and soft pine needles.
He led me to a single, lying deer, with a large stab wound. He cut a large chunk off with a sharp rock, kindly handing me the bloody slab of meat. “Eat, for we leave tomorrow.”
“Where?”
“We are going South. We must run from the Cold.”
The cold obviously meant I was in the middle of an Ice Age. I didn’t realize that, at the time, but it explained the famine.
I finished my meal and slept on the dirt. Somehow, I slept very well.
The man who led me called out to all the other village people. Only three people came out; it was quite a small group. There were two women, three men, incluing me. The man started walking out of the village, the others following, each of them holding a large, wooden spear. The only one with a sharp tip was the other man, whose spear held a piece of flint on the top.
We walked for others, through much different terrain. We eventually stopped, to rest in a small cave. Rain was picking up, along with thunder, so we were forced to stop. It was very well deserved, though. Not many can walk for so long as they can, and my legs were aching. Hunter-gatherers were almost always like that. Very strong, tall, and quite the eaters.
The cave was loud. Any noise made would amplify itself. Footsteps, speech, dripping water, thunder. The thunder kept happening, and everbody would be so scared. They spoke of gods; they spoke like the thunder was the ‘gods’ way of punishing them for what they had done. They also spoke of the cold like that; simply a punishment.
One strike hit in front of our cavern. It caused something foreign, unknown, to both the people and I.
One of man’s greatest discoveries was beheld in front of us. We gazed in awe. In curiousity. In fascination. I had fulfilled one of my live’s purposes. I had seen the beginning of a new era.
I saw fire.
Instantly, I felt different. I felt strange. It felt as if nobody else would ever see what I’ve seen and live to tell of it. Today, I do live. I live to draw that conclusion, and honestly tell you the truth that I have seen more than anybody else has seen, and not just seen it, but felt it and experienced it.
Nobody I’ve ever met has actually... believed me. All but one person, but she is another tale, for another day, for another story.
To whom it may concern, I am Robin, and this is not only my story, but the story of all of you and I. This is the story of Man.