The oil clung to everything.

It filled my mouth with every breath, thick and bitter on my tongue. Every time I swallowed, I tasted it—metallic, ancient, like the earth itself had been liquefied and poured into this pit. My eyes burned beneath the layer coating my face, and my lungs felt heavy, each breath a struggle against the viscous liquid trying to force its way inside.

But I was alive.

I surfaced, gasping, my arms flailing to find purchase on something—anything—that would keep me from sinking back down. My hand hit solid ground, dirt and rock at the edge of the pool, and I grabbed it with desperate strength. The oil resisted, pulling at me like it wanted to keep me, but I hauled myself forward inch by inch.

The animal was still thrashing.

I could hear it—a horrible, gurgling wail that cut through the thick silence of this place. It was deeper in the pool than I was, its legs kicking uselessly as it tried to escape. The oil had it trapped, weighing it down, suffocating it slowly.

I should have left it.

Should have climbed out, saved myself, let nature take its course.

But something pulled me forward. That same instinct-driven compulsion that had been guiding me since I arrived in this place. Not a thought. Not a choice. Just an overwhelming need to move toward the animal.

I pushed through the oil, each step agonizingly slow. My legs felt like they were made of lead, the liquid resisting every movement. It clung to my skin, my clothes, my hair, turning me into a living shadow. I couldn't see properly—could barely breathe—but I kept moving.

Closer and closer to the beast.

With every step, something inside me shifted. It wasn't physical. It was deeper than that. Like a door in the back of my mind that had been locked for eternity was beginning to crack open. A feeling I couldn't name but recognized on some primal level.

I was waking something up.

The animal's thrashing grew weaker as I approached. Its eyes—wide and panicked—locked onto mine, and for a moment, I saw myself reflected in them. Covered in black, unrecognizable, more monster than man.

I reached it.

My hand closed around the shaft of my spear, still clutched in my grip despite everything. The animal let out one final, pitiful cry, and I didn't hesitate.

I drove the spear forward.

The stone tip pierced through hide and muscle, sinking deep into the creature's body. It shuddered once, violently, and then went still. The light in its eyes faded, replaced by the empty glaze of death.

I stood there for a moment, breathing hard, the spear still embedded in the animal's side. The oil lapped around us both, indifferent to what had just happened.

Then I grabbed the animal's legs and started dragging.

It was heavy. Heavier than it should have been, weighed down by the oil soaking into its fur. But I pulled. One step. Then another. My muscles screamed, my lungs burned, but I didn't stop.

I dragged it through the pool, toward the edge, toward solid ground.

It took forever.

Or maybe it took no time at all. I couldn't tell anymore. Time felt wrong here, elastic and unreliable. All I knew was the pull of the animal behind me and the slow, grinding progress toward the edge of the pit.

Finally—finally—I felt dirt beneath my feet instead of oil. Real ground. Stable ground.

I hauled the animal up onto the bank and collapsed beside it, my chest heaving. The oil dripped off me in thick rivulets, pooling on the ground. I lay there, staring up at the pale sky, trying to catch my breath.

And then I felt it.

That strange sensation from before, but stronger now. Undeniable. Like something was returning to me. Something familiar but also alien.

I wiped the oil from my eyelids with the back of my hand, blinking away the stinging residue.

And then I saw it.

Floating in the air in front of me, translucent and faint but unmistakably there, was an interface.

Not quite like my System. Not the clean, modern design I was used to. This was something else entirely. Something older. Primal.

There were no words.

No text. No stats. No menus or options.

Just an image.

A crude drawing, etched in glowing lines against the air. A figure—a human—holding a spear. Beside it, an animal. A deer, maybe, or something close to it. The figure was in mid-throw, the spear leaving its hand toward the animal.

It was simple. Almost childlike in its execution. But it was clear what it was meant to represent.

A hunter.

The image glowed faintly, pulsing with a soft, golden light. The glow seemed to radiate from the figure itself, spreading outward in waves that grew brighter and dimmer in rhythm with my heartbeat.

I reached out instinctively, trying to touch it, but my hand passed through the interface like it was made of smoke. It didn't respond to my touch. Didn't shift or change. It just… existed.

I tried to close it. Willed it away the same way I would with my own System. But nothing happened. The image remained, hovering in front of me, indifferent to my attempts to dismiss it.

I stared at it, confusion warring with a growing sense of understanding.

This was a System.

Not my System. Not the advanced, multi-layered interface I'd relied on for years. But a System nonetheless.

The first System.

The realization hit me like a physical blow.

This was the beginning. The origin. The moment when humanity first developed the biological and evolutionary advantage of knowing—truly knowing—what they were capable of. Of understanding their own abilities and the abilities of others at a glance.

It wasn't magic. It wasn't divine intervention. It was adaptation. Survival. A tool that only humans who cooperated could properly utilize and benefit from.

And it evolved with us.

The thought crystallized in my mind, sharp and clear. The System wasn't static. It changed as humanity changed. As we developed language, the System incorporated words. As we created more complex societies, it added stats and rankings and jobs. As we advanced, so did it.

But here, in this time, language didn't exist yet. There were no words to describe what this man—what I—was. So the System showed an image instead. A drawing. A representation of the role I fulfilled.

Hunter.

And the glow—the brightness of the image—that was the rank. The measure of skill. The indication of how good I was at this job.

I didn't know how I knew that. I just did. Intuitively, the same way I'd known where the water was earlier. The same way I'd known to chase the animal.

This man—this hunter—was Rank A.

I sat there, oil-slicked and exhausted, staring at the glowing image of a hunter throwing a spear. The first job. The first rank. The first System.

But something about it didn't add up.

My gut feeling—that same instinct that had been guiding me—was telling me that these events had happened. This wasn't a dream or a hallucination. This was real. Or had been real, once.

But why was I seeing it?

How was I connected to the first-ever hunter? What possible link could I have to someone who lived thousands—maybe tens of thousands—of years ago?

And more importantly, how did I have access to these memories?

I had no answers. Just questions piling on top of questions.

Then, suddenly, time lurched forward.

I felt it like a physical jolt. The world around me sped up, movements blurring into streaks of color. The sun arced across the sky in seconds instead of hours. The other hunters appeared and disappeared in flashes. The animal beside me rotted and was consumed in the blink of an eye.

I was still there—still aware—but everything around me was moving at impossible speed.

I watched as the man whose body I inhabited tried to close the System. His hands moved in front of the glowing image, waving, gesturing, trying desperately to make it go away. He looked frustrated. Confused. Scared, even.

In my perception, it took four seconds.

But I knew—somehow I knew—that in reality, it had taken four hours.

Maybe it was because of Alexis. Because I was currently on an operating table with my brain exposed, and my perception of time was being distorted by whatever she was doing.

Or maybe it was because I'd already seen what I was meant to see. The moment the System was born. The origin point. And now my brain was subconsciously fast-forwarding through the rest, skipping the irrelevant parts.

Either way, time kept speeding up.

The hunter's frustration grew. He clawed at the air, tried to punch the image, tried to turn away from it. But the System followed his gaze, always there, always present.

And then, by accident, his hand passed through the image in just the right way.

The glow flickered.

And then it was gone.

The System closed.

The hunter stood there, stunned, staring at the empty air where the interface had been. He looked relieved. Exhausted. Confused.

And in that instant, I felt myself being pulled away.

Not physically. But away. Back into that state of nothingness. That void where I simply existed without form or sensation.

But this time, it felt different.

I felt… enlightened.

Like I'd learned something fundamental. Something I didn't have words for yet but would understand eventually.

The world dissolved around me, the hunter and the oil pit and the glowing System all fading into nothing.

And once again, I existed.

Just existed.

But not quite the same as before.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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