"Regression" (Original Sci-Fi Short-Story)

Nero was one of the 10 men and women who was sent to investigate exoplanets around the Milky Way. The expedition lasted for more than 75 light years and was the first ever faster than light flight.

---

A trail of fire crossed the skies before the unbelieving eyes of the villagers. The armor of the ship burned with an incandescent bright red; it pierced the thick grayish clouds in its diagonal trajectory to earth. As it approached the surface it straightened horizontally while the lower propellers slowed down the inertia. It is positioned 6 meters above the surface of a jungle terrain, the ship released gas from fissures to the sides of the shell in order to stabilize in its descent to finally land.

Some shadows moved with premeditation through the dense jungle, curious eyes are denoted in the furtive figures in the undergrowth. The ship's hatch opened a gas cloud in the process. A humanoid form appeared through the portal between the gas that was beginning to dissipate. He took another step forward while leaning on the right frame of the door. Between the gas that had degraded in a fine mist and the artificial lighting that reached it from the interiors to his back, it acquired a suggestive aura that suggested a spectral and mystical aspect.

The figures dismayed by the spectacle, are limited only to observe from the distance between the green mantle of the forest. Brown eyes like theirs, however, reddish copper hair and a rough look, it showed that Nero was far from the people of that region.

"What's going on here? (...? What is this place?" Nero said while going down the ramp that unfolded from the entrance of the ship to the ground.

A bald man approached him through the greenery. He began to speak to him in a completely foreign language for Nero. He pressed a couple of buttons on a panel on his forearm and then brought his hand to his intercom by pressing him; click and blink with a flashing blue light. A synthetic voice began to interpret the dialect that the bald man was articulating:

"Oh we bow to his greatness, Great Lord of the stars," The old and bald man paused and then continued to say with his harsh voice. Nero grimaced and remained silent for several seconds. "Wel, I guess it is expected. The gods can't talk to mere mortals so lightly," The man put his head down while bowing.

"Nero looked at the man with an expression of disdain. "What is this old place, perhaps this is Africa?" Nero asked through the synthetic voice.

"Africa? I don't know what you Lord is referring to. We're in the nation between two rivers.

The man's words baffle Nero. -It sounds familiar to me... -Nero thought.

"Oh magnanimous lord of the stars, I'd better leave you alone. I guess you must be very anxious to get to the star court and then meet your other Anunnaki brothers"

-Annunakis? But what the fuck has happened here? -Nero thought dominated by total bewilderment.

The bald old man introduced him to the lush tall grass. He walked with his bare feet between the rows of ants that walked along the path that was opened between the decrepit trees and all the green thicket, Nero observed with vivid curiosity how the old man did not even seem to mind the constant bites of those bugs. A dry wind was blowing and it seemed to play with Nero's ears, it was the typical breeze of the temperate climate that occurs in the arid steppes when it is about to fall the night.

After about 48 minutes of travel, Nero began to question the reason why he has not even seen a single glimpse of civilization, -in what kind of underdeveloped nation am I? -He wondered himself. The terrain became increasingly sterile and withered, the xerophytic vegetation left in evidence the presence of a desert in the vicinity.

"How much time do we have left to get there?" Nero asked.

"The temple is near, we only have to cross the desert and we will reach Sumer," The old man says with a disturbing tone.

The journey through the desert extended for almost 4 hours, Nero's organism was about to collapse due to dehydration and the wear caused by both trips: the return to Earth (although he was almost always in a state of suspended animation, it was certainly an exhausting trip), like this "tour" through the desert that was already starting to annoy him.

Soon, Nero began to see a mastodontic wall composed of huge blocks of limestone. Amazed by the architecture, Nero hurried his step to contemplate them closely.

"The walls of Sumer... It is said that they're things created by mundane hands just to compensate the Gods in some way or another, but all Sumerian know very deep inside them that, without the guidance of the great Annunakis, no work would be possible, that's why we will always see so little everything we give to the Gods"

The silence reigned for a few minutes, Nero was still contemplating every detail of the wall as if he were deciphering a convoluted puzzle.

-So this is what the old man meant when he called this land "the nation between the two rivers"... I'm in the Ancient Mesopotamia, to be more specific, in the ancient kingdom of Sumeria -Nero's mind finally realized which was the place where he was.

They crossed the pillars of the entrance and then found a gigantic gate that at first sight seemed to be impenetrable, but the old man whispered words that were almost imperceptible to the common ear in the cracks of the gate, however, Nero with the help of the intercom managed to hear and understand them all:

"The eleventh has finally arrived"

Just after saying that sentence, the doors of Sumer were opened for the two strangers.

Both entered into the millenary capital city of Sumer. The manners of those people really impressed Nero: human bodies that were completely skinned and hang on hooks as if they were beef, sorcerers who sacrificed animals to appease the wrathful demons, robberies that were perpetrated in public view, women and men copulating in the middle of the street. So much discord and worldliness overwhelmed Nero's mind, but without realizing it, he found himself in front of seven megalithic structures that showed winged beings of gigantic proportions and humanoid features. Nero fixed his gaze on one of them, the one in the center.

"The great Enki," said the old man with remarkable emotion and joy as he knelt before the statue.

They walked into the vestibules of the temple, in which there were several torches that were responsible for lighting the darkest corners of the sanctuary, the yellow light of these and the heat that their fires provided gave the place a little cozy ambience despite its gloomy and coarse aspect. Nero couldn't get used to the never-ending kilometers of the travel he had just been subjected to, but in that place he felt confined and suffocated between narrow corridors that seemed interminable.

The old man stopped in an arch in which there were no longer torches that illuminated this section of the temple. Nero was extremely intrigued and at the same time frightened by what he could find after passing the archway.

A guttural and grave voice invited them to come in. Nero hesitated for a moment, but then he steeled himself and went through the arch. As soon as they entered the chamber, artificial lights were erected that were emitted by gleaming ribbons that spread out along the walls. Nero finally glimpsed an immense shape with two species of cartilage bones protruding from his shoulder blades, the long shadow turned towards him and stared at him with his silver eyes that gleamed in the dim phosphorescent illumination.

"Welcome, Nero. They call me Enki, I'm one of the seven Anunnaki. We knew of your arrival, some of your companions also arrived here and, I suppose that you also have arrived here with the same expectations..." He ventured while flapping his wings, pushing a slight breeze in front of him.

While the creature looked at him face to face, Nero felt as if a shimmering chill ran from the soles of his feet to his very spine. Quickly Nero is aware of the creature's bluish skin, which had been camouflaged by the aquamarine green light that prevailed in the room. Nero took a breath of air to swallow the tangled knot that clutched his throat, but after a few seconds he managed to clear his throat and then replied:

"I have no idea what is happening here. What the fuck are you supposed to be?"

"Of course you have an idea, but you flatly refuse to believe it... Someone who's dedicated to navigating the stars to this point should have already grasped this situation," Enki retorted bluntly.

"I am afraid I'm not getting it yet"

"I'll skip the details because I have a proposal to offer you as I did with the others who came before you"

"Well, I'm listening to you"

"You were an exceptional case. Clearly, they were not present during the "Regression", let's say that given the situation, that makes them unique between their species, but they also represent a problem that the Annunakis must solve..."

"Leave the detours and let everything go," Nero interrupted Enki's speech.

"Do you want to be a God?"

"What…? (...) What do you mean by being a God?"

"Don't you get it? In the sight of all of them, we, beings with superior technology, are what they consider Gods. Any use of our technology would be considered a miracle. Then, I'll ask you again. (...) Do you want to be a God?"

"It sounds tempting... But I think that a human being the god of other humans is an inconceivable idea"

"Then you do not leave us another option, your destiny will be to venerate us as one of them. Enlil, take him to the regression pit"

The bald old man knocked him out with a blunt blow to the back of his neck, then dragged him to the pit.

Nero woke up in a darkened room. Driven by impotence, he tore the boundaries of the camera as if trying to find a way out. He quickly realized that the chamber had no apparent exit. He forced his eyes upstairs to figure out where the entrance to the room was. Nero spotted a small flash that flickered on what should be the ceiling of the chamber. Begin to feel the wall in search of bumps to climb towards your escape route. Then he climbed up a couple of times until he reached a prudent height to jump up the slope.

Propelling upwards to finally rise to the surface. He spotted a couple of men standing guard a few meters to the right and quickly hid behind the wall of an adjacent building.

After having made sure that there were no guards around, he set off towards his ship in the jungle complex.

He entered into the thicket with caution while listening to the distance a tumult conglomerating.

He finally arrived at his ship and then he prepared to board it. He entered and then he started the systems: the ship began to rise, incinerating the ground beneath it.

When the ship was in a position to get going, Enki emerges from a cloud in a stylized ship with copper ornaments.

Nero quickly tried to start the machine to its full capacity but this does not go unnoticed before the eyes Enki: before Nero could leave his focus, this unloaded a beam of plasma that hit one of the propellers of his ship. The ship wobbled and leaves at full speed leaving a trail of light and smoke, and small pieces of metal falling in its path.

Nero wakes up with a face soaked in sweat. There was heat, -perhaps 40 degrees -Nero thought. He was about to go outside.

He had crashed into a dune, there was sand as far as his eye could see. There were a few figures prostrated in reverence; scattered among the sand mounds a few meters ahead of him.

He looked with his eyes half open to the horizon in the distance, an imposing shadowed pyramidal figure stood in contrast to the sun.

Image Source

Here's the link to the @mctiller's contest: 24 Hour short story contest