Get the thoughts out, she said. Put them down on paper, she said. Let somebody else hear you for a change, she said. Well fuck it. I’ll finally take your advice.

Thank you for picking this up.

No, that’s stupid.

Welcome.

No, no, no.

I suppose I should try again.

I am a prophet.

Sorry, I didn’t want to bury the lede. I know how conceited, or presumptive, or problematic that probably sounds, but it has to be up front. I have to be clear about what this is. This is a document of truth—my account of humanity’s real story, a story no one’s heard before. I have seen our species’ farthest reaches, learned the true depth of our history, immersed myself in our most exotic cultures, and appreciated our most spectacular monuments. None of this happened on Earth.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

My psychiatrist told me to write it all down. Get it out of your system, she said. Oh Dr. Scottie. Like I want it out of my system. I don’t think people will be able to handle it once it’s out of my system. Not that they’ll believe me anyway. For as long as I can remember, ‘my system’ has been strung across two worlds, pulled this way and that by people who refuse to understand the profundity of my experience on either side.

I’ve always lived this way. Now I’m just telling people.

But Dr. Scottie’s right. I hate to admit it. But even though she treats me like a child when I explain it to her, I think she’s starting to believe me. Not that she’d ever admit it. Still, when I peek through the frosted glass door at her office every week, I see her at her desk, slate gray, hunched over the maps I make. Reading my journals. Analyzing my sketches. I bet she thinks she’s ‘studying’ me. Doing her clinical due diligence as she gathers material for her own memoir. But there’s this thing about the truth. It’s elemental. It pulls you in no matter how much you try to resist it.

She suggested I start from the beginning. How Freudian. But I suppose it’s as good a place as any. When this document inevitably resurfaces centuries in the future, scientists will probably want to know the story of the only man who saw all of humanity.

So I’ll start with my earliest memory.