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Visitor from the other land

This is a small attempt to write a sci-fi short story. Will see how it goes. 

~TJ


This is not really my story to tell, he thought I could be a messenger of some kind which I'm not really sure about. Still, I couldn't ignore his request. This is from the strangest visitor I met. His name is Bob, he said. At least that's what it sounded like to me. He didn't speak English very well it seemed or maybe the weirdest accent I heard. He said his culture was very different and had to pick the closest words. Anyway, here onwards it is his story as he told me. The first time I met him it was really awkward and scary but I'll maybe write about it later. Please apologize I had to disturb Bob in the middle to understand what he said sometimes. 

...

Greetings, my name is Bob the historian.

I'm terribly sorry for the confusion earlier and for scaring you. Please listen to my story first.

I'll start from the beginning, so it may be clear and maybe help us both to connect the dots. We can use your knowledge base.

[Me]: You mean the internet? (showing my phone)

Yes, the internet to figure things out. 

It wasn't really forbidden to dig up the history of our kind but it was merely impossible for thousands of years. So, nobody really could find much about it until not so long ago. I was working with my research team for the last 50 years. Don't think I'm an old man though I think I have many years left. This is one of the research areas that our people started many many years ago. My grandfather was one of the leading scientists and a historian. When I was a kid, I used to observe him writing, experimenting, reading for hours and hours in his workshop. Naturally, I was interested in his path and chose to follow the same.

Well, I am a historian and a linguist for the government science division. My grandfather had these weird theories about our ancestors that made me ponder in my imagination. Which ultimately led me to this journey finally meeting you. 

My grandfather was a religious man. In my religion, we were taught that we came here from a faraway place, some called it heaven and some called it hell. My grandfather called it the land of the giants. For him, religion and history were the same things. However, I often believed our history and religion were misinterpreted over the generations. 

Of course, our archeological evidence indicates that we were once cavemen. My grandfather found this vast cave system that was buried millions of years ago. It went miles and miles underground. It was a natural cave system but there are lots of paintings and writings on the walls. This was one of the best things that an archeologist could find. Lots of our early theories were changed based on these findings.

My grandfather believed this cave belonged to the very first civilization of history. The first people who came to be.

As a linguist, I was mapping our language into these ancient writings for years. My team supported deciphering many of the ancient writings. Now I know the cave system like the back of my hand.

By the way, did I say that our land is getting too small for us? 

[Me]: No, seriously? How can that happen?

I'll tell you more about it later, but in short, we had to find some land within the next few centuries to grow our main food source. I guess that's why I'm here. 

I published several knowledge base articles with these translations over the years and finally, another division of science reached out to me for a collaboration. This research team was actually building space shuttles. 

[Me]: Like NASA? 

Nasa? 

[Me]: Showing the NASA website from my phone.

Yes yes, something like NASA.

They wanted to travel the worlds out in space, I often thought it was a useless thing. We could have saved this world by all that effort. Never mind what I think, they were interested in one of my translations from the archeological site.

This document I translated was about the first people traveling from heaven to our land. It included pieces of notations that I could not translate. After discussing with this new science team, we thought these notations I couldn't identify were some sort of mathematical formulas. This new theory was enlightening. I studied some basic mathematics like everybody else, but translating ancient mathematics was beyond my capabilities. My colleagues believed it was something much advanced for an early civilization. After some time I got to know they are trying to apply these ancient mathematical formulas for their space science programs. 

Soon, it was clear that formulas were another means of traveling, as our space program. I could clearly see then it matches with my grandfather's theories that our first people traveled from somewhere else. This was so exciting and all were thrilled to find out more. Took me and my team several more years to translate more.

Based on that ancient writings, they came traveled because the place they lived in earlier was destroyed. Many people and animals were dead few escaped to underground caves. Many generations have lived there until they found this way to travel here.

What I can deduce is, our ancient people may have lived somewhere else underground after having it destroyed they came to this land we live in. Still, they might have used caves to live because they were familiar with it. After generations, they may have adapted to living in houses like us. After many civilizations, we might have forgotten entirely about our first people and ignored it thinking as a myth in the religion. 

It took us another 10 years to complete the mathematical formula and feed it to the space machine so we can travel back. I remember the first trial experiments were sending in drones and animals. Later we developed it further to bring them back. 

[Me]: Wait, so you were on a ship? How does it work?

Oh, you want to know how it works? Oh, and don't get confused, this space machine they built wasn't really flying out in space. It was just a room full of machines and it has this platform to transport in and out from our land. Well, we put someone on this platform and it counts down then it disappears from there. Then it comes here. After the machine clock goes down, it will bring the subject back to the platform. 

[Me]: So you built a machine that can open a portal to another place? 

That sounds about right I think. Do you know any other way to disappear from there and appear here?

[Me]: No, sorry. Please continue.

Okay, we sent in drones from time to time and brought them back with more data. First, they were overwhelmed by data from various signals. We spent a long time studying them. 

Then finally we could see this land from the drones. We were so happy and it meant we have some hope to finally travel back after millions of years. 

[Me]: Wait, travel back? How many years exactly? 

Yes, like I said our ancestors maybe came from here. A year is one cycle around the star, so roughly 252 million years ago. I'm converting my data to your numbers.

[Me]: Yeah, right. So, your people lived here in our world millions of years ago?

That's what the evidence suggests. 

Okay, where were we... so, based on the data we learned about this land, the people the culture. It was very hard for me to learn English. We translated most of the data into sound and pictures.

[Me]: You mean like TV and Youtube?

If you say so. We don't know what they are, we were just decoding your signals.

After learning pretty much, I decided to travel here yesterday and now I'm here. It was the humidity I first felt when I just arrived. Unlike our land, you have so much water here. Good thing I came with this suite.

(He was wearing a full suit, gloves, a face mask, and goggles)

I really wanted to talk to people to try out the language skills I learned so hard but the whole day I was walking in your city observing. I was hesitant to talk to people at first.

I noticed how small your people are.

[He was a huge dude]

Then the skin color. You are very pale and seemed soft. I noticed how different your people are. Still, I thought your people are pretty. Well, except for the ears. First, it was so annoying for me to notice the ears. Humans have these weird looking sound sensors beside their heads. 

[Me]: What! okay, you don't have ears so I think it makes sense. I won't be able to look at people without thinking about what you just said haha.

Yes, and I have a very dry skin. 

Anyway, I'm glad I talked to you first. So, my friend, you also have archeological evidence of cavemen here as I learned from your Internet.

[Me]: Googling... yeah but not 252 million years ago. They are just early humans. 

I see that you don't have much technology to look beyond the outer layer of the earth yet. Like my grandfather said the heaven was also called the land of the giants in those writings. I didn't really understand until I study your knowledge base.

[Me]: Wikipedia? What does it mean?

What you have had 252 million years ago was an extinction event of the Jurrasic creatures. They were giants, weren't they? I think our people come from them. After the extinction event, they might have found a way to travel to my land from here. 

[Me]: It could be a parallel world? or another dimension?

I don't understand the science exactly but yes, something like that. It makes so much sense, isn't it? After millions of years passed, we have had many civilizations, wars, and pandemics. Over the years, we have forgotten how we came to be. Our early travelers never tried traveling back because they thought this land will not be survivable for a long time. 

[Me]: So let me get this straight? You are telling me that you're a highly intelligent Dinosaur? 

Not exactly. Our ancestors may be from that era. Still, some intelligent species could have been there. They had millions of years to evolve, so why not? 

Okay, my time is running out. I was chosen for this message because I have studied your land for some time now. We want to trade your land.

...

The guest had vanished when I looked at him back after writing this. You probably think I'm crazy. Heck, I think I'm crazy, but I could swear it really happened. 

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