Continue Chapter 1…
Derrick nodded.
“They are clever,” he said. “More clever than most species we’ve watched.”
Seraphon smiled faintly.
“Yes.”
Below them, a caravan of camels slowly passed through the massive Ishtar Gate, its bright blue tiles glowing beneath torchlight. Merchants shouted to one another in languages from distant lands.
Civilizations always fascinated Derrick.
They were fragile things.
Small sparks of intelligence struggling to survive in a vast and dangerous universe.
Seraphon leaned forward slightly on the wall.
“Tell me something, Nabu-Etir.”
Derrick turned toward him.
That name.
It felt familiar.
Too familiar.
“Why do we continue doing this?” Seraphon asked.
“Watching?”
Derrick frowned slightly.
“What do you mean?”
Seraphon gestured toward the city.
“Civilizations rise. They flourish. Then eventually they fall.”
His voice carried neither bitterness nor anger—only quiet observation.
“We have watched it happen many times.”
The wind grew slightly stronger along the wall, tugging at their robes.
Derrick followed Seraphon’s gaze across the city.
He could see the palace towers rising in the distance. Temples dedicated to gods who may or may not exist. Markets filled with trade from lands beyond the horizon.
Humanity was still young.
But there was something remarkable about them.
“They’re learning,” Derrick said.
Seraphon looked at him.
“They always learn.”
Derrick smiled faintly.
“And yet they still surprise us.”
Seraphon studied him for a long moment.
“That is why you still believe in them.”
Derrick didn’t answer immediately.
Instead he watched the city below.
A child ran through a narrow street chasing a stray dog.
Two merchants argued loudly beside a cart filled with spices.
Life.
Messy. Chaotic. Beautiful.
“Yes,” Derrick finally said.
“I do.”
Seraphon looked back toward the horizon.
“You always did.”
For several moments they stood in silence.
Then something strange happened.
The wind stopped.
Completely.
The sudden stillness felt unnatural.
Seraphon’s expression changed.
“Do you feel that?”
Derrick frowned.
Yes.
Something had shifted.
A faint vibration moved through the air—so subtle most humans would never notice it.
But Derrick was not human.
He turned slowly toward the sky.
The stars looked wrong.
Not different in position… but somehow distorted.
As if something enormous had passed briefly between the Earth and the fabric of the universe itself.
“What is that?” Derrick asked.
Seraphon did not answer.
He was staring upward now as well.
For the first time, Derrick saw uncertainty in his mentor’s eyes.
“That,” Seraphon said quietly,
“should not be here.”
The vibration grew stronger.
Derrick suddenly felt something pulling at the edges of his awareness.
A pressure inside his mind.
Like a memory trying to surface.
The city below flickered.
For an instant the lights of Babylon blurred into streaks of gold.
Derrick grabbed the stone wall as dizziness rushed over him.
“What’s happening?”
Seraphon turned toward him sharply.
“Your mind is waking.”
“My mind?”
Seraphon stepped closer.
“Listen to me carefully.”
The vibration in the air grew louder.
“You are beginning to remember.”
“Remember what?”
Seraphon opened his mouth to answer—
And the world shattered.
The city dissolved.
The stars vanished.
The desert wind vanished.
Derrick’s eyes snapped open.
He was lying on his couch.
Morning sunlight filtered through the windows of his small mountain cabin.
The ceiling fan turned slowly overhead.
He had slept until morning.
For several seconds Derrick lay perfectly still, staring upward while his heart pounded.
The dream felt too real.
He could still smell the desert air.
Still feel the warmth of the ancient stone beneath his hands.
He swung his legs over the side of the couch and sat up slowly.
Outside, tall pine trees swayed gently in the cool Sierra Nevada breeze.
Birds chirped somewhere beyond the window.
Everything looked perfectly normal.
But something inside him was unsettled.
He rubbed his face and shook his head.
“Just a dream,” he muttered.
Yet even as he said it, he knew that wasn’t true.
Somewhere deep inside his mind, a quiet voice whispered:
You were there.
Derrick stood and walked toward the kitchen.
Coffee would help.
Derrick grabbed a cup out of the cupboard and poured himself a cup of coffee.
His mind still reeling from the dream. He rarely remembered his dreams but this one...
"Incredible" me mumbled as he sat at his dining table looking out over the mountain ridge that formed a half circle around the area where he lived.
He was able to remember every detail about the dream. Not only the dialog and the scenery but the smell of the Euphrates River, the sounds of merchants and children playing in the Babylonian streets as if he had ever been there.
“Nonsense.”
He thought to himself "It has to be a result of that knock on my head from yesterday."
Derrick absentmindedly rubbed the top of his head where yesterday he had a large bump.
His mind still hazy from the incredible dream.
Derrick stood up. Something was strange.
He felt surprisingly good.
And now this dream. And that voice inside his head, "You were there."
Derrick sat back down wondering what was going on with him.
He thought back to the day before when he had the accident.
***
The wind had been rising all morning.
Derrick leaned on the handle of his rake and looked up into the branches of the massive oak tree that dominated the center of his backyard. The old tree had been there longer than the house itself—maybe longer than the neighborhood. Its thick limbs twisted outward like the arms of some ancient giant.
The sky above it had turned the dull gray color that meant a storm was coming.
“Great,” Derrick muttered to himself.
At sixty-seven he had learned that storms and aging bodies shared something in common: they both arrived whether you were ready for them or not.
A gust of wind swept through the yard, rattling the branches. Dead leaves skittered across the grass like frightened insects.
Derrick bent down and gathered another pile of leaves into the rake. His back complained immediately.
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled. “I hear you.”
He straightened slowly, pressing a hand against his lower spine while surveying the yard. For a moment he allowed himself to drift into thought.
The world had gone insane.
Every time he turned on the television or opened the internet it was the same story—another protest crushed, another law passed stripping rights from someone, another politician shouting lies into a camera while half the country cheered.
Derrick had spent his whole life believing the arc of history bent toward progress.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
Another strong gust tore through the oak tree overhead. The branches groaned loudly.
Derrick frowned and looked up again.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
A sharp crack split the air.
Before his brain could process what was happening, something enormous dropped from above.
The limb struck him across the side of the head and shoulder like a falling battering ram.
Light exploded behind his eyes.
The world tilted violently sideways and the rake slipped from his hands.
For a moment he simply lay there in the grass, stunned, staring at the gray sky above the leaves.
“Well… damn, that hurt.” he murmured weakly.
He lifted a hand to the side of his head. His fingers came away slightly bloody.
Derrick sat up slowly.
The broken oak limb lay beside him—thick as a telephone pole, easily twenty feet long.
“That could’ve killed me,” he said aloud.
A strange dizziness washed over him. The yard seemed slightly unreal, like a stage set viewed from the wrong angle.
He stood carefully and walked toward the house, each step feeling oddly distant from the next.
Inside, the quiet felt heavy.
Derrick poured himself a glass of water and sat down on the couch.
The dizziness deepened.
His eyelids suddenly felt very heavy.
“Maybe I’ll just… close my eyes for a minute.”
Within seconds he was asleep.
And somewhere deep inside his mind, another life began.