Mytacea: Rayyan's mistake

Chapter Two: Don't Change Anything

A soft light greeted Rayyan through her closed eyes. The even ground under her feet confirmed that she was back in modern civilization. Relieved, Rayyan opened her eyes to look around for anyone who might help her find her way home. To her frustration, the hut was still there right in front of her, although the two weird people had vanished. Rayyan and the hut were surrounded by glass walls and even a glass roof, lit by the stars in the sky and some small lights on the ground. Before Rayyan had a chance to orient herself, a sudden beeping sound in the distance surprised her. A sense of stress rose up through her torso and created a knot in her stomach as the beeping sound gradually got louder. Wherever she was, she was not supposed to be there.

The sound of a door opening behind Rayyan made her turn around, getting ready to hide or flee. "I'm sorry, I have no idea how I got here, I swear I'm not trying to steal anything." she rambled in English out of habit to then repeat herself in Arabic, "Can you please help me find my way home?" The person who had opened the door was standing quite some distance away from her, clearly just as confused as she was. They were wearing a long, light-grey dress, which left their arms with skin the colour of raw ground umber pigment exposed yet covered their legs completely. Short, tight curls formed a sepia crown around their head and Rayyan thought she saw a shadow of facial hair. With a surprisingly warm voice, the stranger said something Rayyan didn't understand, while gesturing wildly. Their broad shoulders and loud voice would have been intimidating, were it not for their shy smile and nervous stance. When Rayyan noticed the sweat on the stranger's forehead, she concluded that they were likely just as scared as she was, and she decided to take advantage.

In a sudden movement, she started running, quickly getting past the stranger. She had expected they would try to stop her, yet instead they simply froze and let her pass. She ran through the doorway, to find herself in a spacious room with a very clean and formal setting. Frantically, Rayyan combed the place for an exit, trying not to panic as she imagined the stranger coming after her, although the footsteps she heard were still in the distant and sounded hesitant. For a moment, she considered the option that there was no way out and her kidnapper wasn't running after her because they knew she wouldn't escape, until she stumbled upon a big door that then easily opened when she tried.

As soon as she felt the outside air on her skin, Rayyan started running. She ignored the complete lack of civilization anywhere within her sight and hoped that if she kept going for long enough, she might recognize something or find help. Trees moved through the corners of her eyes as her leg muscles started to burn from the intense exercise. The silence of the forest was no longer soothing, for every sound as small as a snap of a twig in the distance sent terror through her spine. It could have been either minutes or hours by the time that she happened upon a wide clearing on which, with some distance from each other, stood six round huts. For some reason, the clearing seemed familiar to Rayyan. She walked around it, scared to get too close to the huts, trying to find out if she had been here before. Perhaps, this landmark could help her figure out her location.

The clearing had very little vegetation and the ground was clay, resembling many of the excavated archaeological sites that Rayyan loved to visit. The sudden realization made her heart drop and her legs weaken as she remembered that she had indeed seen this archaeological site before. This was Ohalo II... except when she visited it before, there had been charcoal circles where the huts now stood. The oldest evidence of farming had been found at this archaeological site that had been burned down over twenty thousand years ago, before it was buried in clay and water and thus so well preserved. Yet for some reason, the huts were right in front of her eyes with no signs of a fire whatsoever. In addition, on the barren land that had surrounded the site before, now stood a lush forest. How could so much have changed in so little time?

Rayyan wrapped her arms tight around herself in an attempt to soothe her panic, as the events of the day came back to her. Her sudden displacement from the city she knew to a remote forest. The two weird people wearing animal hides and living in a hut. The languages she had never heard before.