Cycle

Please critique! This is the first edit, so things are a little choppy. Thank you.

_______________________

Holy mother of God.

The first words spoken by the Mars explorers. Digging on the red planet had been underway for two years, unearthing more then 50 tonnes of stone. Scientists couldn't decide if the stones were carved or not.

"Holy mother of God," they said. Then the scientists knew that Earth's civilization was not the first, not even the first to exist in our solar system.

There was writing on the stones. Strange writing, but not too unfamiliar or unrelated to our own languages. They looked as foreign as any other, with lines and squiggles and dashes and dots.

There were pictures, too. Of beings not entirely unlike humans. The pictures were carved among the writing, put there by beings who knew that their language may not survive. They couldn't allow their knowledge to die, so the pictures tried to help the scientists understand.

But they didn't.

All the scientists could do was marvel at this discovery. The pictures told little, but they told enough. The race before humans had left this disk behind to commemorate their home planet and tell any others of what had happened to them.

Millions of years before, Mars had been a little more hospitable then it was today. Civilization grew while Earth was quiet and life was just beginning. As time passed, the beings that lived on Mars had to solve a problem -- Mars was dying. The planet was growing colder, and the people were being killed.

The beings looked to the skies and to space. They had conquered the solar system. Pictures showed the beings flying off of Mars on rockets and settling onto asteroids, and Earth, and leaving the solar system to go to other planets light years away.

"What does this mean for humanity?" asked an interviewer.

"It means humanity may originate from Mars," said one scientist.

"Blasphemy!" some people cried, while others rejoiced, while others took the news in quiet contemplation. "We are not Martians!" They didn't understand. An echo of the cries heard long ago, the cries of, "We are not monkeys!" They don't understand.

Humanity split. The people with their fingers in their ears who continued to live on Earth and try as hard as they could to ignore the scientific community's Mars discoveries. No body bothered them. In time, their children would understand.

A settlement was made on Mars.

The first "Martian" babies were born in the year 2170. The first Mars baby was named Hope.

The Rosetta Stone of Mars was found, with text of the strange language accompanied by text in ancient Chinese. Translations began on the original disk, and what the beings on Mars wrote were this:

"We are the Oridians. Our planet is Uerla. The Yutarians (humans) on our neighbour planet Yuta will call this place Mars. We created language for them and instilled it in them so that they may prosper and one day join us among the stars. They are simple right now. We helped them. We made their brains grow. We sent Oridians to Yuta to help them. The Yuta Oridians have been ordered to expire all proof of our existence and themselves before 1,000 Yuta sun rotations. The Yutarians are our kin. We expect them to deny this. We expect our people to forget their origins. The Oridians who went to Hordna, the asteroid, will die out within a few thousand years. They do not know this. We do. They insisted. We avoided conflict and let them go. Look there, they were the ones who believed beautiful things. They would have left something beautiful behind, something about our Gods. This may satisfy the Yutarians if they are believers in beauty, too. The ones who went to Ohnala will arrive after 53,209 Yuta years. They will come back. They might forget to.

We are the True Oridians. We do not feel pride for it, but rather helpless devotion to our planet, our home. It dries and withers but we will die with it. We proposed to stay behind while the Yuta Oridians, the Hordna Oridians, and the Ohnala Oridians left. We observe the Yutarians during our last days. We feel sad, because we know all the Oridians who seperated from Uerla will forget her, and their brothers. The Yuta Oridians will die among the Yutarians as ordered, but predictions indicate their urge to spread genes will result in Yutarian-Oridian children. The Hordna Oridians live near us but they deny us, and Uerla. They will soon forget their mother planet. The Ohnala Oridians are the saddest for they will grow on Ohnala and became Ohnalians, and they will eventually never know who they were.

We do not wish to forget. We would rather die then forget Uerla, who has been kind and gave us life. We live our last moments recording our thoughts so that one day, Yutarians will come here and find them as predictions indicate."

The translation rocked Earth. Many more people denied the presence of the Mars beings. Scientists began looking for the asteroid mentioned among the asteroid belt.

A crypt beneath the Mars stones was eventually found. A preserved body of one of the Mars beings unearthed, with another stone found that said:

"I am Hasvi Oridian 12b.0007Y8093. I am the last one on Uerla. Hasvi means "Last". 12 billionth, the 0007th born in the year 8093. I was the last one born on our planet. I am near the end of our cycle. My body wishes to expire. There is much to say. Mars ended because our solar system's expansion propelled it into the cold zone. We discovered other life forms in the solar systems Radda, Cozni, Eplichetica, Froznes, Operium, Glfrei, Kli and others. Some are more advanced, others are dying, and some are just starting out. We feared them. Eplichetica is the worst. They weren't our end. Now I think fearing them was a regrettable idea. They may have extended help to us if we contacted them. Predictions indicate they would have initially denied us, but we would have extended kindness. They may have integrated us onto their planets. Eplichetica is far more advanced. They have sent out their own kind into each direction of space. They will be the first to discover its answer. They can travel three times as fast as us. They will arrive here soon. They will find our deaths, and they will find the Yutarians."

Other stones were found that provided schematics to building improved space ships. Traveling at nearly the speed of light was unlocked, through Oridian archives.

Earth prepared the first manned space station built to support an entire colony. It was launched to rotate around Saturn.

The first colony baby was named Ori, born in 2201.

Another space station was launched to orbit Pluto, and another launched just outside the solar system.

The ones who refused the existence of the Oridians could not deny them any longer. They protested the use of "alien" technology, saying it went against God's wishes. They were mostly ignored.

The asteroid, dubbed Hordna, was found. A settlement was made on it, and digging began to look for the Oridian remains.

In the year 2254, the War of Gods commenced. Space travel ceased. Humanity split even further. Scientists and all those who wished to continue space exploration moved to Mars and other space stations. The humans who refused the existence of space kept Earth. A truce was agreed to. Earth would supply the spacers with supplies and material.

In 2299 the first extra-solar planet was colonized. It was named, "Artemis." The first Artitian baby was born in 2302.

In 2310, scientists discovered a mass heading toward Earth's solar system. It passed Artemis.

In 2324, a space ship arrived on Earth. Eplichetians arrived. They obliterated most of Earth's humanity during the Pacific War. The Eplichetians were met with massive hostilities and battle commenced.

What was left of the population fled the Eplichetians and headed to Artemis. The Eplichetians left Earth and destroyed the space stations in Earth's solar system on their way out.

The scientists on Artemis packed up and headed for, what they presumed was, the Oridians' Ohnala. With the Oridians' and humans' technology, they expected to arrive there in 450 years.

The humans left on Artemis prospered.

The few humans left on Earth died out after a few generations of civil wars and bombings.

The humans on Mars found one last text from the Oridians, hidden deep underneath the crypt of Hasvi.

"Predictions indicate failure toward every race once the secret to extra-planetary colonization was unlocked. It happened to the Oridians, and we predict it will happen to the Yutarians. While we are trapped together on one planet, differences must be put aside for the good of all. Differences are beautiful, and make up society. But when colonization begins, these differences drive us apart. We no longer have to understand the other people, and we can move away from them, forget them. But differences will always exist, even among those who we first thought shared our beliefs. So splitting of the people happens again and again until there is but one left who cannot survive on its own. These differences, born from the evolution of discovery, killed the Oridians. Now there are only Ohnalians, and the believers on Hordna. They are not Oridians anymore. They have diverted to their own selves. This will happen again and again and it is something that destroys our ancestry. Who we are must not be forgotten. Where we came from must not be ignored. Brothers and sisters must stay united, but the exploration of space and the idea that we can seperate ourselves from the "different ones" will split us. And we will die for it."

The humans reached Ohnala, and soon after communication with them severed. Presumed dead.

The humans on Hordna died out.

The humans on Mars retreated underground once Mars grew too cold. Their last mission above ground was to send a group back to Earth to see if it was hospitable enough to come back. The team never returned. They presumably died in the deadly gasses and poisons left over from the civil wars.

The humans on Mars began writing their own archives. They returned to the primitive art of sculpting it on rock and burying it deeper underground then the Oridian archives, knowing it would last longer then any computer or book.

And on Earth, all was silent.

My name is James Hawking. I am only 17 years old. I was born in 3718. I am the last human alive on Mars. Digging deeper into the Martian soil unleashed poisonous gases into our underground systems. A majority of the cavities had to be sealed to prevent further deaths. 96% of the population died, 14 years ago. We are now slowly dying from hunger and thirst. I write this in the hopes that, one day, another civilization will find this. I'm writing it in as many languages as I can. In Oridian, too.

Do not sever your brothers and sisters.

I am alone now.

Do you know how frightening that is?

I am the last human. I am descendant from Hope Hawking, the first human on Mars. And I am the last human. I wish... I wish I could go back to Earth and die there. I wish I could die a true human, but I die a Martian. I long for the blue skies I never saw, the green grass and the trees. I wish I could die a human.

If the humans on Artemis are still alive it means the nearest of my brothers is many light years away and they've given up on their origins, just like the Oridians said they would. They don't care that their homeland is dying, and the last of their brethren is dying. The people on Artemis have stopped answering us long ago. They don't care anymore. They are not human anymore. They are Articians.

I cry every night. I am afraid, and I am alone, and I am waiting for hunger to kill me.

And Earth is ever quiet.

Life may be festering there yet, true humans born again. It will be many years before they find my fossilized body. I think I will go die next to the Oridians' body, in the crypt above.

We both died alone, but in death we are brothers, suffering as the last of our kind. We are not alone in death.

And Earth is ever quiet...