I had no idea how long I'd been unconscious when I woke up, my whole body ached and my head was spinning.
The overpowering scent of herbs and blood assaulted my senses, making me scrunch my nose immediately.
"You are awake?" a woman asked.
I screamed when I saw her. She looked like nothing I had ever seen before. She was not like the glossy models on magazine pages.
Her skin was olive and weathered, lined by tiny scars that mapped a life of hard work.
Her hair was a thick curtain of dark coils tied back with a strip of leather. Worn beads hung at her throat, and the cloth across her shoulders was patched many times.
She moved with the slow, careful balance of someone used to carrying heavy loads.
"Is this real?" My voice came out plain.
"You're not from here, are you?" she said, eyeing me with a hollow smile that made a chilling sensation run down my spine.
The smile showed no teeth; it was a measuring look, as if she were trying to decide whether I would live or die.
Weren't these the people I was trying to bring back? Or had the lightning messed with my brain?
This isn't possible, it has to be a simulation or a hallucination.
I slapped myself across the face so hard I almost shed a tear. The pain was real.
"I have never seen something like you," the woman said, holding a damp cloth toward my face.
I hit her hand away rashly, and the bowl of hot water splashed across her hands. She didn't flinch. She took the pain in like it was nothing, simply folding the wet cloth in her palms. My stomach tightened, if that had been me, I would have screamed.
Her eyes never left mine, steady as a hunter's.
"The king will know what to do with you," she said.
Something finally dawned on me, these people spoke my language. These were our ancestors, the humans who first walked the earth.
I froze. The books said they were simple, unable to speak well. But now, here we both were, understanding each other perfectly.
"It's a dream, it's a dream," I whispered. "I just have to find my machine and get out of here."
"Did you see my machine?" I asked aloud.
"What is a machine?" she asked back, confused.
Before I could answer, we heard a lot of voices outside.
"Bring out the outcast!" one roared.
My chest tightened. If there was only one outcast here, it had to be me.
Before I could speak again, the door outside slammed open. Two Homo erectus beings rushed in and seized me. Taller and heavier than the woman, they were broad-shouldered with thick necks and heavy brows.
When they grabbed me there was no gentleness; they carried me like I was a sack of salt and slammed me into the open air.
There he was, the sapien. Cleaner, sharper and taller. He radiated the air of someone born to command. He looked like a leader, maybe even a king.
"Did the Neanderthals send you?" The king asked.
I said nothing. Now, everything is adding up, truly I was transmigrated to the Stone Age. Around me were all the human species I had only read about in books, from the Home habilis to the Homo sapiens.
And I was caught in their middle.
"Who sent you?" the king screamed at me. His eyes were hard, weighing me like a stone in his palm.
"I think we should kill him. He is a spy sent to destroy us," someone growled.
"No, don't kill him. We are not like the Neanderthals," the woman who had helped me earlier protested.
"We can't keep him here, he's marked," the same man growled again.
The king's gaze sharpened. "Marked?"
The woman spoke again, her voice calm.
"Yes. I checked him myself."
The king hesitated, then spoke, almost to himself. "Put him in the contest. If he is truly marked, he will survive. If not, his blood is not on our hands."
The voices around me blurred instantly.
Contest? Survival? I stared at the woman, but she only nodded. I knew I was doomed. I had to find a way to leave here and get to my machine.
******
That night I sneaked out of the room. Everything there was made of stone and I still couldn't believe what was going on.
I moved on tiptoe and walked towards the gate but realized the gate was blocked and was patrolled by other sapiens.
The security was tight and it made me wonder what was going on. Were they being hunted by something? Why would they build such a strong gate? Of course it was for protection, and now it wouldn't be so easy to leave.
My machine was still outside in the lagoon. I needed to leave this place before these people actually send me to my death.
"Contest my foot," I muttered, and kicked the sand. I couldn't stay here, I needed a way out.
I picked up a dry bone from a fire pit and crept to a corner where a pair of guards talked. I tossed the bone toward a distant pile of brush.
It clattered just beyond their circle. Instantly, one guard's head snapped toward the noise, the other followed.
They grunted and went to investigate, their spears ready. While they walked away I ran towards the gate with the feeling that I might break apart with every step.
I bent my body to fit into the hole near the gate and I was so happy it worked. I made it out. Those things were indeed dumb.
I laughed crazily as I ran to the lagoon, but this time it felt deeper. The water was green and slimy, my feet sank. As I walked closer to my machine my legs sank deeper and deeper until only my head was above.
I reached my machine and touched it. The lightning struck me softly. I groaned. What the hell is wrong with this thing?
Then I noticed something moving under my feet, a long, thick rope-like shape coiling around the machine. I stood frozen. It was really long like a snake.
Is that a snake? I screamed and looked into the water. There it was, I recognized it immediately.
It was a titanoboa. The creature reared its thick head out of the water and fixed me with a cold, unblinking eye.
I began to run back to the gate. I didn't think. I splashed through the slimy water, each step sucking my boots down.
The titanoboa lashed. Its great body rolled like a fallen tree and it kept hissing.
It moved toward my ankle. I threw myself sideways, the slick mud taking my weight. My shoulder slammed into a half-buried rock.
The titanoboa's jaws closed on empty water where my leg had been a second before.
I crawled, hands clawing at wet reeds, blood and mud on my palms. The creature lashed again and again, its length sweeping like a whip.
I shoved with my arms and kicked with a momentum born of pure terror. For a hair-thin moment I felt the snake's scales brush my calf. My fingers found a jag of metal, probably from my machine.
I dug it into the creature's side.
It made a sound like a bell being struck, a wet angry shriek. The beast recoiled. I scrambled to my feet and ran while leaving a trail of water and bloody footprints.
I thought this animal was extinct. Something also bothered me, the titanoboa had not existed during this era so how come it's here.
My hands wouldn't stay still, nothing made sense anymore.
I think I messed with nature.
I shouldn't exist here.
That snake shouldn't exist.
Those sapiens shouldn't exist at all and yet… they did.
My hands started trembling.
"What have I done?"