The Doors to Salvation

Disaster is about to strike Earth, but survivors from the distant future save some.

The world was collapsing. In late 2025, crimson skies bled fire, and earthquakes tore cities apart. A gamma-ray burst loomed, set to erase humanity in days. Governments had fallen, and hope was a memory.


In her suburban home, Sarah Bennett sat alone, the TV hissing static. Her family was gone, swallowed by futile evacuations. The air felt thick, suffocating. As she stared at the cracked wallpaper, a seam of light split the wall, forming a glowing doorway. Sarah’s breath caught, her coffee mug shattering on the floor. A figure emerged—tall, shimmering, with oversized, luminous eyes and liquid-silver clothing. Her voice was soft but urgent.


“Sarah Bennett,” she said, “I am Froggy, from the year 402,325. Your world ends in three days. Come with me if you want to live.”


Sarah scrambled back, heart racing. “This is insane. Who are you? What’s happening?”


Froggy’s gaze was kind but firm. “We’re from the far future, here to save your kind. Your genetic diversity is vital. Stay, and you die. Come, and you’ll live—in another time.”


Globally, similar portals opened. In Mumbai, a teacher named Priya faced a doorway in her classroom. In Cairo, a mechanic named Hassan stared as a wall in his garage split apart. In rural Saskatchewan, a farmer named Ellen gripped a pitchfork as a figure beckoned from her barn. Each heard the same offer: stay and perish, or step into the unknown.


The time travelers, descendants of a humanity that barely survived the burst, had perfected temporal translocation. Their mission: rescue billions to preserve the genetics lost in the catastrophe. Their future, 400,000 years hence, was a fragile utopia of crystal spires and dwindling resources. Unable to house billions, they scattered survivors across prehistory, planting new civilizations in eras so ancient their traces would vanish.


Sarah’s voice trembled. “Where would I go?”


“To 120,000 years ago,” Froggy said. “A fertile plain, teeming with life. You’ll join thousands, enough to start anew. Your descendants will thrive for millennia before time erases their works.”


“And then?” Sarah asked.


Froggy’s eyes glinted. “Their cities will sink, their bones dissolve in unstable lands. By my time, no trace remains. But your legacy lives in us.”


Sarah thought of her lost family, the dying world. With a shaky nod, she took Froggy’s hand and stepped through. Light engulfed her.
In the Miocene, 5 million years ago, Priya’s group of 1,200 built a city of reed and stone by a river delta. Their culture, Priztar, lasted 8,000 years, its relics buried by floods.


In the mid-Pleistocene, 80,000 years ago, Hassan’s 3,000 followers carved cliffside temples in a desert canyon. Their songs echoed for 15,000 years until sandstorms reclaimed their works.


Ellen, placed 250,000 years ago on a volcanic isle, led 900 to forge a seafaring society. Their coral cities shone for 10,000 years before eruptions sank them beneath the sea.


The time travelers chose sites—floodplains, volcanic zones, coastal shelves—where nature’s churn would erase all evidence. Each group, armed with basic knowledge, built vibrant societies. They spoke new tongues, wove myths, and mastered their worlds, unaware of others scattered across time. Their falls left no fossils, no artifacts, preserving the timeline.


In 402,325, Froggy’s people monitored from orbital stations, their AI threading timelines like silk. Billions were saved, seeded across eons. Some refused the doors, dying in the burst. Others faltered in harsh prehistoric worlds. But most endured, their genes enriching the future.
Sarah, now 70, stood on a hill above her city of mudbrick and thatch, its 120,000-year-old plain alive with her people’s laughter. She’d built a life here, though her lost daughter’s face still lingered. Froggy’s kind had vanished after delivery, their portals gone. Sarah wondered if they watched.


A meteor streaked overhead, a fleeting reminder of her old world’s end. She smiled. Her people would rise, fall, and fade, their story buried by time. But in a future 400,000 years away, her blood would endure.


The gamma-ray burst hit, scouring Earth. Yet humanity’s seeds, sown in lost epochs, waited to bloom. The doors had closed, but survival’s tale was just beginning.