Before The Flood

Prologue

West of Mexico Bay, 65 Million Years Ago:

The titanic herd of Alamosaurus, closing to their breeding ground, looked up at the east sky as a bright radiance caught their attention. There was a bedazzling light, a second sun in the east horizon. Burning hotter and brighter than a thousand volcanoes, the meteor was losing altitude at a staggering pace. The alpha male contracted his eyes. Split second before it hit the ground, the meteor cast its permanent shadows on the ground and blinded them. Before the impact, the male thought it saw a behemoth pyramidal structure inside the light. It was no meteorite that kissed the shallows hard.

Three seconds later, the shockwaves and the tremors hit the Yucatan Peninsula, vaporizing everything in their path. The pyroclastic cloud, the tsunami, and the flames followed them.

1.

The Great Rift Valley (The Cradle of Humanity),
70000 years ago:

The morning came like a sudden reality as the sun rose between the clouds after a night of thunders and showers. He opened his eyes slowly under a glimmer of sunlight, penetrating through the canopy and making a prism on the velvet-like green grass on his cave-floor. The birds sang in the warmth, dancing from one branch to another. He stretched his arms and found a touch as comforting as a kindling. The skin was soft and tender and smooth as a rock washed far from the mountains by a stream. He recalled what his Father told him and called her by that name, “Hi, Eve.”

Eve did not reply. Instead, she just hugged Adam from behind. Touches are more powerful than words. The garden of Eden, their sanctuary, welcomed a new day. It was bright, glorious, under the Light Eternal of the Great One. And yet, Adam did not see the glory of the bright light that was bestowed upon him as birthright. Unlike Eve, a newer creation, he remembered. He remembered her. A name of the woman who came before Eve, and even Adam. God created Eve from the extracts of Adam’s marrow. But the woman before all was not a result of such refined birth. The man was not destined to be firstborn.

However, even the most perfect of all creations falls under the claws of entropy and unforeseen probabilities. God is not all-perfect. He is a man. And like all men who will come after Adam, he takes sides.

But she criticized her maker. She wanted to be a part of creation, just not a tool of Adam’s procreation, because she was born of the same clay. Just like Adam, the blood of the bipedal primates ran through her veins. Adam did not know that he came into existence because she existed.

Lilith was the first woman in the Garden of Eden. An untamable woman like her, under a patriarchal god, was destined to be unremembered. She was unworthy to be even a hum in the oral Book of Genesis.

Adam prayed to the Almighty and begged Him to return her to him. He loved her. Yes, Father created her to populate the earth, and she refused, saying she would only make love when she wanted to. And how does the all-forgiving god respond? He banished her to the sea called Red. Eve came soon as a replacement for the woman she could never replace. And Adam does not blame Eve for that.

Leaving Eve in the cave, on the grass-bed they made last night, Adam roamed through the sanctuary aimlessly, with a head too burdened with thoughts and memories.

If He created me, then who created Him? He said He came from the sky along with His thirty-two brothers and sisters: His comrades in this Game of Genesis. But Genesis of what? Us?

Little did Adam know, he was only the fifth and only successful attempt to create one in his image. There were failed results all over the world. Some looked eerily similar, while some appeared distractingly distinct.

His garden was not the only one in this vast world built atop of the charred bones of the extinct great lizards. There are another four, each with its own set of Adams and Eves. Only Lilith knew all the hums of this great Song Eternal. She tried to warn him about God’s grand designs. She refused to carry Adam’s seeds for the same cause. None disobeys God in his own zoo, she had said.

The Lord and His brethren came to Earth on a day many aeons ago. The universe was dark then, covered in the pyroclastic ash-cloud that destroyed the monstrous ancestors of birds. It was their doing. They created a blank slate to sustain a new form of life: a life that flows in warm veins, a life that was long foreshadowed by the dinosaurs.

They watched as the small hole-diggers grew in the new dawn and became giants. Some went back to their marine roots and evolved in whales. Among the beasts, one interested them the most. The primates started to resemble the same bipedal construction They had. They took a hoard of those and started the experiment they waited for so long. Gene manipulation catalyzed mutations, and proliferation resulted in evolution. After waiting for almost sixty million years, they were successful. Man was created in the image of gods, for gods were men from a distant future.

On the sixth day of creation, where each day lasts ten million years, Adam opened his eyes in a gestation chamber and met Lilith’s eyes.

***

Outside Eden, there was a structure, erect amidst the foliage of the sub-Saharan deciduous forest. It resembled a pyramid, but it was not. Lilith took Adam there, at the edge of the sanctuary, to show him the structure suspended above the soil. Dirt flew from beneath and made swirls, almost blinding them.

“It’s airborne,” Lilith whispered, almost inaudible and somewhat tensed. She brought Adam there for a purpose, to tell and show him the truth. But she couldn’t. There was a clicking sound. A door opened in the structure that she called Citadel. From the Citadel, as the two watched, came down God, and another of His kind. The first humans hid under the foliage.

“Congratulations Ω, you have created the perfect specimens,” the outsider God told the resident one. Adorning a mail, a cloak with a mane and loose trousers, all in the colour of silver and gold, they were taller and all too different. Involuntarily, Adam bowed his head, even when he knew God did not notice them. A consuming sense of inferiority and primitivity engulfed him. Lilith did not bow. The buzz of a thousand bumblebees was emanating from the Citadel. His primitive mind advised it was a buzz. It was not. It was not a creation of Mother Nature. Feeling a tap on his shoulder, he saw Lilith gesticulate, pointing at the Citadel. She went inside before Adam could stop her.

“Watch my back and whistle if you sense trouble,” she said.

She vanished inside the structure through a duct large enough for her to squeeze in. Adam was always an admirer of her dark color and green eyes, but that day he also fell for her daunting nature. He thought to follow her in sheer curiosity, but the conversation of the Gods caught his ears.

“ρ, this world is still raw and unblemished. My creations, they share this world with many others much alike yet too different from them: each a thinking walking ape – shadows of us and the Titans. But…”

“…” Adam couldn’t hear what the other God replied. Judging from his trident, Adam knew the God was the God of seas.

“My previous creations, I doomed their fate when I created these: the last ones, the perfect ones. The old rut will die out, and the new will be soon all alone. They will evolve; they will survive. They have to. The age of ice will come, and this planet hasn’t faced such calamity since the death of those feathered reptiles. They will live; they will settle for every corner of this planet like we did in our timeline. These things will recall the past and imagine the future. They will thrive in burning heat or freezing cold. They will live in deserts or will be the masters of water. They will not be dependent on the environment; they will bend it to their will. They will conquer and prosper: a species without any boundaries. This generous, predictable world of unchanging eternal moist will die. And I will guide them in the darkest times. For that, they will love me.”

“Ω, you were always a visionary. Even though, how can you predict so much of these experiments of being human?”

Ω laughed wholeheartedly; Adam climbed a tree to get a better view as he could hear Ω’s mirth clearly. “They are special. They are my children. I built them on the bone of my own genetic makeup, mixing with what I had left of Yamir.”

“They think we are their gods.” ρ looked at him, proposing a thing he wanted to hold dear.

Ω smiled again, “Oh! We created them. We are their gods. They will ordain us with divine names; they will praise us and worship. This world is changing; the cold and the desert are approaching fast, and I must nurture them. They are too naïve, too feeble, and simple. One day, I will declare the end of their nourished infancy when I will know they are ready.”

“I know… five Edens. One in the north where the night is dark and everlasting for nine months, another in the tropical isle at the other edge of the world, two in this massive continent between the east and the west, and the last in the woods of the blackened forests.”

“…”

Slowly, Adam climbed down from the tree and stood on the ground when thoughts heavied his shoulders. Feeling a tap on his shoulder, he jolted back with a yell on his tongue. It was Lilith. She came out.

“They are not gods,” Lilith groaned. “They used to kill each other.”

Perplexed, Adam raised his brows.

“I now know! Someone told and taught me something when you were still unborn. Adam, have you ever thought what the shiny pieces are in the night sky?”

In reply, Adam remained silent; unlike Lilith, his simple mind hadn’t had the chance to form such critical questions.

“What did you see there?”

“Illuminated quarters, long corridors, and a map. A map of suns: so many of them that I failed to fathom. And I got a glimpse of their history.”

“I…”

“What moves there?” The grim voice of Ω interrupted them.

“If he comes to know we are here, he will banish us without hesitation,” Adam whispered with his heart near his throat. He tried to remain hidden, quiet, and calm with a panicking mind. It was impossible for Ω to find out the source of the male yell he heard in the elephant grasses. He knew it was no animal; it was an animal of His knowing.

“What should I do? What will we do?” Hearing Adam’s unnerved questions under his breath, Lilith stood up and came out from the grasses. Adam covered his mouth when the slap landed on her face.

“Why are you here? This is not your place to roam.” The soil trembled with Ω’s voice. The accusation was clear, but Lilith didn’t utter a word until Z asked the question again.

“I know all your plots. You are no god; none of you are. You are nothing, and I prohibit myself to be your plaything.” She answered in a calm voice.

“I…WE CREATED YOU!” The reply made echoes in Eden. Adam sunk between his knees, covering his ears. In his short years, he never saw this God named Ω angry. Ω’s face reddened, and veins bulged. The G of Godin uppercase lowered when Adam saw him to be as flawed as his creations.

He tried to crush Lilith’s windpipe and might have succeeded if the other god didn’t interfere. The fear conjured Adam’s mind. He crawled towards his cave, abandoning her. He waited for nine long moons and one changing season for her to return home. She didn’t. Instead came another female, pale and shorter than Adam, far more timid than Lilith. Ω created from the essence of Adam’s ribs. She was everything Lilith was not. But she knew how to make love, and she knew it well. They did it atop a stone, on the grass, in the river, drowning in the rain or even under the sun with sweat all over them. Soon, Adam had nothing but a memory of who Lilith was. But the name remained. The name remained and stayed because he loved her.

***

Lost in his thoughts, Adam felt her tender breasts pressing him from behind. “What is it?” She frowned with query.

“We are not mindless wildlings; we can’t be all body and no soul. Father gave us the opportunity to think. We should unearth and respect this prospect.”

Seeing Eve silent as a keen listener, he continued, “Father told once there were Titans before us on this earth. Father and his brethren lived here in peace. But they were the ones who waged war. The Titans, or the Asur they liked to be called, were the first-borns. The gods were older and scarce in number, but they were superior.” He inhaled and lied. “I found a name, Yamir. From his bones, we were created.”

“What does that even mean?” Eve asked in a curious voice.

“That the gods are not what they seem to be. There is always an end before a beginning. It’s a never-ending cycle of everything. A Genocide before a Genesis.”

“How do you know such thing that I don’t?” Eve asked.

“Oh, I know nothing! I have just collected a fistful of sand from an eternal dune.”

***

There were strange lights in the sky – high, floating, moving lights. Lilith knew they were there and they had found her. She was in the last of her breaths when she noticed the hidden crack between the boulders. She found the presence of a cave and slipped in. Ω’s winged automata failed to detect her signature. They hovered above the boulders and then moved away. How she disappeared was out of their calculated intelligence.

The day she was exiled from Eden, she was presented with two choices: either perish with Adam or survive alone in a world too unknown and dangerous without having the opportunity to tell him goodbye. Ω knew what consequences the choices held: each resulting the same – Lilith’s demise. But Lilith was a survivor. It was in her blood. She was some years older than Adam, and in that fair share of her solitude, she studied everything she had around. She observed the green of the leaves and how they turned yellow when the rain vanished. She observed how there was a mutual anatomical similarity in all the animals. Unlike the worms and insects that roamed the earth, they were quadrupedal. While the fishes roamed in water, they shared the same characteristics. The finding was fascinating on its own, and she couldn’t wait but tell Ω. Yet, another thing had struck his mind: there were none like her. Walking on two legs, she was the abomination, a creature without a partner, in Ω’s perfect garden of Eden. She did not think of her as an abomination but a rarity: someone who could think and channel those thoughts into ideas. Someone who could outthink her creators.

One day, Ω had called her in His chamber. Illuminated and emitting an aura of calm paleness, the chamber reminded her of the spilled guts of a hunted antelope. She thought to go back. But as curiosity won, her left foot stepped inside. Where Adam was less an image of the gods and far more an ape without mind, Lilith was Ω’s most perfect indirect reflection, untainted and undimmed by the bone essences of Yamir. As she went inside that craft—the citadel—Ω asked her, “My child, do you know why I called you?”

In reply, Lilith just nodded a no. He held her close to him and asked in a soft, loving voice, “What has got your attention?”

She didn’t answer. Her eyes were glued on a glass jar. Suspended in a bluish jelly-like matrix, there was a thing sleeping or as Ω described – developing in accelerated incubation. It looked much like her but she couldn’t emphasize what those similarities or dissimilarities were. Then, it dawned on her. It was like looking at the same structure she admired in the clear river water – her reflection. Albeit the thing’s skin was less pigmented and an underdeveloped hand protruding between its legs, Lilith found that she and it were creations in the same image. There was even a mechanical cord pierced in his belly, exchanging fluids. Lilith looked at the system closely and understood why she had a belly button.

“His name is Adam. As the first of my men, he will be your partner.”

Lilith didn’t understand what the word ‘partner’ meant and looked towards Ω in eyes of question.

Ω smiled and patted her head. “We were chased by a primordial thing older than the universe. The only place to find refuge was in the distant past. Our planetfall was hard. It shook the world like a bell for months. The world was covered in darkness for almost a century. We cleared the sun and began to repopulate the world with the only things we could rescue. Some of the critters we took inside our Ark were your ancestors… and perhaps even ours.”

“Let there be light?” Lilith asked, although she was hesitant.

“I never said that aloud, but yes, then there was light again. It was the wind that settled the dirt of the clouds and brought light back. β oversaw the healing of the sky, and as he was always an artist, he described the sky as a dome. It took us more than four hundred years to bring the vegetation back – the shrubs, the plants, the trees or even the tiny ones you can’t see – from the brink of extinction. I …we brought back the fishes, the crawlers with and without scales and the creatures with fur to their rightful places. We could not save the giant ancestors of birds, for they were too big to carry inside the Ark.” Then, He raised her up, pulling her cheek on his fingers and hissed in his grim voice, “This is the last and first time you are welcomed here. Don’t let your curiosity eat your loyalty. Don’t ever make me question myself why I created you and regret it.”

After her banishment, Lilith met a Titan named Hecate accidentally. She was one of the few who survived the genocide called Titanomachy. Placing two torches near them, she taught Lilith everything she needed to know and gave her a torch. Before she could teach her to make fire, the gods found her. Lilith doused the torch before fleeing. The darkness was her only ally.

Ω learned from his mistake; he never called Adam in Citedal. And not long after, he drove them away from his garden.

***

It was cold inside the cave. The black slates resonated with the freezing sensation. In the dark, there was nothing to protect Lilith from the clawing cold. The desert outside was voicing a violent sandstorm. Shivering, she found the worn off the skin of a python that lived there a long time ago. Trembling, she escaped under the skin and wore it as a blanket. She dreamed awake as the storm raged outside. As her eyes attuned to the darkness, a drawing on the cave wall emerged before her.

I wish I had that torch with me.

Those were sophisticated diagrams left on the cave wall by the advanced race of Boskops. The diagram depicted a tree. It gave life. It was life. The tree of life bore the fruits of apple. Situated inside Eden, there was something hidden under it. Lilith came close to the cave paintings and placed her hand on it. She knew the place. The memories Ω erased from her emanated back.

Lilith understood why the gods were still trying to kill her. She just knew too much! Knowledge is always unhealthy. There are words with forgotten histories in them. Who owns the words and the memories they contain?

I have put his life in jeopardy. I must save him. I’m coming, Adam.

***

Lilith traveledback towards Eden to warn Adam, following the fast-drying riverbed of Pishon: one of the four branches that came out of Eden. She knew its flow and where it went. It met with the salty waters with no horizons. The river passed through a land named Havilah where stones wore a yellow sparkle. Wearing the skin like a cloak or maybe a cloth, she travelled back because a dream emerged within her and then stayed. It was an odd amalgamation of Adam’s deep voice, broad shoulders,and hands as wide as tree trunks. She didn’t want to go back to Eden, but it was her love that drove her there.

Love never reconciles with logic.

Approaching Eden, she lurked from bush to bush until she heard a humming. Surprisingly, it was feminine like her in origin. She gasped from beyond the leaves as she saw Eve: naked and observing in wonder her menstruation. The blood was coming and rolling on the stone. She was amused. She never saw such phenomena coming out from her before. Lilith, on the other hand, was experienced and couldn’t help but come out from hiding. She cleaned Eve with leaves.

“Are you a serpent?” Asked Eve since she didn’t obtain a sense of clothing and looked at her in awe.

“I am a womanlike you…”

“Then what’s that on your skin? Isn’t it a part of you?”

She liberated herself from the skin and stood before Eve, completely naked, to answer. They observed each other. Lilith noticed they shared mutual similarities, except for the pigmentation of their skins. The contrasts were too different. Eve was pale, and Lilith was a dark beauty. Maybe it was in Eve’s nature that she tiptoed towards Lilith and kissed her, completely unready and perplexed. Releasing herself, Lilith asked, “What are you doing?”

“This is the only way I know to greet, and Adam loves it, Lilith.”

Surprised, Lilith asked, “How do you know my name?”

“A lover’s intuition. He murmurers your name from time to time. Even though father forbade him, he still thinks about you in his dreams.”

“Eve, are you his partner because you want to or you were ordered to be?”

“Father told me I am and I should remain. Why?”

“Come,” Lilith grabbed Eve’s hand and pulled her onto a road within the woods seldom used. A road Eve did not recognize. “Where are we going?” She asked. Her simplicity had no suspicion about Lilith, and so, she followed – like a bee follows the trail of nectar.

“There is a dungeon in the centermost part of this garden. There is something you and Adam need to know. Ω is not what you think, or he seems to be.”

***

“Why are we here, Eve? This is the forbidden zone of the garden,” Adam protested, trying to be free from Eve’s clutches.

“Come please, my love. Isn’t this garden ours? Then why should there be a place forbidden?”

Adam, in answer, looked at the sealed door. She made him notice the engraved sculpture on it. It was an apple. “But…but…Father said not to go there.” He hesitated.

“There are things out there and in here that you never knew and things that you wished you knew. There are places more beautiful than this sanctuary and places deadlier than Hael.” Adam jerked beside, recognizing the voice.

Lilith came out of the bushes, with the python’s skin tightly clawing over her chest and pelvis. Adam noticed that barrier attraction and how it made Lilith so wildly beautiful. He thought to kiss her and make love at that very moment. He wanted to drown himself in her. He thought to ask her why she did such altruistic behaviour before Ω. Instead, he just groaned, “Why are you here? Father will kill you if He knows you’re here. Are you the one who guided Eve to what Father forbade us to see?”

“You aren’t happy to see me. I see…I can see.” Lilith pressed her lips hard and looked downward. There were waters in her eyes. It was the first time anyone cried and she did it for love. “What are these? Why are they coming from my eye?” Lilith wiped her tears and asked herself. She was astonished by the salty waters that came out of nowhere and how the lips vibrated with it. “I can see that you are happy. If you are happy, then I… I am too. I can see that you have moved on and found someone to carry your seed. Someone, who will not make you feel inferior and dominate while making love, who will not refuse to be pregnant. I can see, in the moons after I was gone, you sang a new chapter in your lifesong. Forgive me, Adam, but I am too late to be in your life and hope not too late to save it.” Lilith said what she thought she had to and opened the door of the dungeon.

It was illuminated inside. Hidden under a great tree, roots made the walls of the long corridor. And there were paintings. Unlike the ones Adam tried to draw in his home’s wall, they were vivid and detailed and had colors he never saw in his life. And the subjects were different too! Adam didn’t understand the paintings and he turned to Lilith. He knew she had the answers, or else she wouldn’t have brought them here. He was mesmerized by the beauty of the divine gallery.

Lilith smiled and came near a painting so sparkling that it mimicked the water surface on a sunny noon. The core was glowing white; it had arms and sub-arms, giving it a spiral appearance.

“What is this? These sparkles, they look like the night sky.” Eve said.

Lilith thought Eve was a much simpler being in design. But, seeing the kernel of curiosity inside her, Lilith found a sudden sooth in her heart. She knew who planted the seeds because she planted them in him. Despite what Adam told and despite what she thought he told, Lilith realized he still loved her. So, turning to both, she answered, “This isthe night sky, the sparkles we see. All of them are distant suns and they live in this structure of a gargantuan size. This is the thing what Ω would call a galaxy, our home galaxy. Inside these innumerable sparkles, there’s a yellow one. It shines upon the third rock that circles it. There are rocks and balls of dense air circling our sun. And there are countless suns, my loves. So many suns! So many ways to live! Our world is not unique, nor is it the centre of the universe. Yet, it is special. It has us: life.”

“This is what belongs to the night sky?” The glitters reflected on Adam’s awestruck eyes. Eve also had that same notion.

“This is the night sky, yet nothing but a fragment of what lies beyond the boundary of our imagination – the true sky. There are countless of them, the galaxies, eachwith sunsyou can’t count.”

“Father came from one of these suns? Is that why you kept telling me he’s no god?” Adam asked.

“Father… Ω and his brethren came from a space that was older than ours. Where none of our notions worked and we simply can’t imagine what truly was there. We call it heaven because it was simply a place beyond our imagination. There is also a place – quite opposite to what heaven once was. It is the place where he banished his own son. He was the king, and he was not ready to give up that throne. Father told you they are immortal. They are not. They aren’t simply bound to the sun and moon’s coming and going. Or, as they call it – time. Time doesn’t affect them. That’s why we will age and die. But he won’t. He…they areno gods, but mortals who know how to defy nature and its laws. They came to this world and made us because, in a distant part of their past, they were us.”

Adam grabbed Eve’s hand. “This is hearsay without any proof.”

In reply, she smirked, “Oh, there is proof, Adam. I am not sure you are ready to see it yet.”

“What is it?” Eve interrupted, feeling she was left behind.

“In the garden, you often see a cow or a deer giving birth to a calf, like the way you will soon be a mother. Then tell me, why there was a need to create such a place for us? A garden for only us, a place without predators: our Eden. Tell me, Eve, are we truly the firsts? Who came before us?”

Adam and Eve never thought about it that way and it was best in their interest in being silent. They kept their mouths shut without arguing and let Lilith show what she intended to.

Lilith unlocked a door on her left and called them inside. It was a chamber, illuminated as well from a source unknown. Lilith heard their large gasps and saw the horror in their eyes. They were afraid, they had to be. It was the third time Lilith smuggled herself in the Chamber of Failed Progenies and it still gave her an uncomfortable shiver.

There were transparent cases filled with suspended matrix: too many for them to count and enough to fill that large room without walls from one end to another. Inside the cases, there were men, women, and children: beings like them, but with deformities on their body. They were the failed attempts in the game of Genesis. They were lifeless, but it felt like they were sleeping.

“What are they?” Adam asked in terror, as the horror unveiled itself before them. Eve lost her words as her faith in Ω was fading. So was Adam’s. God… Ω is merciful, He is ever kind, gentle, all loving, and forgiving. The being, who created them and those who slept forever before them, was no god.

“He’s a monster,” Adam heard Eve’s words under her breath.

“There were beings before us. Beings, who were much different yet quite similar, who were more in the image with gods than we ever were. They disobeyed His will. He slaughtered them for that single reason. Entire species almost vanished in a single night. There was a cloud in the shape of mushroom formed where they lived; there was a light to blind their eyes, and heat to vaporize their bones. The Titanomachyleft almost no survivors. Ω felt Earth was no place for inbreeding abominations. In another side of the world, lived a northerner who survived that holocaust. Meaning, ‘completely burnt offerings to God.’ He was Bor, the son of Yamir. Though he and his wife knelt before the gods to save their lives and their sons’, he was no worshipper. In return, Ω showed mercy and sent them and their three sons to a land of forever ice – a place he can’t rule. They are the new gods there. Gods of a lifeless realm, gods of no men. They call that place Asgardand beyond that rests the place where the exiled Titans of the Æsir tribe inhabit. It is the land of forever ice, the Jötunheimr.”

“Why are you telling us these?”

“Because I want you to know that there are places other than this bubble called home. The only way to live is to live under a clear sky, without Ω’s fear. There is no prosperity in that, but there’s hope and peace. There’s a joy in living without being anyone’s pawn. There are men out there in four more Edens. They are different than us, but they are still men. Find them and let your children see a world that only belongs to them. Leave this wretched place while there’s still time.”

“Hope? Is it there in such unknowingness and uncertainty? The gods will be angry because we acquired knowledge beyond our jurisdictions. You are the bringer. Who will father or mother my children?”

Lilith grabbed Adam’s hands, “You are nothing but playthings of them. Why let them be the puppeteer? You are not alone in this, Adam. I will be the mother of your grandchildren. Give me the chance I wish I had with you. Let this be my redemption.”

***

Men set foot beyond the Rift Valley for the first time. There awaited an uncharted land and a terraforming desert. The land was harsh but they knew they could endure it.

‘…So, he drove the man out, and he placed at the east of the garden of ‘Eden the k’ruvim’ and a flaming sword which turned in every direction to guard the way to the tree of life…’: Genesis 3:24

2.

North America: Two Hundred- and Thirty-Kilometers South of Lake Agassiz, 12500 years ago:

The storm hit the high mountains like an unstoppable force of untamable nature. Maybe it was not just a blizzard. Maybe it was a monster dressed in ice. It hailed and roared with talons of white, and froze Lamech’s eyebrows as he tried to look outside. He saw many storms in his lifetime whenever he went with his brothers to hunt the mammoths or other herbivores. But this storm was different. The storm hit them hard in their most vulnerable state.

Lamech came back from the cave mouth and sat near a painting on the wall he drew many years ago. Under the painting, was Betenos – curled like a snake to protect their only child from the cold. They had bison-skins on them. But those weren’t enough to stop the reign of cold. It was always cold and violent and unpredictable. But it was not this cold.

“If only I could do anything!” Lamech said aloud, cursed himself and looked at her – still shivering.

There was a valley downhill, full of green in the momentary spring. There was warmth and there was light. There once were the red flowers that emitted warmth and light. They collected it when the forest burned in the dry season twenty moons ago. They only knew how to preserve it. The knowledge to give birth to one was untaught. The flowers made the meat taste better and put a barrier against those beasts who owned the nights. The flower was a blessing from the gods. They were dependent on the arrivals, waited for it to come. And, they came seldom; only in dry seasons or when the gods thought to punish them with the lightnings from the sky.

“I know, but there’s no way we can return home now. Can we?” Betenos asked. Although she couldn’t feel her toes anymore, she put on a smile to comfort her husband who was in deep unrest and said, “We will endure this night. We have to.”

“If only we could take the flower with us, this wouldn’t be happening.”

“But we didn’t have the time. Did we?” She climbed and sunk in Lamech’s warm chest with their child.

They didn’t. They had to run.

As he put Betenos to sleep, the past made a recapitulation in Lamech’s mind.

Only a night ago, a group of men attacked them in their sleep. Their tribe tried to fight back with everything they had. Yet, they failed. The newcomers used something far stronger than mere stones: weapons made of shiny brown ‘things’ taken out from rocks of the deep earth. They unearthed the ‘things’ and melted them. They were not curved. They were forged. Bronze was its name, a metal from Hael, a tool of annihilation.

They came like sudden flash-floods and slaughtered everything and everyone they had on their path – men, women, and children. On none they showed mercy. Unborn were killed in their mother’s womb; olds were slaughtered with their grandchildren. They didn’t bring death. They were death. They forged the metal from the mountain that gurgled molten earth and subterranean heat. They didn’t know either how to conquer the power of the red flowers but they had a god: Ḣephaestus as their mentor. He taught them how to forge and now, they were inexorable.

Lamech and his family were the last of their tribe. A more primitive blood ran through their veins, the blood of the first man and second woman. They came to this world traveling through a narrow landmass that joined the east and west. Lamech knew stories of an endless ocean and plains of ice and forests that stretched as far as the eyes could see.

Like their tribe came here many seasons ago, the strangers also made landfall from another world. They sailed through the endless water of west and traveled past the wall of ice that withheld an ocean in the north-east called Agassiz.

The gods abandoned men when they stepped out from Eden to the open world. Only to survive, as they fought through the abrupt climate and made their way through a desert that was born from grasslands of the north, Lamech’s ancestor – Seth was his name – left Africa with his men. Humans suffered the harshness of their first migration while they made their way through the changing climate. The rains were infrequent or continuous and the sun scorching. They died on the road and they gave birth to new. The lineage names started to fade as they dispersed further. Only some remained as if they were related as fathers and sons. They were not just the direct or indirect descendants of their forebears who left this Earth seasons ago. There was a generation gap and Lamech’s predecessors hadn’t had a clue of how to fill the void with the inadequate knowledge of languagethey had.

And then there was the war between species. As Lilith had described, there were indeed other Edens. While the closest in Africa joined Seth’s cause for survival, the others were far more primitive, and unequivocal followers of god; a god Seth was against. Neanderthals were the first to declare war on men. Soon, the Denisovans followed.

Bloods werespilled for the antecedence war. And it did not end until Jared, an ancestor of Lamech married a Neanderthal woman and fathered children. The war finally stopped when there were no pure Neanderthals left at all, in the time of Methuselah: the great-great-great-grandfather of Lamech – the man who invented spears, before coming to this New World. Denisovans couldn’t find a truce with men. They were lovers and they didn’t come to terms. The last of them died far away from home, in a frozen cave in Siberia. The human tribe left one and conquered all four Edens. The gods only watched.

And the gods were angry.

A long time ago, the primogenitor of his tribe – Seth – had a brother. And unlike his brothers, he was all evil and no good. He killed his younger sibling Abel and tried to kill Seth too. Failing in his vengeance that he hadn’t obtained the power despite being the eldest, he ran away and went far east like a lost nomad. And then he returned, not in flesh and blood but as a soul – in a legacy and ideology of violence and vengeance that was immortal.

He traveledto the Eden of the far east in the isleat the end of the world. Amidst the tropical forests, he found what he was seeking for so long. The dwarfs there, too simple in their nature to understand Cain’s evil propaganda, mothered his children. He slaughtered the males, not by his own hands, but with cards of suspicion and civil war he put carefully between them. Soon only the children of Cain, born from the wombs of the dwarf women, remained. The new Flores men, with blood of Cain in them, were inventors in nature, adventurers by their blood, and vindictive souls. They made ‘pae-pae’rafts from balsa wood and set sail through the ocean of endless water. They found the Polynesia and islands like Easter on their way. Some too tired settled and others sailed forward. The currents were their guide and the sun their new god: Kon-Tiki Viracocha.

Wherever men set foot, new gods were created in reflections of old gods: all the same with different names. And if the gods failed to serve their purposes, their prayers ended and soon they were forgotten. Newer gods took their mantles. Gods lived; gods reigned. They gave birth to religion, faith, and lore. Lore turned into superstition and faith into fundamentalism. Then the gods were forgotten, only the prejudices remained.

And the cycle continued.

But a great storm thundered on Cain’s followers. Many were killed in the sea and others found themselves detached and lost from one another. A group landed in North America while the other found their way in the far South – in a continent where the tigers with fangs and birds the size of horses roamed.

The northlanders, to escape from the cold, marched south, taming the wild horses they found in their way. And left a trail of blood and death behind. They killed without cause, for pleasure and left bereavement where they went. It continued until they met the tribe of Seth.

Not a single soul breathed in the valley when their blades stopped. They yelled with their lungs out. The shout of victory bore the utmost happiness of butchering people in their dreams.

***

The storm was still in its prime. Lamech fisted his hand in helplessness. I wish I could conquer the power of the red flower, he thought. Little did he know, another act of monumental scale had already happened in the mountains of the west, the land of always winter and forever ice. And soon, he would become a part of it.

Suddenly, he thought he heard loose ice falling from the cliff high above. There were sounds of approaching footsteps; something big and heavy was running towards their cave mouth. Mounting his spear, Lamech waited near the entrance without waking up Betenos. His hands were trembling when he tried his best to stay calm. Then, seeing the shadows on the ice, his spear went down and he knelt before the being. With a torch in his hand, it was no man. It was a Titan: a fugitive from the great Citadel, or in Lamech’s tongue – Olympus.

***

He was running. With each footstep of turmoil, the loose snow, foam in nature and lighter than a feather, found their short moments afloat in the cold mountain breeze until they caressed the ground again. He ran. He was a renegade. He took something from the gods, something they kept to themselves for aeons because they thought men were not worthy.

Oh, they are worthy, my Lords. It was fear that kept you from deliverance. It was fear that made you imprison them in your Eden until they broke free. When, on the broader terms, you are the true prisoners of your own devices.

Prometheus smiled as he climbed down the cliff in careful steps. The bottom was a descend in an almost vertical line. There was the fear of getting caught, tension bore in his heart for being an absconder and his nerves were in a constant state of hyperexcitement. Yet, the smile remained on his face. It had to. He was the first who stood against God’s will; he was the first insurgent. He and his brother, the drying bloodline of Bor, were the last purebred Titans. Others fought against the gods over and over until they found their lifeless bodies lying on the ice, the grass, or the woods. Being the last, they had no other choice but to surrender and let their lives be spared.

The brothers coffined their kind in the deep sea. The gods gave them the order. It pained them; it made their heart heavy. But they did it. The sarcophaguses descended into the abyss and their souls drowned with them. Prometheus returned when his brother stayed near the sea. He found the waves were the calls of his loved ones. The foams of phosphorus gave birth to darkness in his heart.

Indeed, they had no chance against the gods. Yet, they were willing to find one. Epimetheus found a way of his salvation. While his method was of violence, obedience, and bloodshed, Prometheus’s was of peace, defiance, and equality. The gods were uncontested kings because there was none to match their superheated blades.

If only the men had the power and the mortal instruments to be equal, he thought.

Men found fire when they escaped Eden… when one of his predecessors taught Lilith the use of it. But she hadn’t had the time to tell her how to give birth to one. Mankind remained the hunter-gatherer they were always destined to be. There was an advancement in what gods told them they should be, not in what they were supposed to be. As time passed and forged ages, the fear of gods made men hide inside the blemished cocoon of religion: something they should have worn like an ornament. But as ages swept, they made it their armour. Mankind was pursuing a wrong path and the gods above watched their transcendence to demise as they laughed from heaven. Epimetheus swore an oath to be the gods’ servant; Prometheus never thought in his dream to be one. Yet, he swore with him. After all, despite how many times those said they were, they were no gods; they were the masters of men who came from beyond the stars.

***

“Absolutely not!” Prometheus stepped back a foot or two hearing Ω’s roar. It was a reply made in anger. “Do you realize what will happen if we teach them to make fire? Did you even think of the consequences when you made the request?” Ω said.

“I did, my Lord. Look at them, they are helpless against the cold, weak against the heat. They are fervent to know and learn what lies beyond their grasp. They are ready, my Lord.”

“Man will never be ready. I know because we had walked this path before them.”Ω said, putting his cloak around his shoulder as some frozen gusts managed to make their way in through an opening somewhere. “They are violent. They kill for pleasure and will continue to do so. The fire is not a tool but an arsenal of destruction in their blood-warmed hands.”

“But Lord…”You are not so different from the creatures you created. You killed our kind time after time for an excuse too hollow to have faith in. We were never the threat you thought and made the other gods believe we were; you made us the threat when we were pushed to the brink of disobedience. You created men from the inbreeding apes that were on the brink of extinction, merging their blood with our bones and your muscles. And now you are afraid. Sons are always the definition of what a father is. His tongue slept while his mind talked.

“Why do you, after this much spillage of blood and such crude exhibition of vehemence, want to help them still?”

“Because, Sire, men are brave and good. At least… some of them still are.”

“You can’t force the collective virtuousness of a few men like Enoch into a whole species who invite blood and gore.”

“I am not. I am saying there is hope. There is still hope.”

“One day, it will be all that remains and then,” Ω muttered under his breath, “When the hope vanishes, mankind will need a cleansing. This era, the savages of the east coast coined Satya Yuga: the age of ice, will end and mankind will end with it.”

Clearing his throat, seeing Prometheus was still afore him, to add, he said, “Many millennia ago, we escaped the collapse of our dying universe. It was dark, without a single star, any ray of light that could give us hope. Our ship, The Olympus, on board with the last thirty-three of our kind, swam against the flow of the river of entropy and time. It came at the cost of energy disintegration. We crash-landed in the shallow water of a bay in the sub-tropics. That hard descend destroyed the dinosaurs and life on Earth as it knew and damaged our ship severely. Ashamed on our doing, we tried to heal this rock to its former glory, filling the gap the reptiles made with new species of warm blood that survived the impact. Astonishingly, we found our time through the slipstream had changed us. Here, in this young universe, time had little effect on us, making us theoretically immortal.”

Ω continued while Prometheus knelt before him. The gesture gave him a sense of supremacy. Prometheus did it on purpose. Ω smiled and said, “Through trial and error, it was our solemn duty to create something as our sons and daughters. But the molecular anatomy was too different. We could only pass on some genes to a certain level. That gene-remodelling brought up complications. The mutations of the final form became uncontrollable due to inbreeding and other various factors. We had no option but to start everything from scratch again. It was your ancestors who came before men: people who were much closer to us than anyone can ever be. Unlike men who were modelled, your ancestors were born from the seeds we passed into primates. And you rewarded us by betrayal.”

And, you made this world a slaughterhouse, and Titans its cattle.

Zeus didn’t know what thoughts were conjuring Prometheus’s mind. Because, the Titan asked, putting on a shawl of curiosity on his tongue, “So, Adam and Eve were not the first men?”

“No. They were my fifth attempt. The last descendant of the humans who came before them was Lilith–the last of a failed race of abominations. I cared and nurtured her like my daughter. And she also betrayed me. They always do.” The god answered, biting his lower lip white, and sighing.

“It is a father’s duty to let go and forgive his children, my Lord,” Prometheus said, although he knew why men left God’s garden. It is the fundamental nature of life to find a way to liberate itself from tight clutches. They flow as an unstoppable wave until they find what suits them the best. Life isn’t something to tamper or pamper or even control. Life is a fascinating thing that attracted you to this pale blue dot in the first place. And it made you stay. Life is the unstoppable force that you tried to tame into something of unmovable in nature. You can’t. Life always finds a way.

“They started as five species, now only one remains. They butchered everyone in the valley nearby. Only one endured: a family of hybrids. Tell me Prometheus, do you still want to save humans without humanity?”

Prometheus did not voice his thought, who are we to decide the gentrified definition of humanity when we ourselves are not humans? He understood it was fruitless to make reasons with a god this stubborn, still wise. So, he excused himself from his presence and waited for the nightfall. The Olympus was a vessel of unimaginable scale. With a squarish base and a golden shaft at its crowning, it was pyramidal in structure and possessed a staggering height of almost four kilometres. The top was almost lost in the blue of the sky while the ground level had many sealed windows on them – growing fewer with every rising level. The windows reminded Prometheus of the opportunities mankind deserved but didn’t have simply because the gods were afraid.

If only there was a hole in the windows, all the cold could break in and show the gods what it truly meant to survive.

The blurred bodyline of Prometheus disappeared in the hail outside. The shivering cold of the Rocky Mountains made his teeth chatter despite the heavy clothing he had. It continued until he reached his igloo. The bricks of ice made well insulators and the wool on his manetrapped the heat inside, pressing a comforting sensation through his body. He was hungry but Prometheus thought not to go for a hunt under the night soon to come. Eating the last frozen groundnuts he had with him, Prometheus went outside and whistled. The sound of clopping hooves on the hard ice was heard.

There was a duct under the ship – only used for throwing excess out. Being an apparatus of seldom use, its position was always neglected and often forgotten. It was pure luck that he came across it. It was Lilith who found it before and that knowledge was passed in the time of teachings. Time made him forget it was even there. The cold and the wind dropped the air pressure inside the vessel. It tired him to sneak inside, to open the unlocked hatch. There were frozen sweats on his forehead when Prometheus made his way in. He found himself go ice cold; his heart thudding deafeningly. The craft was dimly illuminated; it was the time for the gods to sleep. There were private quarters and Prometheus heard a feminine moan coming from the quarter of Aphrodite. Curious, he eyed through the slightly opened door.

The air was heavy inside. Prometheus could see the outlines of two bodies: one female and one clearly male, colliding and clutching and moving on each other like two eels in a stream. He knew who the female was: the goddess of love was well known for her hunger of lust. Prometheus didn’t recognize the mate despite being the gods’ servant for so long.

The golden aura from the walls wasn’t enough to reveal his identity. Prometheus pressed his lip. If only he could be invisible! He didn’t have to. It was Aphrodite’s pleasure screams that uttered the name and the name baffled the Titan outside the door.

How could this be possible? He asked himself.

Adonis was the shanghaied prince of the tribe who worshipped the woods as their deities, especially the cypress tree.

What is he doing here?

It was not Prometheus’s place to intervene and he didn’t. The intimate lovers didn’t notice the large shadow slowly vanish behind the almost shut door. With cat’s toes, he made his way in the Chamber of the Chosen: the room that held everything precious to the proud gods. There were the reminiscent artefacts from their home, the relics of a deleted universe. There were many things to flabbergast and influence him: the antimatter capsules, the last decaying proton of their universe in a stagnant time-case, the dark energy harnesser, or even the jewel shining brighter than the afternoon sun even in that dim light – created at the very core of the Ringed Nebula. But Prometheus stayed strong on his path. Among the others, there were two simple looking stones, just tossed in-between. But to Prometheus, those helda great interest. Those were the stones that could create fire, samples from the workshop of Hephaistos and Athena.

The alarm was ringing and hurling vibrations everywhere in Olympus when Prometheus jumped on the glacier outside. There was a sledge nearby, pulled by an enormous Caribou. He captured it some time ago but decided to make it his pet. His decision bore fruit as the animal became his way of salvation.

From inside the vessel, he heard shouts of angry Ω, “Sent Θ. Let the mortals and his brother know what they are opposing.”

“But he is a keen follower of Ḣ!”

“…” Prometheus couldn’t hear what Ω replied. He could not wait to eavesdrop.

“Move fast, boy,” Prometheus’s yell dispersed as the sledge slid by the shoreline of Lake Agassiz. The enormous waterbody without a horizon was the result of the ever-melting water from the great glaciers of the north. The wall of ice and stone collapsed and froze to make a dam at its only opening. Like an unstable cork on a container of carbonated water, the dam’s structure was too uncertain and fragile. Like a ticking time-bomb, it waited for the ice to melt. And the ice was melting. Like Zeus said, the Satya Yuga or final ice age was coming to an end. It will take more than a thousand years for the glacier to finally go back to the north, but before that, there will be a flood, the great flood. Life will perish in the south of Lake Agassiz. Prometheus found there was again some sweat on his body, this time on his palms. It came in fear, fear of a certain, doomed future. It started to snow hard again as the foothills grew before him. Suddenly there wasn’t a way to move forward. It was a cliff ahead. Prometheus thought to descend, depending on his feet that started to catch frostbite.

***

“Welcome to our humble shelter, my Lord.” Lamech invited the Titan in.

The jawline and the dental expression bore their addresses. Prometheus knew he accidentally came to the right place. “You are the descendants of Seth, aren’t you?”

“You can tell that too! Can you reward us with your name, my Lord?”

“While I look like one, I am no god, but a Titan…” He looked at them to know their names as he calmed down after gaining breaths.

“Lamech. This is my wife Betenos.”

“I am not your Lord, Lamech. I am just a mortal who declared mutiny to the will of the gods. I am here to bequeath a certain presage: the end is near.” He stretched his arms in a straight line, and continued, “Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

Lamech, with his eyes bursting in disbelief, uttered, almost stammering, “This…this prophecy was in our tribe for generations! H…how can you know this? This prophecy was sacred and secret to only our tribe. This is the reason Methuselah was named such. The name means ‘man of the dart,’ but it also means…”

“… ‘when he is dead it shall be sent.’ My ancestor Iapetus warned your ancestor Enoch many years…ages ago. That warning is passed on from parents to children as a prophecy. You need to escape like my son Deucalion. A flood is coming.”

“What is this flood?”

“The end of everything you love and everything you know. I will try to save as many as I can and spread the word. But the words need your mouth and ears for the betterment of all.”

“But none will believe us!” Lamech licked his lips.

A sudden silence flew between them with the last gust of wind of a diluting storm. He knew Lamech was right. The reality was too surreal to believe. None would believe the end of the world. He himself would have found it hard to swallow if he hadn’t seen Agassiz himself.

“Why are you really here?” Lamech knew it was not planned by the Titan to meet them in their clandestine refuge. He knew it was an accident. From the heavy panting, he knew that the Titan was running.

But from what?

“In the last war between the Titans and the gods, I switched sides and supported the victorious Olympians when my own kind did not follow my advice to use trickery in the battle. I won, but my race lost. After the battle, we devoted ourselves to the gods and started to learn their ways. I taught my brother the skill of metalwork, learning from Hephaistos. He used it as an instrument of death and taught Cain. It was a treason to my conscience. The compunctions ate me until I raided Olympus and stole…”

Prometheus couldn’t end his sentence. A lightning bolt kissed the ground near the cave’s mouth. The brightness almost blinded them. Shadowing his eyes, Lamech saw the expression changing on the Titan’s face. The calm composure was starting to disappear, replaced by an expression of agitation.

The Titan was afraid.

Suddenly he became calm again, maybe calmer than before. Prometheus sank before the child and placed the two rocks on his tiny grips. The child held them tight. Turning to the parents, he asked. “What is his name?”

The name was troubled on the Titan’s tongue. He failed to pronounce and uttered, “Naiah?”

“Noah is his name, my lord,” Betenos answered.

Lamech peeked outside. There were large figures, thirty-three of them, standing at the edge of the cliff. By the trident on one’s hand or the Vajra or the Kerykeion on the others, he knew who they were. The gods were at their doorstep. Almost clinging on the cliff, was a dire-wolf twice the size of Prometheus, sniffing the trail of scent left by him.

“They borrowed Fenrir of the north! That’s how they hunted me down. So, the high-altitude prison of Mount Caucasus awaits me then!” Prometheus muttered.

He felt it was his sworn responsibility to protect the humans who gave him shelter. Putting hands on the air, he went outside, smiling, saying, “I am prepared for the judgment, my Lords. But there is no justin that.”

As the reflection of Prometheus disappeared from the snow, Betenos found Lamech with the stones, clashing each other in repeated attempts.

“What is that?” She asked, curiously.

As the first sparks made its way on the cold stone, Lamech said, in gripping voice, “Hope.”

***

Flames engulfed the valley. It consumed and tormented the foliage and sent a scorching and burning sensation to everything alive nearby. The conflagration kissed the sky with its blinding smoke and hissed with the coming northern wind from the mountains. The green wore a coat of gold and crimson. The talons of fire were inescapable.

Standing on a kopje, Lamech saw the absconding of the invaders. They ran away like ants, like birds of a feather fled together. He smiled, like a warrior who achieved his goal.

“I was unable to save my kind but I made sure to avenge them. Run…run you bastards. I am the master of this place. Never think of setting foot on this land when I am still alive! Let the burn marks remind you what’s the meaning of power, true power is. Feel the fear in your heart and feel my wrath as everything burns.” He laughed, thrusting his joyous fist up in the air.

Under the mauve darkness of the dawn, Lamech’s tiptoed intrusion, with the torch on his grip, made an ambush assault on the invaders and set their tents on fire. The skins of the dead whales caught and burned sooner than he expected and before the sun set foot in the valley, rose a second sun. Their tents charred, burned,and sang in voices of death. The smell of burning flesh, of sleeping parents and children, engulfed the valley’s morning breeze. Only a handful survived and they had only one choice. They evaded. The gale, influenced by the falling air pressure the large flames created, invited strong winds from the mountain. The fire burned even brighter. The men had to leave.

Betenos, beside him, sat on the flat rock. The expression of joy and conquer didn’t contaminate her. Instead, there was melancholy on her face.

“What happened?” Lamech didn’t understand why his wife was so glum. She didn’t answer. Lamech sat beside her, embracing her and their son tight and asked again, this time in a more soothing, soft tone.

“How can you be the harbinger of death, Lamech?” The reply was not what he was expecting.

“I…I don’t understand.” He stammered.

“You are a sinner and the poet who collected his ink from the ashes of burned corpses. There was a Titan amidst them, probably their leader. You should have talked, injected the fear in his mind and made them leave our home. Instead, you delivered your so-called justice to them. We are no gods, Lamech, no matter how much we try to subjugate their gifts. Our doings have pugnacious repercussions. Vengeance is not always the key. An eye for an eye only results in the loss of both. There’re no differences in the men who came or the man who was here before.”

Betenos was always a lady of fewer words. Her words shook Lamech hard. The smile lost its way and Lamech’s opaque eyes caught the view of the valley: covered in fire, smoke, and ashes. There was nothing. Only the silence after deaths remained inside the crepitation of still burning timbers. The gray ambiancedidn’t give him any joy anymore. The guilt made a stronghold in his misguided conscience. Death found his kingdom in the vale and not the northlanders but Lamech was the one to invite him in. he tried to burn his enemy, but he burnt his home with them.

The fire was not an instrument for his survival and salvation, but a tool of violence in wrong and untrained hands. Lamech thought to throw the stones in the nearby stream. But in momentary hesitation, he kept it as his child started to cry.

“Fear not Noah, fear not. Be the man I could never be. Save this world or some of it before the flood comes.”

***

Epimetheus never thought a single savage could outbrain him and ignite every tent his tribe had set. He never necessitated to escape with his tail between his legs, but the burnt, painful, blackened skin on his bicep and back reminded him that he had to. Being both a warrior by birth and a Titan, Epimetheus seized the opportunity to guide and rule the descendants of Cain when they landed the west coast – lost, confused, and devastated. He taught the men how to forge and wield bronze and they made him their messiah. Of course, it was until that man set fire on them. Epimetheus counted, there were no more than a hundred remained of his followers. Soon, he knew they all would perish from the face of this world.

They came as conquerors. They were returning as underdogs – with their soul and might shattered in pieces. Until now, they were the apex species, the self-proclaimed kings of all. They broke the food chain and killed anything and everything that came in their way. But they forgot that every cause is put into equilibrium by its opposite.

The tables were now turned.

Forcing their way through the dense downhill jungles of the west, Epimetheus found it hard to return whilst it was easy to come. Their horses, stocks, women, and children – all were gone. And they were helpless at the mercy of the uncertain weather. The vicious downpour made its way through the dense canopy and they had to stop, finding shelter under the trunks still a bit dry. Under the rain, Epimetheus heard the approaching sound of light footsteps, jumping from one dribble to another. There was a strange aroma in the air and it didn’t come from the plants. It stopped before the trunk where Epimetheus was hiding.

Am I seeing this right?

He blinked twice and rubbed his eyes. Before him, under the rain, a girl stood, with something on her shoulder. Beautiful was not the word to describe her properly as the unknown fabric clawed on her body like a white snake, showing her gorgeous curves.

Epimetheus already underestimated his opponents once. He raised his axe and asked her in an alarming tone, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“My name is Pandora. It was the tales of your heroism that drew me here. I want to marry you, surrender myself to your arms and mother your children. As a token for my words, I brought something, a gift from the workshop of the gods, for you. It is in this case.”

By the design and decoration of the metal case, Epimetheus knew indeed it was godly in origin. But he hesitated to welcome her near as her speech sounded somewhat taught.

“What’s in it?” He asked, lowering his axe, but still in doubt.

“Something precious. You should open it to know. But, this is my guarantee: something unfathomable, powerful, and unknown rests. Open it, Epimetheus. Tell the world what is in this. Tell them!”

“The summer is here. This era is going to end. You are the catalyst of this culmination!” Pandora hissed the last words under her breath.

Epilogue:

Fifty-Seven Years Later:

Rain poured out from the dark, the sky thundered in unending torrents. Waves of loosened loam and trees slid down like liquid, burying plants and animals by the thousands. Agassiz had broken loose. The tremendous current of the deluge swept Noah’s Ark in the great Atlantic. There were no lands and no gods to guide, and the others started to doubt if Noah was even veracious or just fortunate in the circumstances he needed to be.

In the blinding rain, Noah, trying to determine his way standing on the deck – thought he saw another boat – similar in design but with a crucial difference, in the horizon. There were eight men, different in origin than Noah, with their wives and children on board. It was tugged forward by something underwater. Noah couldn’t make out what it was. Even though the shadow resembled a fish, it was not. Noah knew there would be survivors who believed the words his father spread. The demi-titans, the bastard sons of Epimetheus helped him in the cause of building the Ark in time. Noah pressed his lips hard under his silver beard.

If only I could know who the others are!

The Shaptarshi and Vaivasvata Manu didn’t know who was in the other boat and couldn’t get to know as each vanished to the other in the blinding hurricane of the mid-Atlantic. Unlike Noah – lost in the Atlantic, the eight yogis knew their destination: a landmass with a triangular bottom as the messenger from the god Vishnu told them. The subcontinent was flourishing with rich soil and they were taught how to cultivate with the seeds they collected under-deck. There was a sacred place to place those seeds for cultivation, to build a city there, a place on the shore of a river named Sindh-yu. The boat moved through the waves like a needle through the water. It was pulled by something underneath the waves. An automata mimicking the appearance of a fish. And now, as a fully-grown system, it was pulling them through the raging sea. Manu took a deep breath and looked at the endless horizon.

The survivors of the disaster, the ethnic group of many beliefs and single linguistic distinction were adrift in the ocean, in search of a new land. The people of the east were relatives of Lamech’s tribe but the closeness faded with each new generation. All of them used a common word to describe themselves – ‘arā-in’ or Arian. In their tongue, it meant ‘proud members of an ethnic faction.’

History was waiting to begin anew.

Tags: Soham Guha, নবম বর্ষ প্রথম সংখ্যা