Follow the Star: Paradise or Death Game ~ Round 3 Entry

This is my third round entry for Paradise or Death contest by @erodedthoughts.

Here is my first and here second round post.

I will not bore you with describing the whole journey we took to get here. We were sitting by the lake one late evening and the night was full of stars. Suddenly, one of the stars started moving, getting bigger. We felt like the three biblical kings, suddenly drawn by power greater than our own, knowing that we would find everything we were looking for if we just followed the star. Except there was five of us and we had already lost Jesus at that point.

As we walked around the huge lake to get to the other side, Albert started an interesting conversation. "You are aware that what what the three kings actually followed was a commet, not a falling star. And that a falling star is actually a meteor and if we are lucky to find it, it will be just a piece of rock."

"Yeah, whatever, Einstain," snapped Carl. He looked annoyed. He was the one least excited about the idea of moving. He had really enjoyed running wild in that forest.

I asked, "Albert, shouldn't we be worried that that hot piece of rock will fall directly on top of our heads?"

"I don't think so. The direction it's flying in seems to be kilometers away. What worries me is that if the rock is big enough to last through the atmosphere so far, it might be big enough to kill all life on this planet. But somehow, it seems to be flying too slow. Or it might be further away than we think."

"We should think about all the people that might have survived the Storm as well," Maggie joined in. "If we've decided to follow the star, whoever can see it will most probably go there as well. I hope we can meet more survivors. Perhaps they will be willing to exchange some resources or even cooperate with us on rebuilding the society."

"I hope someone will have a microbiology or a chemistry book." Marie was clutching her analog microscope, her dear item that survived the Storm together with her. "Or at least, some enthusiasm for classifying new discoveries with me. I think that a lot has changed. We shouldn't be certain that this world after Storm still behaves by the old rules."

It took us a couple of days, but we finally arrived. It was not what we had expected. It was just a forest clearing, perhaps a hundred meters across, with a ten meters wide hole in the middle. There were already some people camping around. They did not seem to be cooperating. One of the groups looked stoned out of their mind, watching a dying fireplace. Other groups were running around, setting up shelters, eating or arguing about stuff.

No matter what was happening in front of us, we were simply astonished by seeing that other people have survived. There was a huge cluster of emotions in my chest. I saw the sparks of awe in the eyes of the rest of my group and decided to say something before we all start crying and hugging each other and such. "All right, let's first find out what's going on here and let's meet in about two hours under that huge tree. Then we will discuss what to do next. See ya!"

Firstly, I went to check out the "meteorite" There was something strange about the situation. Why was there almost no crater? When I came closer, it was clear why. It was not a piece of rock, it was a space craft, but a very little one. It could barely accomodate one person. There was nothing inside of it. I touched it. It was cold - it must have been there for a while. I looked around and realized everyone has probably looked at it for long enough and they gave up getting any answers out of it, so they turned to whatever they were doing now.

I noticed one person sitting on a rock apart from everyone else. I went to him and sat on the rock beside him. "Hi. Um... I'm Monoxid, what's your name?"

"I'm Erodedthoughts."

"Erruur-what? I will just call you R if you don't mind. So, R, how did you get here?"

"Well, how do you think I got here?"

"Okay, let me share my theory with you. I don't see you being very close to any group and they don't seem to be paying close attention to you. You arrived here alone, haven't you?"

"That's right."

"We had a tough time surviving after the Storm and none of us even knows why did we actually survive the end of the world. I have no Idea how could you have survived all by yourself. I think you were not here during the apocalypse. I think you had some insider knowledge which allowed you to escape from the surface with everything you needed just before the worst happened.

"Instead of designing your escape pod to travel through space, you just made it robust enough to survive few days on the Earth orbit. I don't know if you accounted for all of us coming after the fallen star and meeting you here. But here we are and if we put together our resources, we can even make this new civilization work.

"You might have planned for all af this to happen. I don't know. You might be laughing internally right now, because I'm right or you might be laughing because I'm completely wrong and you are just a member of another group who just likes to sit by himself. I won't know unless you tell me."

I was hoping for replies, but I was met by more mysterious silence. I told R to come to our camp under the large tree if he feels like talking about his situation. Then I left to meet the rest of my group. I wanted to hear what they had found out from the other groups.

"Why are you so quiet, Albert?" I asked when we got back together with the rest.

"Who am I? Am I a bad person? Will I become evil when I get older? There is a guy calling himself Albert Einstein. He's a complete crackhead. Am I his clone?"

"I don't care about all of that. I met someone who said he's Carl Jung. There is no other me out there. He can share my genes, but he doesn't share my experience. I am my own man."

Marie's eyes lighted up. "I wish I could meet myself. We could research together. I am sure we would be a very eficcient team! I hope the circumstances of her life wouldn't have turned her into a boring person. I hope the other Marie Curie would still be able to appreciate science."

"Have any of you heard something about Jesus?" I couldn't help but ask about him. My conscience was not entirely clear, although I wasn't sure whether I would be happy or angry to see him here.

"I heard something," Maggie replied. "I am not entirely sure if that was our Jesus they were talking about, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were actually more of them running around. Do you think they really have some kind of cloning device, a machine that can create humans? It would be very interesting to ask them to bring some great people from our history back to life. As for myself, I would really love to speak to George Washington. Or perhaps Henry VIII, even though I am not entirely sure if it would be safe for this world to bring that person back to life. Monoxid, have you heard something from that person, that R you have mentioned?"

"No, I couldn't get much information out of that guy. But I am sure he is hiding something. What if he's hiding an entire spaceship somewhere around here and this thing lying here is just an escape pod? What if he has a fully equipped underground base around here? What if he's an alien?"

"I don't think he's an alien," opposed Albert. "The probability that an alien life would be antropomorphic is just too low. And even if it existed and it possessed the technology able to reach a civilization in perhaps even different galaxy, why would it choose to fly here? It does not make sense at all."

Carl, who had been trying to look disinterested, suddenly got up. "Why don't we just ask him directly about everything? Maybe he just wants to confuse us. I don't enjoy the game he's playing." He grabbed the rifle he had brought with him. "I'm going to hunt me some dinner. See ya."

We decided to just build a camp. There were more groups appearing in the forest clearing. I saw some weird items they were working with, and some weird actions that looked almost like magic. Some of the other group members came to chat with us. We exchanged our stories and found out we are all equally confused by R's presence, because nobody knew where he came from and what was he planning, just sitting there and quietly observing.

The little crowds got suddenly quiet. R was standing on top of the stone of his and people were coming closer to hear what would he have to say.

"My dear fellow Earthlings. I have gathered you here with high hopes. I brought you together to bring about a new world, a new civilization, a better place. The old world was rotten, corrupt. It was falling apart and there was no saving it. Luckily, a new technology has emerged. You could call it a reset. It is the reason why the world you see around right now does not look exactly like the old one. It is the reason why you can posess some items that did not exist on the old Earth.

"You have been selected out of billions. You are the future of humanity. I am the one who will show you the way. The Star-dwellers, who have created the reset technology also gave me the tools to guide you. I have guided you here and now I will guide you to cooperate on creating the greatest civilzation possible.

"The reason why all civilizations ended in ruins is simply their lack of knowledge and greater perspective. We don't have to repeat the old mistakes. Now we have the Star-dwellers to show us the right direction. When you decided to come here, it was the first step. Give up your limited human reasoning and let the higher power gui-" BANG!

There was a huge gaping hole in the middle of R's chest. As he looked down in disbelief, he fell off his rock and remained lying on the ground, lifeless. The crowd was left there just standing, staring, speechless. "Jesus Christ!" - someone shouted.

"What?!" Jesus was standing there, with a smoking rifle in his hands. I instantly recognized it and I also noticed Carl standing beside Jesus - he was also the one who had shouted. The two of them got into an argument as if all of us were not there, watching them and hearing every word.

"What has he ever done to you that you had to shoot him?"

"You mean except bringing me back to life in this god-forsaken world as a some kind of clone and having his own plans for my life? I have my own plans on how to spend my life, so I say No, thank you to that." He pointed towards R's body and the crowd in that direction jumped.

What the hell was happening? None of us had any idea, but it was clear that we would have to cooperate and find out. We would not get any more answers, unless the Star-dwellers sent another messenger. It was up to us create our new civilization and perhaps even to fail on our own. The future was waiting for us.