"W—what the fuck!?"
She needed a moment to recover from the adrenaline rush coursing through her. The sight had been horrifying—a naked woman standing motionless in the void with no emotion. She stood like a statue, staring into the endless darkness in the exact direction Sezon was heading.
As the shock wore off, Sezon began to understand why the figure looked so familiar.
"It's me... Why am I a dark statue?"
Still buzzing with adrenaline, she rose to full height and walked closer to the statue, leaning in to examine the finer details of her own face and body.
"Yeah, this makes sense—finding a dark statue of me standing in the endless darkness! God, it gave me a scare, like something out of a horror game."
Sezon leaned closer to study the statue's skin, which appeared covered in what looked like fine dark sand. The sand seemed refined, or maybe hardened.
"How is this even possible?"
She raised her right hand and pressed her pointer finger against the statue's cheek. It sank into the surface as if touching actual skin. The texture felt exactly like her own—or any human's, for that matter. Her curiosity peaked as her brows furrowed and she studied the figure more intently.
"This is too alien."
She moved past the statue's left shoulder, then froze. Her eyes went wide, her expression shifting to disbelief as the view behind the statue pulled her into stunned silence.
"Yeah, this is getting nuts!"
Right behind the statue—at least half a dozen steps back—stood another statue of what appeared to be human.
"Another one?"
As she walked around her statue and closer to the one directly behind it, Sezon noticed it had the same expressionless face and rigid standing posture. Halfway there, she stopped.
"I know who you are. You're Homo heidelbergensis! You're humanity's immediate pre-modern ancestor! THE FUCK?! I—I learned about you in college!"
Homo heidelbergensis: They possessed a brain volume nearly identical to modern humans and directly gave rise to Homo sapiens (modern-day humans) in Africa ~ 200,000 to 700,000 years ago. - - -
Still halfway to the statue, she squinted into the distance and spotted another dark figure in the back—slightly shorter this time. Same emotionless pose and everything.
"My god, it's even Homo erectus!"
Homo erectus: The first ancestor to have modern human body proportions (longer legs and shorter arms). They mastered fire, built complex hand axes, and were the first to expand out of Africa into Eurasia ~ 110,000 to 1.9 million years ago. - - -
Sezon peered at it, then looked back toward where she'd been sprinting moments ago. Her stomach dropped. More statues lined the path, each one seemingly smaller than the last.
'Why am I seeing human evolution right now? What the actual fuck is going on right now!?'
Before she could see what lay beyond the line, she stopped.
'Wait wait wait. The distance between each one was the same. If I take another few steps, what will happen? Another burst?'
Sezon glanced back to her statue.
'No really!! What's going to happen when I move a few more steps!?'