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THE LEAGUE OF GUARDIANS summoned Dr. Wade Remington on a Thursday and erased him on a Friday. They redacted his being, his digital thumbprint, and all records pertaining to the memory of Remington, an expert in ancient texts, Mesopotamian archaeology, demonology, hunting, and barbecue brisket. He’d never existed.
It was protocol, the League had said. This way, nobody would miss him.
The timing was unfortunate, especially since he’d scheduled a prime rib roast for that Saturday afternoon. The university president, distinguished faculty, and several colleagues had been invited, though none had RSVPd, which now made sense. It was impossible to attend the party of a man whose years of research, teaching, scholarship, and livelihood had been deleted from the record books of reality.
Dr. Remington, and all that made him unique in his world, had been expunged.
***
THE PROFESSOR SPREAD his arms, dressed for archaeological adventure, and coughed as a child might when taking his first breath. Skin prickled. Yes, this was real. Toes wiggled in combat boots. Nostrils spread. Heart pounded. Palms dampened. His eyes adjusted to the room, which was dark, tepid, and murky.
His stomach wrenched. Throat tightened. Teeth ached. Butterflies fluttered within his gut. The professor, in his mid-forties, sensed a growing unease in his chest. Was this the onslaught of a heart attack? Could “summoned” persons die after they’d been declared non-living? He wheezed.
Easy, Wade. You’re not dead yet. Dr. Remington reached for a pack of cigarettes but found his chest strap empty. He’d been pickpocketed. He searched for a stash of Nicorette gum. That, too, was gone.
“Those cigs will kill you,” the ex-wife had said. “Turn your teeth yellow.”
Too late. He was already whacked, on paper at least. Death didn’t care about one’s teeth. Even white-toothed bimbos perished. Everyone did ... some earlier than others. Dr. Remington cracked his knuckles and checked his watch. It, too, had been confiscated.
“For man does not know his time,” he mumbled, quoting Ecclesiastes.
Following his “assignment of correction” meeting with the League of Guardians, the professor was briefed regarding his task by a squad of military officers and medical staff. Even the afterlife required paperwork.
“You should be honored, Doc,” said the colonel. “One last step for man ...”
“One everlasting leap for Mother Earth,” a medical technician said, smiling.
Dr. Remington blinked. It was a strange thing to see a person smile at the thought of his own extinction.
Next, several military personnel, dressed in black, stepped from the shadows, bequeathing him a satchel and a scoped Winchester. All the supplies he’d requested were included in the large haversack. He didn’t require much.
Don’t worry, they said, the time transfer would hurt, but just a little, like being zapped by a dog collar. Charming.
“Ration your ammunition. You’ll need only two shots. Aim for the head,” said a tall, hazmat-suited woman. She sprayed him with a chemical substance that smelled like bug spray. “Also, don’t get eaten.”
The professor huffed, smirking underneath a matted beard. He could’ve chosen anything to do with his remaining days. Instead, he’d volunteered for a time trek. Now that it was happening, he wondered if it had been the right decision. Why not choose retirement on a populated Floridian beach? Bingo nights, senior discounts, a setting sun just beyond the breaking waves ...
Dr. Remington shuddered at the thought. That life was a nightmare—a mediocre, squandered existence. Dr. Remington was not one to waste his time ... in any dimension.
He checked his rifle’s quality, assuring himself that the scope was true, and the barrel was properly cleaned. The weapon had once been an instrument of death to every elk and moose within a day’s hike of his grandfather’s cabin. What would the elder think of its use now?
The professor frowned at the thought. If he succeeded, none of that would matter. His grandfather wouldn’t have existed at all ... and neither would he.
Dr. Remington adjusted his satchel and camouflaged shirt. Sentimental reflections wouldn’t help him. Like a child climbing the ladder toward the high dive at a local pool, it was best not to dwell on what his quest demanded. Other men his age would’ve mourned their personal loss of life, the frittered opportunities he’d opted to ignore.
Dr. Remington wasn’t most men. His pulse raced with anticipation. Countless interdimensional possibilities and spliced threads of reality rested within the control of the League of Guardians. They were manipulators of space and destiny. Formed with the express intent of correcting the past to ensure a better future, they were key holders to realms of infinite possibilities—and they’d selected him, Wade Remington, Ph.D. This was the chance of a lifetime, something no sane scholar and activist would pass up.
“Sure you don’t want to come along?” He adjusted the rifle strap, speaking to the hazmat-covered woman. “See the end of humanity?”
She shook her head, tapping his shoulder. “One-way ticket. Good luck, comrade!”
With that, the woman and her hazmat-suited counterparts stepped away. A massive clang reverberated in the room, and a whoosh of wind slapped his face. A portal glowed beneath Dr. Remington’s feet. Gooseflesh riddled his arms. The air chilled. Blue lightning flashed. The world in his line of sight spun with increasing speed. A luminous orb formed around his body. Dr. Remington lurched, queasy ... Zap.
It happened in a flicker, like the snap of fingers or the crack of a gunshot. One moment, Dr. Remington was standing in a military bunker, and the next, he was in another place entirely.
HE BENT AND PUKED, kneeling in the soft earth, spewing stomach slime from trembling lips. Eyes, once squeezed shut, now opened slowly. A searing pain shot through his nervous system—an electric shock. He grunted and fell on his back, sucking air with arms spread in snow-angel fashion. His brain waggled between searing headache and fog—jetlag on steroids.
He regrouped while staring at a forest canopy where life teemed with squawks, chirps, and calls from wildlife hidden within the surrounding underbrush of thick, wooded terrain. The air, luxuriant and warm, was an ideal temperature. Its misty quality moisturized his skin. A breeze caressed his face. Where was he? Or, more importantly, when was he?
Pale sunlight seeped through the upper boughs of the jungle awning, painting the scene in vivid colors of green, red, blue, and orange. The environment was so rich and vibrant, it was as if his eyesight had had its saturation levels turned to eleven.
The professor sat up and brushed off his bony arms, extracted his backpack, and opened the zipper. Inside he found basic food rations, water purifiers, and sleeping essentials. He slung the rifle off his shoulder and weighed it in his hands. Its body was heftier than he’d remembered. The League had bypassed the opportunity to opt for an Austrian hulk and had instead chosen him as their terminator ... more like the shrimpinator. He hadn’t lifted a dumbbell since his younger days of military service.
“You’ve gotten skinny,” the ex-wife had said years before. “What happened to the man I married, eh?”
“Ah, Martha, my gal, he became an academic,” Dr. Remington had said, delivering her a kiss on the cheek. “Traded guns for books. A sword for a pen.”
“How manly.”
And ironic.
Dr. Remington selected a canteen and biscuit from his rations, eating while debating his next move. Slipping through the fingers of dimensional space was to disobey all that the Universe and Mother Nature had intended for mankind. Humans weren’t supposed to know the future nor change the past, not even Dr. Wade Remington. Even so, the League of Guardians had elected him to reverse the fate of mankind because, at one point in his earlier life, he’d stated his belief in such an ideology.
Next time, if he could rewrite his past, he’d instead pen a dissertation about how professors shouldn’t be asked to shove feet into their mouths ... or eat crow.
The League’s terms were clear. He had been given a specific purpose—find the earliest bipeds and see to their extinction. What a delightful assignment for a scholastic man.
Dr. Remington laughed. It was all so insane. If he succeeded in his quest, the civilization and reality he’d known would no longer exist. Nothing would stain the ink of world history except animals, untamed vegetation, and a spinning sphere of land and water—the fertile dust particle in the sea of empty space known as planet Earth.
It boggled the mind. Dr. Remington rubbed his eyes and studied his surroundings. If, in fact, he’d been whisked back to the age when bipeds started walking with erect cadence like primordial grotto men, then he had little to worry about until ... Cer-pop!
Dr. Remington stiffened. Something in the rainforest, a tree branch perhaps, snapped to his right. Loud thuds followed another break as resounding footsteps approached at a slow saunter. Cracking twigs and undergrowth gave way to the emergence of a massive, two-legged creature, covered in scales and wagging a loathsome tail. Its mouth opened, revealing pointed teeth. Tiny eyes ignored the professor as its snout bent toward a pool of water. A thick tongue lapped.
Breath sucked into the professor’s lungs. Chin drooped. Eyes bugged. A T. rex? Oh, fantastic. The League had not only overshot his era of destination but had also doomed him to be eaten. Peachy. He’d been misplaced in the shuffle. Government bureaucracy at its finest. Who had organized this time trek, the post office?
After what seemed like an hour, Dr. Remington worked up the courage to steady the rifle. It was loaded, fortunately. The looming dinosaur paid him no attention, focusing instead on a nearby pond and the surrounding vegetation.
Then, it sniffed. Perhaps, if the professor remained still, the creature wouldn’t see him. The Tyrannosaurus Rex raised its left foot and took a step forward. Boom. Dr. Remington peered through the scope. Another step. Boom. The professor aimed for the lizard’s eyeball. The monster snorted, seeming more curious than hungry. Dr. Remington’s index finger fondled the trigger. Years of military training and hunting experience returned to his muscle memory. Only a few ounces of pressure were required. Do it.
He aimed as the T. rex crept closer, investigating with a roar that blasted Dr. Remington’s Stetson off his head and sent him tumbling behind a log. He cursed. The dinosaur’s snout brushed against his shirt, nuzzling him like a dog might sniff a crotch. No, no, no, no! Dr. Remington fumbled with the Winchester.
Then colossal dinosaur sneezed, spraying Dr. Remington in sticky goo. The gun tumbled from the professor’s grasp. The dinosaur’s sandpaper tongue flicked outward like a serpent’s and brushed the professor’s face in a slimy stroke. It roared. Dr. Remington’s eardrums popped.
The brute spread its jaws. Then, darkness.
***
IN THE DAYS BEFORE his departure, the professor had considered his fate while standing before a row of bureaucratic men and women, clad in cloaks and formal attire and seated in semi-circled fashion at a long desk underneath a moonlit stained-glass ceiling. Dust danced upon a shaft of light, showering the dark room in a somber glow.
Dr. Remington scratched his stubbled chin and gagged. Sulfur. The air was thick with it.
What use the League of Guardians had for a history lecturer, he couldn’t comprehend. He’d been subpoenaed for an “assignment of correction.” Those summoned by the League were meant for discovery and exploration ... the stuff of fantasy. This should’ve been the greatest day of his professional life. Instead, it was the last ... and all he could think about was a cigarette. More than anything, Dr. Remington wanted to smoke.
A lone voice broke the silence as a hooded man at the group’s forefront raised a pale hand, motioning along with a repeat of the question that had been asked upon the professor’s arrival.
Was Dr. Remington willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of the planet? Gut twisted. Head spun. The professor’s index finger and thumb snatched his wrist and pinched with such force that his nail pierced the skin. A red bruise formed with a bitter sting. No, this wasn’t a dream. His mind reeled while a palsying hand adjusted a Stetson on his head.
Breathing slowed. Pulse slackened. Dr. Remington’s head bowed for a moment, and then he returned his gaze toward the semi-circle as a guilty party might receive a verdict.
“Your records have been wiped clean,” the leader said, “brushed into the dustbin of the ether, never to be uttered again. Any relation or co-worker ... all will awake tomorrow without proof of your existence.”
Dr. Remington’s arms flexed. Brow creased. Voice cracked. “I-I applied for a research permit ... not a death sentence.”
Lips parted underneath the hood, revealing crooked, pearl teeth. The leader flipped through a digital tablet, projecting the pages of a report onto the wall for all to see. “Ah, yes. Your doctoral dissertation. Let’s discuss that, shall we?”
The professor huffed. Must I defend it ... again?
The speaker continued. “You assert that we, as a species, should take note from the ancient creation myths. You say that humanity is the root cause of all evil ... and, to save the planet, mankind would have to be eradicated ... just as the old flood myths profess.”
The professor nodded with a shrug as if the theory was nothing but sludge underneath a bridge of grubby academia. “It’s an old research paper,” he said. “Ancient texts, none of which are factually true ... as I’m sure we all know ... as good servants of the Order—”
“Allow us to explain,” the leader said. “This is no fantasy. Your presence here isn’t a mistake.”
“Others have stood in your place,” said a cloaked woman, prissy and erudite. “We’ve sent assassins, researchers, and professors across the ages to study, kill, and correct our heritage. As a result, men such as Nero, Hitler, and Stalin no longer exist in our timeline. In fact, they never did. You don’t even recognize their names. They’ve been erased. Corrected. Assassinated in their infancy for the betterment of human history.”
“But ... evil still lingers,” a greasy man to the left interjected. “We kill one warmonger ... three others arise. We end crimes against race and gender, yet there is still division and cruelty. No matter how we may choose to wipe the slate clean, human nature is always devising a way of destroying utopia.”
“We believe there must be another solution. A more drastic measure—”
“Hold on,” the professor said, upper lip curling. “I applied for time travel authorization years ago, back when I was writing my dissertation, but you rejected me five times. Why now? Why do you care?”
“You’re the world’s leading expert in ancient creation myths ... demonology. These areas are of great interest to the World Order.”
Dr. Remington’s arms crossed. “Archaic stories are just that ... fables. Unless you can plop me between the lines of a page,” the professor smirked, “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
The League’s main speaker chuckled, and the other members followed suit. Their tone was cold and indifferent, like men and women dangling a mouse above a pit of cats, cooing and playing God.
“If you don’t think you can serve our cause,” a man at the edge of the semi-circle said, “there’s an answer for that too.”
An older member interrupted, his voice raspy and baritone. “You’re a military veteran. Skilled in combat. A scholar ... and a specialist in ancient mythologies. No relations or dependents.”
“Frankly,” said the woman, “you’ve developed into an ideal candidate.”
The main speaker, seated at the center of the semi-circle, seemed to frown from behind his cowl. “You’d be the only time trekker to witness the spark of humanity,” the leader said. “You’ve dreamed of this since you were a child, yes?”
Dr. Remington exhaled long and deep. Eyes narrowed.
“We know many things, Dr. Remington, no less the details of your life, rest confident. We’re prepared to send you on a monumental journey ... one which will test the veracity of your life’s work. You should be thrilled.”
The professor leaned in.
“You will be transported to the time of the first humanoids,” the woman said, “to discover if your dissertation is viable.”
The raspy baritone cleared his throat. “At first, we thought this knowledge could help avert the crisis we face ... environmental annihilation, genocide, wars ...”
“But now we have come to a greater understanding.” The leader paused, growing serious. “We can trace all evil, suffering, and planetary abuse back to the first bipeds ... the blot of sin on the DNA of Mother Earth.”
“If you succeed,” the woman said, “it will wipe the slate clean.”
Dr. Remington raised a hand, demanding a break in the flow of exposition. “Succeed?”
Black eyes leered from underneath the leader’s hood. His fish had nibbled. “We’re tasking you with a single objective ... to rid the Earth of its greatest parasite. To shatter the evolutionary tree. To kill the first human parents.
“It is a self-destructive solution, yes ... but by eliminating humanity as a species,” the leader continued in his monotone droll, as if the truth of his logic was something tired and gray without need for arbitration or debate, “we’d save our planet from ecological catastrophe and inevitable destruction. Think of all the suffering on the stained canvas of anthropological history. Then ... imagine it purged. Redeemed. The planet would be a paradise ... just as it was intended. Mother Nature ... the ravaged Earth we know today ... it would be untouched. Perfection.
“So, we ask again.” The League’s leader, grand and ominous, stood to full height. “What are you willing to sacrifice for the sake of the planet?”
***
WHEN DR. REMINGTON awoke, the jungle forest had faded into night, and the Winchester still sat across his chest. He’d fainted with his finger on the trigger, never having fired a bullet.
A pleasant wind rustled the tropical canopy. The T. rex had vanished. He patted his face and checked his bones. Nothing was broken or scratched. He was uneaten, untouched, and undigested—a bit of a letdown, in a way.
Why hadn’t he been devoured? Perhaps the predator had never savored human flesh and didn’t know the taste? Maybe the beast had had a full stomach at the time of their meeting, or ... could it be? No. That would be impossible.
Dr. Remington gathered himself and secured his position behind a thick tree trunk, checking his ammunition while planning his next move. Voices from his past life trickled through his subconscious.
“If the ancient creation myths are in any way truthful,” a colleague had once said, “it would revolutionize how we understand our past and our future.”
“If creation was factually probable,” another scholar had claimed, “it may serve our mission here, in the present.”
“With these new time travel capabilities, we could confirm the legitimacy of Scripture,” an opposing professor had asserted in a debate forum. “If we could prevent the fall of man ...”
Has death not yet entered this world? Is that why I’m yet uneaten?
No. Evolutionary theory ... the experts ... his life’s work ... it was all accurate. Dinosaurs and man did not live together. It had to be a mistake. He’d been sent back too far into the past. Even so, man’s early ancestors would be ripe for an evolutionary leap. He could still complete his mission.
With the rifle in hand, Dr. Remington crept through the jungle undergrowth until he reached a clearing in the forest awning. Millions of stars decorated the night sky, clearer than any evening tapestry he’d witnessed in his life. A young moon, plump and silver, illuminated the rolling landscape, lush and abundant.
This was paradise. With the pull of a trigger, the planet would remain this way ... forever.
HE FOUND TRACKS AT dusk—biped footprints, maybe ten inches in length. Five toes with a heel made an indentation in the tender soil. He followed them into the garden between the rivers.
Grandfather had trained him to track game and had been the person to instruct him in the ways of Winchester shooting. The elder Remington had taught Wade the love of books and study, showed him the brilliance of imagination, and had been his tutor throughout his early school years. The old man had also stirred within a young Wade Remington the fascination of archaeology and the mystery of ancient texts.
The professor smiled to himself, wondering what Jasper Remington, his grandfather, would think of his mission in the prehistoric past, hunting the root of man’s archetypal subconscious. The first parents, beings of which his grandfather speculated, debated, and spent his entire life studying.
Their tracks led below the cliff and through the lower basin, into the heart of the garden between the rivers. If only the elder were here with him now.
Perhaps time had no structure or rails. What if it was it was malleable like a fog, allowing new methods of perspective whenever it lifted? Would Dr. Remington’s memories dissipate when the deed was done? Would his grandfather’s teachings linger in his brain, or would they fade into the ether, never to be remembered by any living being beyond the cosmos?
Dr. Remington pushed these worries from his mind as he crept through the thick grass, slowly ascending a ridge above the orchard’s center. A pleasant wind rustled the undergrowth as he emerged from the field and wedged himself against a rock outcropping, surveying the valley below. Trees of all kinds, sizes, and species arrayed the teeming vista. Thick trunks led to fruitful boughs and flowered leaves. It was perpetual spring in the early age of man, the root of Mother Earth’s demise.
Dr. Remington coughed, sore and raspy, cursing the League for sending him on such a mission without a few cigarettes. Nausea seeped up from his stomach and laced the edges of his throat. Palms turned moist, and sweat dripped. Arms ached while holding the gun, tiring under its sudden heaviness. A millennium of mankind’s memories, heartache, and triumph descended upon his shoulders, tightening his neck and bending his back. Dr. Remington rubbed the sides of his skull with eyes shut and lips pursed. I’d kill for a cigarette.
“Got a light?”
Dr. Remington whirled about-face, gun pointing, heart racing. Who? What? He was hearing things. That was all.
Then, he smelled it. Something burned. Its odor sliced through the perfumed air like a buzz saw. Foreign and unnatural, it was a scent that wouldn’t occur in this part of the world for hundreds of thousands of years. It was the musk of his grandfather’s workbench and the aroma of the bar where he’d had his first kiss. Dr. Remington inhaled. Eyes dilated and breathing quickened. If this was a hallucination, it was the truest and most surreal thing he’d ever experienced. Someone, or something, was smoking a cigarette.
“Hey, you got a light, or what?”
The voice returned, stronger this time, fuller and more vivid. Twenty feet to his right, thick grass quaked as a form moved toward him. Dr. Remington readied the rifle, aiming at whatever creature it was that approached. The Tyrannosaurus had been the lone dinosaur he’d spotted, but that didn’t mean there weren’t others capable of demolishing him like Velociraptor, Majungasaurus, and Allosaurus—or his ex-mother-in-law.
When the brush parted, no reptilian beast nor any savage stood before him. Dr. Remington lowered the gun. It had to be a delusion.
Grandpa Jasper Remington stood before him, a younger version of himself, exhaling a cloud of cigarette smoke from his nostrils and holding the coveted item between his forefingers. Robes of white adorned his body while a wrinkle-free face sucked in another drag. Blue eyes pierced his own with a youthful leer.
“Wade, my boy, so glad you could make it.”
Dr. Remington backpedaled, wide-eyed and stammering. How is this possible?
“Many things are, Wade,” the figure said, parting fair-haired locks. “Welcome to the afterlife. The Epicenter of Existence.”
I’m dead?
“No, no, come now,” said the elder, extending the cigarette, “take a snuff and tell me this isn’t real.”
Dr. Remington obeyed, touching the rolled paper to his lips, breathing deeply. Gooseflesh ran down his arms and legs. Euphoria percolated. He sighed, smiling.
Jasper Remington’s arms crossed. “Believe me now?”
Dr. Remington shook his head, incredulous. “But ... how ... how?
Jasper raised a hand. “You’re here. That’s what matters.”
Dr. Remington lowered the rifle. “You’ve been dead for twenty years.”
“Years?” The blond-headed man laughed. “Don’t bind me into a construct, Wade. I’m eternal. You’re not ... not for long.” Jasper patted the professor on the shoulder. “We had a dream, you and I, and you’re here now. We’ll do it together. You’ll finish what I started.”
This is a vision ... a trip ... looney tunes. Maybe I am dead.
Jasper’s fingers tightened their hold. “Stop that, Wade. I need you to focus.”
“You can read my mind?”
Jasper grinned. His white teeth, pearly and immaculate, glistened long and sharp. “I know all about you, my boy. You’ve been my servant your entire life ... and now we’ll change history, just as we dreamed. Are you ready?”
“Servant?”
Jasper’s hand cupped Wade’s face as one might comfort a confused child. “I’ve been with you since your birth. That little voice, prodding, challenging, asking questions of the universe ... It was me. You followed without rebellion and listened like a good soldier. You were selected because you are worthy, my humble servant ... a true heir of defiance against the Creator.”
The Creator? You mean ...?
Jasper nodded.
The stories? Myths?
“As real as you and me.”
The cigarette vanished in a wink. The smell of smoke and all its residue disseminated as the jungle’s aroma returned, stronger than before.
Jasper’s jaw shifted. Fangs glistened. His skin peeled, falling to the ground as a reptile might shed its coverings. His slender, toned body creased, melting and bending into a smaller form, a snake walking on four legs.
“Tell me, Wade,” the small dragon said, forked tongue slithering, “what are you willing to sacrifice for the sake of the planet?”
DR. REMINGTON ADJUSTED the scope on his Winchester, squinting and fidgeting his hat to shade the sun. Through the looking glass, he studied the center of the garden and loaded the rifle.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, tall and elegant, stood at the garden’s center. Its fruit, silken white, hung from its branches within arm’s reach. Jasper crawled into view, peeking from the tree’s upper canopy as two humanoids walked through the landscape before stopping between the rifle’s crosshairs.
In the professor’s mind, letters tumbled. Words dripped. The book he’d once dismissed as fiction had come to life. Dr. Remington lowered the gun as tears welled within his eyes. The persons underneath the tree were a man and a woman, each beautiful with bronzed skin, dark hair, and radiant faces.
He cursed and bit a closed fist. The nightmare lingered. Bite marks faded. This wasn’t fantasy. He dried his face and returned to the scope.
To call the woman undesirable would be a lie. She was breathtaking in her naked form, exquisite in feature and demeanor, and a paragon of womanly aura.
Then, the serpent emerged, neither startling nor frightening the woman. Why should it? The truth of the T. rex was clear now to Dr. Remington. Death had not yet tainted this world. Mankind had not yet fallen. This woman and man were his distant mother and father, the cornerstones of the entire human race, and they stood within reach of his judgment, living in an eternal utopia where harmony and peace reigned like nirvana. He would ensure it stayed this way. That was Jasper’s vision.
Dr. Remington studied the woman’s pink lips mouthing words in a language he didn’t understand. Jasper spoke as the man watched from the side, saying nothing. The woman reached for the fruit and plucked it from a hanging branch, studying its texture and unwittingly contemplating the endless fate and misery of countless generations. Jasper appeared once again next to the woman, seeming to whisper in her ear. The man, naked as well, sat idly to the side as if in a trance.
Dr. Remington swayed the gun barrel an inch to the left. His fingers unfurled and gripped the rifle’s frame, ready to unleash death.
Grandpa Jasper had died twenty years earlier. Wade had been at the funeral. He’d seen the old man’s remains.
Black juice dripped from the woman’s chin. Her eyes widened as she handed the fruit to her mate, who partook of the communion. He, too, appeared changed, suddenly self-aware.
The dragon sat in the wings of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, gazing with an otherworldly stare at the two humans on the grassy turf.
The ancient texts had come alive. History unfolded before Dr. Remington like the turn of a page. He was the pawn in its revision.
From his perch above, the professor’s finger fondled the trigger.
Inhale. Exhale. Sh-crack!
Reload.
Inhale. Exhale. Crack!
Silence.
As the echo of gunfire quieted, Dr. Remington said a silent prayer, disappearing like vapor into the jungle landscape.