Prelude
Hello. My name is Hundregi, but you can call me Charles. After walking through this world for countless nights, I can honestly say that life is much more complicated than ever before. In days of old, I could eat when I became hungry without fear, and I could sleep each day not concerned about being found. Yet today, I dare not rest anywhere unprotected lest I find myself with uninvited guests.
Some days I sleep in my private chamber surrounded by various defenses such as concrete and guards. Yet many days, I choose not to sleep at all. As a Keeper, the job is never done. I return both day and night to work I chose millennia ago.
If you have noticed by now, I am not your average person that works in an office. I work to keep my brethren both safe from our enemies and safe from themselves. In our world, both are equally dangerous.
Over the many years of my existence, I have seen and done so much life and death that neither has an effect on me anymore. In today’s age of technology and societal complexities, my kind must be ever vigilant to stay out of sight, out of the limelight, and away from day-to-day life of humans. We interact with the human world each day and must rely on humans for many things however we cannot ever truly become a part of that world.
Let me take you back in time to help you understand not only why but how this came to be.
I opened my eyes to yet another day of starvation. I had not eaten in a time frame long enough to be incomprehensible. I found myself again laying in a small nook in the earth on a hard cold dirt surface. My body had become used to this environment after wandering for so long in search of food. As I moved to get up, I noticed a large rock next to my left knee that once had been on the hillside above me. Great relief washed over me as I thought of what could have happened should that have fallen on my knee just inches away.
Slowly I rose to my feet and began to take stock of my surroundings. Just like the day before I remained in the flat plains of a land speckled with brush. The lone hillside residing behind me broke the flat plains only once as far as the eye could see. I had been lucky the night before to have found this notch of land to protect me marginally while I lay sleeping for the few hours of darkness that had remained of the night.
I had not seen another living creature for two days and yet I wandered forth in search of food and water. I had not seen another bipedal creature of my same kind in even longer. Suddenly I felt this urge to move that I could not explain. Something pressed me into motion toward the morning glow of the sun. Keep in mind that at this point in my existence, the things like day and night were not something that I could grasp. My instincts and experience drove my actions. This very instinct told me something awaited me ahead, yet I had no way of knowing what laid out before me.
The glowing ball of heat and light we now call the sun rose above me slowly as I traveled. I found items on some of the small bushes growing that looked like food. My instinct told me to pour these items into my mouth like a waterfall of food, but my experience told me to wait until safety just in case. I know not how long I walked nor do I know how far I travelled however I found a much taller rise of land in the distance. Somehow, I knew of where I was destined.
As time passed, I grew ever closer to the land. I stepped on rocks, sticks, and various other objects as I walked without much notice. After the extended time of my existence, thick slabs of hard skin buffered my feet from such objects. The shrubs faded from existence and taller trees began to appear providing much needed shade from the ball of flame blasting me from behind. I dared not stop for I may not have the energy or will to venture forth once again. I still held various items that could be edible, but safety had yet been found to eat them. Fatigue and lack of nutrition began to cause my energy to wane greatly. I knew not how much further I could carry myself.
After what seemed like eternity, I found a small opening in this tall wall of rock that I faced. Fear gripped me as I approached the gap because no light penetrated the darkness. The unknown stretched before me with no end in sight. Yet even as fright dragged on my mind, something in my soul pushed me into the void. Feeling with my hands and feet, I slowly crept through the pitch black. The darkness was almost palpable and thick as oil.
I continued to grope my way down the walls until suddenly I smelled something I recognized. On the gentle breeze that up until that moment I did not realize blew in my face, the scent of another being found my nose. I knew not if this new entity would become predator or prey. Luckily, I was up wind, so instincts told me that this creature had not smelled my scent. Knowing not what I faced, I crept even slower while crouching to ground. Even as I approached my target, I could hear the breathing of another bipedal creature. My eyes had adjusted to the dark by now, but no light emanated from any source within the vicinity.
Just as I felt the distance closing, a burst of light came from what seemed like everywhere at once. My mind screamed in agony from the sudden invasion to the point even my ears seemed to ring. The screams of others registered on my ears yet how many or where they resided eluded me. The only thing I could do was fall to the ground and wait for the light to abate.
As the light faded slowly, I began to gather my senses once more and became aware of sounds that I was unfamiliar with. The ground shook and the air crackled with energy. Finally, after seemingly another eternity, my eyes began to see once again. As I surveyed my surrounds, my eyes were immediately drawn to the water falling gently from the rocks in the back of the room. No other item registered in my mind at that point due to the overwhelming needs my body announced within my mind. I moved with an abundance of speed that I would never have thought I had due to level of malnutrition and dehydration I experienced recently. Before I realized anything further about my surroundings, my face and hands found themselves submerged in a pool of cold water. The joy and relief crossed my body like lightning flowing to the ground. Only after several minutes of filling my belly with this nectar did I remember that I was not alone.
