Chapter 0:
Mech vs. Dinosaurs
// 66 million years ago
// Earth
Lush vegetation. Hot, bare rock. The sun, a burning orb in the sky. Long shadows cast by three dinosaurs standing atop the carved summit of a mountain—fall upon the vast plain below, on which hundreds-of-thousands of other dinosaurs, large and small, scurry and labour in constant, organized motion. The three dinosaurs keep vigil.
And so it is, one of them says without speaking. (Telepathizes it to the two others.)
The worldbreaker approaches.
We cannot see it.
But we know it is there, hidden by the brightsky.
Below:
The dinosaurs are engaged in three types of work. Some are building, bringing stone and other materials and attaching them to what appears to be the skeleton of a massive cylinder. Others are taking apart, destroying the remnants (or ruins) of structures. Others still are moving incalculable quantities of small eggs, shuffling them seemingly back and forth across the expanse of the plain, before depositing them in sacks of flesh.
As the prophets foretold, remarks the second of the three.
May the time prophesied be granted to us, and may our work, in accordance, be our salvation, says the first.
The third dinosaur atop the mountain—yet to speak, or even to stir—is the largest and the oldest of the three, and shall in time become known as Alpha-61. For now he is called The-Last-of the-First.
As he clears his mind, and the winds of the world briefly cease, the other two fall silent in deference to him, and as he steps forward, toward the precipice, concentrating his focus, he begins to address himself to all those before him—not only to those on the plain below, but to all his subjects: to all dinosaurkind—for such is the power of his will and the strength of his telepathy.
Brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, and all otherkin, mark my words, for they are meant for you.
The motions on the plain come to a halt and thereupon all listen. All the dinosaurs on Earth listen.
The times are of-ending. The worldbreaker descends from the beyond. I feel it, brethren. But do not you despair. The great seers have forewarned us, and it is in the impending destruction that their truth is proven. The worldbreaker shall come. The devastation shall be supreme. But it shall not be complete.
The-Last-of-the-First pauses. The energy it takes to telepathize to so many minds over such planetary distances is immense.
He continues:
Toil, brethren. Toil, even when your bodies are breaking and your belief weakened. For what your work prepares is the future that the great seers proclaimed. Through them, know success is already yours. Toil, knowing you have succeeded; and that most of you shall perish. Toil, thus, not for yourselves but for the survival of your kind. Toil constructing the ark, which shall allow us and our eggs to escape the worldbreaker's devastation by ascending to the beyond. Toil taking apart our cities, our technology, our culture, so that any beast which next sets foot upon this devastated planet may never know our secrets. Toil, so that in the moment of your sacrificial death, you may look to the brightsky knowing we are out there—that your kin survives—that, upon the blessed day called by the great seers the second dawn, we shall, because of you, and in your glorious memory, return—to this, our home planet. And if there be any then who stand to oppose us, know: we shall… exterminate them…
Then the work was completed.
Their civilization dismantled, hidden from prehistory.
The ark built and loaded with eggs and populated by the chosen ones.
Inside, the sleeping was initiated so that all those within would in suspended-animation slumber the million years it took to soar on invisible wings across the beyond to the second planet, the foretold outpost, where they would survive, exist and prosper—until the omen announcing preparations for the second dawn.
[…]
The ark was far in the beyond when the worldbreaker made
IMPACT
—smashing into the Earth!
Boom!
Crust, peeling…
Shockwave: emanating from point of impact like an apocalyptic ripple, enveloping the planet.
Followed by a firestorm of death.
Burning.
The terrible noise of—
Silence:
in the fathomless depths of the beyond, from which Earth is but an insignificant speck; receding, as a sole cylinder floats past, and, on board, The-Last-of-the-First dreams cyclically of the violence of return.
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