Into the Mist

What if every important step taken in mankind’s journey from his beginnings down through the ages to the present caused a divergent reality to spring up somewhere?
What if there were worlds- hidden from us, but nearly touching ours- in which humankind followed these different paths?
What if on some alternate Earth, the wheel had never been invented? Fire was never put to use; no person ever learned how to start one? What if somewhere on some alternate Earth, the small creature that would become man’s predecessor had never acquired the courage or was never given the nudge it needed to make it decide to leave it’s watery home for the much harder life on shore?
What if there were worlds where dinosaurs did not die out? Where some other species- feline, canine, reptilian, sea mammal, insect- had become the dominant species on the planet?
What if somewhere there had been no catastrophe to cause Atlantis to sink into the sea? Or, no shifting of the tectonic plates to cause continental drift?
There are countless possibilities to consider, ancient and modern. In some worlds, Christianity might never have emerged, or the Roman Empire never fallen.
What if, along with humanity, some other species had developed sentience? What if cats, or birds, also had become in their own way, able to compete for domination of the planet?
And what if there were certain times and certain places in which these alternate Earths came close enough to touch, to impinge upon the space of the others? What if at these times and places the inhabitants of the alternate worlds could come through? Could fall through accidentally, unwilling? And find themselves trapped with no way back?
Myths about little people, intelligent birds, telepathic felines, and all such tales along with unicorns and faeries are just that, myths.
But……
On any land, in any age, there are legends of strange occurrences which persist without being given credence by most people, but which still make one think….What if?
Legends told of otherworldly phenomena experienced by young and old, white man or red, in the great Mountain chain of the Rockies, which claim the Sangre De Cristos.
Stranger still and even more frightening than the legends is the testimony of those who went into the mountains and returned frightened and raving, or those who went and never returned at all.