Beyond Human

Chapter 1: The Time Machine

It was 1985 in London, and Hiro Einstein Hiro, a renowned geneticist and paleoanthropologist, had a deep fascination with history, particularly the mysteries of the ancient past and the enigmatic Neanderthals. Despite spending countless hours pouring over books, he always felt that something was missing. He yearned to experience history firsthand, to travel back in time and witness the wonders and horrors of the past himself.

However, time travel was considered impossible at the time. Hiro longed to prove his worth to his friend and rival, Oliver Chrono, a chronophysicist who had gained significant popularity and even won a Nobel Prize for his theory on time travel. But fate had other plans; Chronos disappeared without a trace, leaving no clue to his whereabouts.

Although they were friends, Hiro had a hint of jealousy towards Chronos, which was fueled by his Nobel Prize and his fame for theorizing time travel. One day, while working in his lab studying genetic material, he heard a sudden banging sound on his door. Upon opening it, he found a letter and a pen lying outside. The letter read, "Your own blood shall take everything from you, and you will lose everything the moment you step in it." Hiro believed it was a prank and tore the letter into pieces. However, when he clicked the pen, he saw a vision of his friend Oliver, who asked him to visit his lab.

Hiro was shocked to receive a message from his friend, who had vanished without a trace, and the technology to send signals directly to the brain did not yet exist. The vision of his friend troubled him so much that he couldn't sleep that night.

The following day, he decided to visit his friend's lab to dismiss the letter's warning. As he walked through the streets of London, the breeze made his hair jiggle, and he felt like everyone was staring at him. He collided with a large man and noticed that the tip of the man's thumb was bleeding, but he ignored it and continued to Chronos's house.

When he arrived, the door was ajar, which was strange. He entered cautiously, and the house was eerily quiet, with no sign of Oliver. Hiro's unease grew, and he searched the house, eventually coming across Oliver's lab. The room was a mess, with equipment scattered everywhere and papers strewn across the floor. Panic gripped him, and he wondered if Oliver had used the time machine and traveled into the past.

As he stood in front of his friend's portrait, he touched the face, and suddenly he saw an ocean of blood filling the entire earth, with airships causing mass destruction, much like an alien invasion. In the vision, he saw himself in the arms of a chimp, and the chimp spoke "Livorcnos," but he couldn't understand the word. The chimp left him and started fighting the invasion with a gun, and Hiro fell to the ground after seeing the horror. He decided to leave the lab, and when he got up, he saw the blood from the cut on his finger splatter onto the floor.

The pen he had taken from his doorstep levitated from his pocket and spoke, "DNA acquired, pupil scan check, check date. The conditions required are met, and the person shall travel in time." The pen shattered into pieces, and sudden silence prevailed. Hiro's heart raced, and then he heard a crackling sound, and two black holes appeared, pulling him inside. He saw his past flashing before him, from his birth to his education and every moment in between. The stress was immense, and his body split into three personalities,but he managed to pull himself back together despite the enormous stress. However, this time he passed out.

When he woke up, he felt disoriented and assumed he was in a distant land. But to his amazement, the area around him was very futuristic and technological. He started to believe that he was in the future. Suddenly, he remembered the letter that warned him, "Your own blood shall take everything from you, and you will lose everything the moment you step in it." He realized that he didn't know that the seeds of the past and future had been planted the moment he stepped into Chronos House.

As he wandered around the unknown area, he sensed that something dark was waiting for him.