Long before humans walked the earth...
Before the mountains had names, and before the oceans knew their borders...
There was only nature — raw and untamed.
And Eon was a beast.
He had no name then. No words. No tools.
But he had power.
He was born from a heavy egg, hidden deep in a nest of leaves and warm earth. The sun shined on his wet scales as he broke free, hissing his first breath. The world smelled of moss and fire. Insects buzzed, and the trees swayed above.
He blinked once.
The forest was alive.
So was he.
His claws were sharp. His tail was long. He stood on two powerful legs and balanced with a thick tail. His jaw was filled with teeth made to tear flesh. But he was not just a hunter. He was something more.
Each time he blinked, a spark lit inside his brain.
He remembered.
Not everything — not cities or language. But feelings. Shadows of the past.
Warmth. Cold. Pain. Hunger. Death.
These were things that stayed.
He was not like the others in his pack. While they hunted by instinct, he hunted with purpose. He watched. He learned. He adapted faster than any of them.
They called him the Redback Alpha — the beast with fire in his veins.
Eon's body then was massive. Fifteen feet tall when he rose on his hind legs. His skin was a dark reddish-brown. A ridge of bone spikes ran from his skull down to his tail. His eyes were golden — glowing faintly in the dark.
He ruled a wide territory. Forests. Rivers. Open fields. No other predator dared challenge him. Not even the armored ones with tails like clubs. Not even the long-necked giants who drank from the lakes.
But there was something in the sky. Something that watched him, just as he watched others.
Sometimes, at night, Eon would lift his head and stare at the stars. One star blinked blue. Then red. Then blue again.
It pulsed.
And Eon felt it.
Then came the storms.
They were not normal. The clouds were thick, black, and burned with light. Lightning forked down in strange colors — purple and green. Animals ran. Even the rivers trembled.
Eon stood still and let the rain wash over him.
He knew something was coming.
The ground shook. A loud cry echoed from the hills.
Not a roar. Not a call.
A scream.
Eon moved toward it.
Through thick vines and thunder, he found the source — a creature he had never seen before. Tall and thin, standing on two legs. But it had no scales. No fur. Its body glowed with a blue shine, and its hands floated inches above its arms. Its face was smooth, with no eyes or mouth.
It was not from Earth.
It looked at Eon.
Eon looked back.
The creature raised a glowing rod. Eon's vision blurred. His knees bent. His heart thudded hard. The world twisted.
He roared — but not in fear. In rage.
He charged.
The creature moved, but too late. Eon slammed into it. Bones snapped. Blue light cracked. The rod flew from its hand and disappeared into the mud.
The thing vanished in a blink, but not before Eon felt it — a pulse of something unnatural.
The Rift.
It was trying to form.
Even then.
Eon stumbled away. His side was burned where the creature had touched him. The flesh hissed and healed slowly. It was the first time he had ever been wounded like that.
He knew the creature would return. And it wouldn't come alone.
So he changed.
He left his pack. Traveled north, where the skies were colder and the air was thin. There, in silence, he found a cave.
Inside the cave, he carved symbols into the stone. He didn't know why. He had no language. But his claws moved on their own. Circles. Lines. Stars. Flames.
He remembered something from before. Before this life. Before teeth and claws.
He remembered being small.
Tiny.
A cell.
The knowledge scared him.
And then… the sky broke.
A blast filled the world. The clouds lit up. Something massive roared in the sky — something burning. A rock, larger than mountains, fell from the heavens.
Eon saw it too late.
The light blinded the trees. The wind tore forests from their roots. Fire poured from the sky like rain.
It was the end.
Eon did not run. He walked to the edge of a cliff and looked up. The air burned. The clouds split. He stared straight into the falling death.
"I have lived before," he thought.
"I will live again."
The fire hit.
Everything vanished.
Darkness.
Stillness.
Silence.
Then…
A pulse.
A flicker of heat in the cold.
One cell, buried deep beneath ash and bone, survived.
It pulsed again.
It was him.
Eon.
Again.
Time moved forward. The age of beasts ended. Mammals rose. The planet healed.
Eon was reborn — this time, smaller. Hairy. Quick. A four-legged thing that darted through the underbrush and fed on roots.
Then again.
Two legs. Longer arms. Fire in his hands.
Then again.
Tools. Language. Cities.
Each time, he remembered a little more.
He learned to walk among the new world's people.
But in quiet moments — under the stars, near the fire — he remembered the day the sky fell. He remembered standing against a creature not of this world. And he knew…
They would come back.
Now, sitting under the sky in the modern world, Eon opened his eyes.
"I've seen your kind," he whispered to the Rift.
"I've fought you before."
He stood.
This time, he would not face them as a beast.
This time, he would face them as everything he had ever been.
The beast.
The man.
The memory of life itself.