Episode 1 - Reborn (4)
Several days passed. Mother hadn't died yet, but she wasn't normal either. Her deeply torn flank had festered, giving off a foul stench. In other words, she wouldn't last much longer.
I touched her forehead. It was burning hot. Why did this feeling come over me? I hadn't thought of them as my kin, and so I'd never truly seen her as my mother deep down.
Then her hand slowly rose toward my eye. The long gash around my eye from Megantereon's claw. If it had gone just a bit deeper, I'd have lost the eye. Unlike her wound, mine hadn't festered; a scab had formed. Her hand gently caressed it.
“Waa, oo….”
[Wound, hurts. Bad.]
Even as her own body burned with fever, she was worrying about me.
Moments later, her hand dropped limply, as if she'd run out of strength.
“……”
I reflexively grabbed it. It was scorching. Not just hot from fever. I could tell from the sensation at my fingertips. Sepsis. The deep gash from Megantereon's claw. Bacteria had poured in through the wound, rotting her from the inside.
In the modern world, she might have been saved. No, even with just antiseptic and sutures, I wouldn't have let her wait helplessly for death like this.
But I had nothing now. These short, stiff fingers could only smash rocks and trim wood at best. I knew how to ferment fruit into alcohol, but not how to distill it into something pure enough for disinfection. I could imagine a primitive needle, but not how to stitch a wound to save a life.
I'd only ever been a human imagining what ancient hominins made and how they lived. Not someone who knew how to save a life firsthand.
And above all, there was no time. She was dying even now.
So I was powerless.
“Oo, oo, oo.”
That was when it happened. One by one, the group members began gathering around us huddled beneath the tree—males, females, young ones, without distinction. They came close and sat by Mother, gently rubbing her forehead with their fingertips.
It was a familiar sight. When the old alpha had died, everyone had done the same—approaching silently to touch his forehead.
Then I understood. This was their funeral rite.
They moved by instinct like apes in documentaries at times, but occasionally they showed behaviors worthy of being called humanity's ancestors. Like when the old alpha passed leadership to me. And now, like this moment, bidding farewell to the aged mother who had cared for them.
Watching the scene, I suddenly realized. They all already knew. That she would leave soon.
And that knowledge filled me with unbearable sorrow.
So I realized it too. Deep down, I truly saw her as my mother.
With that realization, something inside me clicked into place, like a gear locking.
Then the young male who had thrown me the spear during the fight with Megantereon—the first to acknowledge me as alpha, whom I'd named Caesar—approached.
“Chief. Now, must let go.”
For some reason, their voices—which I'd always understood a beat late—came clear now. Still simple cries conveying raw emotion and information, but enough to grasp exactly what he meant.
I squeezed Mother's cooling hand once more, then gently stroked her forehead. Slowly, I lifted her up.
Corpses couldn't stay in the nest. They attracted disease and predators. So the group always carried their dead far from the nest.
Her body in my arms was far lighter than expected. Long-term malnutrition, age, and days of fever had drained all her fluids.
But the weight crushing my heart was heavier than any rock.
“Alpha too. Carry.”
I said only that and walked on silently. Away from the dense jungle toward the grassland's edge.
Following me came the young male carrying the old alpha, and a few other males.
Normally, no one followed the chief to dispose of a body. The scent of blood could draw predators, making them targets.
But they kept a safe distance, quietly trailing me.
That click sensation. It must have meant I'd finally accepted them as my true kin.
By truly seeing her as my mother, I'd become a real member of this world, this group.
How far had we walked? A spot appeared with large boulders clustered enough to block the wind. I gently laid Mother's body there.
The young male followed suit nearby with the alpha, then looked at me.
Laid on the ground, she looked as if peacefully asleep. I placed her stone tool in her arms.
By the group's custom, we'd abandon the bodies here and leave. Scavengers would soon pick them clean, bones and all.
That was nature's harsh law.
But.
“……”
Clatter.
I began gathering stones, large and small.
Unable to grasp my intent, the group tilted their heads. But I ignored them, steadily collecting rocks.
Starting with boulders too heavy for both hands. I ringed them around Mother, then piled fist-sized stones over her body.
To keep beasts from easily digging her up. So her flesh could return to nature as intact as possible.
As I wordlessly kept at it, the young male watching approached. He glanced between my stone-holding hand and Mother's body on the dirt, then picked up a large rock himself.
“Chief, me too.”
From that, the others began gathering stones and thick branches.
Pointless, dangerous labor offering no survival aid. Yet they seemed to understand its meaning, helping build the “grave.”
Soon, two crude stone mounds stood complete. Shabby and rough, but traces of mourning unknown to this era.
I brushed dirt from my hands and gazed at the reddening sunset.
Now I had to lead them. Protect the group from ever-lurking predators and this brutal prehistoric land.
I turned to face them. With far clearer, fiercer resolve than before, I bellowed from my throat.
“We return!!!”
The young male echoed my cry, and the group roared in unison.
I nodded slightly at their response and took the lead. In my mind, I named them.
A name no one would understand, but one mourning the former life's dream of becoming a paleoanthropologist and paleontologist, buried with the stone mound.
Homo consentiens.
Humans who know each other's sorrows, share wills, and mourn the dead.
That was their name. Mine.
“Professor! Hurry! Everyone else is already ready!!”
“Just a bit longer! Not packed yet!”
“That's why I said prepare ahead!”
Under Han Si-ha's urging, Park Professor stuffed clothes, papers, whatever into his bag. Weeks of fieldwork and reused clothes reeked, but no time to care.
He barely zipped it and dashed out.
At the helicopter, Professor Schnitzel gripped the door, waiting.
“Park! Get in quick!”
Caked in dust, they boarded. Propellers whirred, churning the jungle air.
Donning headsets, Park Professor blurted post-takeoff:
“Really? A burial cluster site?”
Schnitzel nodded. “Real. A sacred spot to locals who once lived here. Our researchers stumbled on it—over a dozen graves.”
“Unbelievable it was so close…”
Hearing them, Han Si-ha cautiously asked, “But if sacred, can we excavate? What if issues arise…?”
The German chuckled, shaking his head. “Fine. That community dissolved half a century ago—none left. Bitter, but lucky for us.”
As the chopper rose, endless green waves rolled over the jungle. Amid propeller din, Park Professor stared out like glaring.
His heart raced faster than ever.
Burial cluster. Discovered while carefully packing the cave's Megantereon and proto-human fossils. Skeletons matching the cave's exactly.
Hearing it, Park thought his heart would burst.
Moreover, stones of various sizes covered them—definite graves.
Burials or mounds appeared at earliest 330,000 years ago, conservatively 100,000. Proof hominins grieved kin, transcending mere instinct.
If these matched the cave species…
It wouldn't just overturn textbooks. It would redefine humanity itself.
Impossible…
Park gripped his knees with trembling hands. He reined in overeager hopes repeatedly, but his chest pounded wilder.
Han Si-ha glanced at his profile. “Professor… is it really likely?”
He didn't answer right away. Finally, in a stiff voice: “Don't know yet. Must see the site. Can't assume till we confirm.”
But his eyes betrayed him, shaking.
Schnitzel chuckled low. “Park, your face says otherwise.”
“Quiet.”
“Understand. I'd be screaming mad already.”
The chopper crossed jungle long. Dense blue-green thinned to scattered trees on grassland.
Amid red soil and yellow grass, white tents and vehicles dotted like specks.
“Here.”
It descended slowly. Wind whipped dust; on landing, Korean researchers rushed up—recent arrivals post-discovery.
“Professor Park! This way!”
He nearly leapt out. Han Si-ha clutched gear bags, hurrying after.
The site buzzed tense. Stakes and strings everywhere; inside, excavations underway—rectangular pits with piled stones.
Buried eons, surrounding rocks barely held shapes.
The graves were too regular for chance. Large stones ringed outsides, small ones filled inners. Some collapsed, others intact.
Han Si-ha swallowed unconsciously. “…It's real.”
Undeniable tombs.
This work uses the photo "Yeoncheon Samgok-ri Stone Mound Tomb Front 1" released under "Public Domain Type 1" from the "National Heritage Portal". The material can be downloaded for free from the "National Heritage Portal", operated by the "Cultural Heritage Administration".
Yeoncheon Samgok-ri stone mound tombs. Tomb form used from the Bronze Age to the early Iron Age.