The Scrolls

13.8 billion years ago, life was not as we know it. The universe was waiting for the Big Bang to get things started. At least – this is what we are led to believe in ‘Theory’.

Contrary to belief, life was abundant before the Big Bang. Our galaxy hadn’t been created yet, but there were many other galaxies, some with superior life and some without. The less advanced were about the level of where the human race was mid-1500 but most galaxies were vastly superior. Our current human life form would have seemed a very primitive form of life compared to the superior species; like comparing the brain of a goldfish to the brain of Albert Einstein.

However, although these ancient species were light years ahead of our understanding and capabilities, there was one unfortunate trait that almost all intelligent life shares the desire for - power. These superior beings were no exception.

At that time, the universe was governed by a committee formed from a select few of the most advanced civilisations. One powerful species was unhappy to be excluded from this committee and declared war.

A few of the ruling civilisation leaders had the foresight to seal a few advanced cells in the hope of survival. These cells contained the knowledge of billions of years of evolution and the selected leaders with the cells travelled in sealed capsules, hoping that the capsules would somehow survive the war and make their way to a new universe.

The war was over as quickly as it had started. There was a button pressed followed by a catastrophic explosion. The ‘Big Bang’ occurred.

The shockwaves sent the capsules through space where they travelled for time eternal until they settled on newly formed planets. The leaders attempted to create life from various life forms such as plankton, with many failures. Eventually, one cell survived and flourished after 13.7 billion years, give or take. Evolution in our universe began, all thanks to one cell from an extinct universe.

My new powers kicked in and I ran as fast as I could. I was, once again, at one with my surroundings. I could not only see the animals below on the plateau but I could also hear them. They knew something was about to happen and they were probably more scared than excited. 

In no time at all, I had travelled a great distance and I let my intuition tell me where and when to change direction.

I soon found myself at the bottom of a steep rock face with an amazing, thunderous waterfall. The best I could describe it was like the old Tarzan movies I used to watch when I was a child. You know the one where Tarzan dives in from a great height and ends up fighting with a crocodile. There was heavy undergrowth all around leading up to the rock face, probably enough to cover at least two football pitches. There was a small lake, which was fed by the waterfall, and all around the lake were all the colours known to man in the shape of the most beautiful foliage. The waterfall was approximately sixty metres high and to see the top I had to angle my head as far back as physically possible. I knew what I had to do, so I went straight over and stood under the waterfall with its full torrent crashing onto my head and shoulders. The force was incredible and no ordinary man could have sustained the pressure, but then I was no ordinary man. Instinctively, I started to climb up the rock face, against the waterfall until, eventually, the rock face started to angle inwards and the water stopped trying to force me back down. When I was about three-quarters up the rock face and the waterfall was falling about ten feet behind me, I came upon a ledge. I now had goosebumps, and it wasn’t from being cold and wet.

The ledge led deep into the rock face and I knew it had many tunnels leading from the initial entrance. I could feel the heat being generated from the rocks inside the cave. I sat and closed my eyes hoping for some divine intervention that would tell me what to do next but there was nothing. Whatever I had to do or find wasn’t going to just pop out at me so I got up and walked further into the cave. I guessed that whatever I was going to find was going to be further inside as this was naturally the safest place; but then who else could climb up the waterfall to reach this? I walked further in and instead of getting darker, I was able to see more clearly the deeper I went. It was, if anything, warmer and brighter. My hair was virtually dry, and my clothes were damp and not soaking as they were two minutes ago. I looked around at my surroundings and took a mental note of all that I could see. There were five tunnels leading from the main cave, creating a hand shape in my mind. I was surprised by the fact that there were no stalagmites or stalactites considering I was standing under a waterfall, but I suppose that this was due to the heat that was constantly being emitted from the internal rock face. Logically, I chose the tunnel of the index finger to explore first. The tunnel was about fifteen metres long only and at the end was a room, about half the size of the main cave, only this room had been worked on. The rock face was smooth with drawings of shapes covering the walls. I didn’t recognise the shapes or understand the significance or importance of them. I retraced my steps and returned to the main cave or the palm, as I would later refer to it.

I looked around at each of the tunnel entrances and felt drawn to the ‘thumb’ tunnel. I knew this was the one from my dream the previous night. I walked along whilst letting my hand rub the length of the wall on the way down the tunnel. This one was about fifteen, maybe twenty, metres long with a room at the end. This time, the walls were not as smooth as the previous rooms. These walls had many holes in them, and in each hole, was a rolled-up parchment. I took out a parchment and saw that it was covered in symbols, like the ones on the previous smooth wall, probably some form of ancient writing. Where to start? The last thing I wanted to do was to read them in the wrong order. I walked around the room with approximately forty holes on each wall.

I lifted the first scroll from the highest hole left to the room entrance and started to read the ancient text.

The parchment felt like but wasn’t paper. It was stronger than anything I had held before. I couldn’t tear it if I had wanted to. The cave was warm and humid. There should have been some water damage to the scroll, but it was undamaged. This information was made to last for eternity.

I turned it over and started to look at the inscription, half expecting to see something like hieroglyphics and be unable to understand what was left for me to read. The writing may not have been legible to most people, but I knew what it was telling me and when I started reading, I found that I was unable to stop. I just kept going from scroll to scroll with the need for knowledge and that need was being quenched beyond my dreams, and I was having some incredible dreams.

The scrolls were one-sided, so it didn’t take too long to finish one wall. As the last scroll on the first wall was close to the ground, I found myself sitting down and reading it repeatedly. It summarised the previous scrolls and what they had to tell.

I smiled and got up, took a quick run and then dived through the waterfall and into the lake. Life was good and it was about to get so much better, for everyone.

I caught up with the others just in time for supper.

After our meal, we sat with a bottle or two of wine around the campfire. Sara cosied up to me, and we relaxed and started to talk.

“OK, I appreciate the questions that must be flowing in your head. I'll tell you all I know and get you up to speed. Remember, this is new to me so I don't have any answers, only guesswork when it comes to the unknown, and there are a lot of unknown questions that are about to flow through your heads.”

The others nodded and agreed that they would let me tell my story until I was finished.

“When I arrived here, I knew that something special was happening. I was destined to be here”

“You witnessed some of my abilities but there has been so much more that I have kept to myself. All my senses are heightened, to an exaggerated level.” I paused, but the others kept their promise and waited for me to continue “I can hear sounds from miles away and, if I focus, can see the animals making the sounds. My senses are filled with the smells from the surrounding areas as far as the eye can see. Up on this mountain, I can even taste things that are miles away. I can’t explain it and I’m sure at the end of this Jonathan, there are related questions that you will start with” I noted that Jonathan had pen to paper.

“My senses have been heightened but I think my brain is still operating at the same level. I took out all the soldiers with a branch when I could just take the guns from them. I just keep forgetting how best to use my newly found abilities.”

Jonathan stopped writing and was about to speak, but Sara held a finger up to her mouth to keep him silent. She knew that something bigger was about to be revealed and she didn’t want Jonathan to start with his questions yet, not until she had heard everything I had to say.

“Remember when you were at the oasis and I was away following my instincts? Well, my instincts were right as I came across something that, even for me, was quite mind-blowing”

The others were still quiet but their faces were screaming at me for more.

“I was led to a place (I decided that even, though they were my best friends, the place should remain anonymous) that contained all the answers. Scrolls of information about where my ancestors came from and how humans had evolved from the end of the universe, that I came from. The scrolls give the history of our universe and the history of other universes that are completely unknown to mankind” I stopped talking for the others to take in this new information. “What do you mean ‘your ancestors?” Sara asked quite anxiously. I held up my hand this time to try and explain a bit more.

“In this place, there are three walls filled with scrolls. The scrolls are written on some indestructible material that I am unfamiliar with and the writing/symbols are unlike any language I have seen yet, I was able to understand them quite easily. I read one wall completely and I revealed the information I have just told you.” I looked at my companions and they nodded for me to carry on. “This is going to be the ‘hard-to-understand’ part of the story, I and my mother came from a different galaxy that is no more. My mother, if I have read the scrolls right, evolved life here on Earth. She arrived, I have no idea when, but I’m guessing it was well before T-Rex and started to experiment with genetics until she was able to start a species and from there, she continued to make various other species, each one more complex and evolved than the previous.” I stopped here because I understood that this was a lot to take in.

“The scrolls don’t read like normal books, they all may look like being a page long but whilst one may take ten minutes to read, another may take hours to read, until the explanation is reached. The ancient symbols mean so much more than words. I can’t explain better than this right now, all I know is that I have two more walls to read and they could take anything from a day to twenty years to read depending on the symbols. Does any of this make sense?”

 I looked around at the others. Jonathan sat with a heavily wrinkled forehead and Jack just sat twiddling his thumbs but listening intently. Sara looked at me and there was something sad in her eyes, I don’t know if it was because she just found out that her boyfriend was an alien or maybe just that she didn’t expect me to stay with her once this was all over. This was a question I planned to address myself when Jonathan was finished with his inevitable questions.

 “So, what I’m saying is that my mother created life here on Earth. I have the information to continue what she had started, and my destiny here is to continue her work but also to re-filter the genetics to eradicate the unwanted genes”

“Whoa, there Luke. Eradicate the unwanted genes, what the hell does that mean? Are you planning a large genocidal wipe-out of humans?” asked Jonathan.

I tried not to burst into laughter “That’s not what I mean Jonathan. I’m talking about taking out certain genes, cancers etc. that my mother never had time to do. I believe she died a few Millennia before I was born, yeah, I know, and she never had the time to change what she had created. She never knew the effects of her changes until they happened so obviously this is a very time-consuming process but I believe that time is something that I have in abundance. I think now is the time for the first set of questions so that we can move on, and I mean physically as well as emotionally.”

Jack spoke first, which must have irked Jonathan.

“Is there any point continuing to look for the mother-load? I mean, I’d love to be rich and all, and help Jonathan’s centres but even I can see that this thing happening with you is so much more than getting a few diamonds. Imagine if you could end all diseases, then we wouldn’t need the centres in the first place. Hell, we wouldn’t need Jonathan for that matter.” Jack laughed and gave Jonathan a friendly shove.

Jonathan finally got his turn, so he turned back a few pages to begin his inquisition…

Jonathan started with an answer to Jack’s remark of not needing centres or himself for that matter.

“The fact remains, no matter how good Luke is and if he can wipe out all disease, the problem is that this can’t happen by flicking his fingers. Developing genes and taking out certain cells that cause diseases within the body will take years, maybe even centuries, even for Luke. The people out there around all corners of the world will still be dying or suffering and so the centres are still vital, as are people like me.”

We all looked at Jonathan and nodded at his wise young head. I knew he was right and that it would take a long time to tamper with certain genes. My mother took at least two hundred thousand years and a few more thousand with Mother Nature just for us to get this far. I let Jonathan know he was on the right track with his synopsis, though I didn’t tell him just how long it would take.

“Luke, do you want to answer the questions as I ask them?"

I pondered this over and decided it was better to, considering how many pages Jonathan was holding.

“Right then, the first question is – do you know the planet or even the galaxy that your mother came from?”

I laughed at this as I thought at Least Jonathan would keep it medically based and the other two would be the ones to go off on an alien tangent. “No, I have no idea where we, my mum and I, come from. I know that the scrolls tell me that my mother travelled for a very long time though how long is not stipulated. Others travelled at the same time and again I don’t know if she travelled with any of them or they travelled alone or even if she travelled with me or maybe I was born here and possibly, some half-breed. I know that we have all evolved from her genes and the genes she brought with her that contained the necessary cells for the chance to evolve whatever life form that they came across.” ‘Next question please’.

“Whoa there Luke, surely you must have had the urge to read more."

I tried not to get angry but remained calm as this was taking longer than required. “As I said earlier. The scrolls can take a very long time to read. They are not labelled in such a way that I can choose to read the order in which I want to learn. I must read them in the order that I have started and sensing that you were in danger took priority over me gaining the knowledge of my genetics and family tree. Besides, like I said, the scrolls can take a very long time to read so I need to return them as soon as it is right and safe for you guys. No offense but I have all the time in the world now.”