At a time when people were half naked and the days were long, members of the Greer tribe lived happily on the vast ground. This day, they were going to add a final touch to the sacred altar according to the divine will.
The Greers would never forget the day when the Gods first arrived.
They came from the holy hole in the sky, in a beautiful golden egg perching on the colourful clouds. The egg was so huge that when it landed, it took up almost half of the plain and crushed dozens of their wooden houses. The egg then hatched and 12 handsome figures in the same shining gowns flew out of it. Oh and their voices, they sounded like the spring thunders across the valley.
“Who are these monkeys? What happened to the big guys?” one of them asked.
“They died out,” another replied. “due to the mass photoion pollution last time in the galaxy.”
“Oh, right. Let's get down to it then. The cracks won't repair themselves.”
The Gods produced some vivid images out of thin air, which indicated an altar must be built in the tribe’s settlement to seal the prison for a devil of extreme evil. An conscientious clerk recorded them all.
The Greers never actually met the devil. They didn't even feel his presence, though is was said that the devil had been kept under the ground for millions of years. He was brought by the Gods to Earth long before the ancestors of human beings decided to climb down the trees. The Greers, therefore, were not the first ones to be his guards. There were the dinosaurs before them, and the peculiar marine creatures before the dinosaurs.
Naturally, they had no idea who the devil was or why he was kept there. They just felt honoured to be chosen to fulfill such a glorious task.
“Square, da! Green circle, di!.” that conscientious clerk commanded his fellow villagers. “Egg, up! Up more!”
When the construction of the sacred altar was finally finished, they sacrificed many chickens and danced around it, praying for the devil to be successfully suppressed underneath until the Gods deemed it time to open the gate.
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The altar looked surprisingly like the day it was constructed when Mr Greer took the others down to the basement to see it. An arch stood before several layers of stones. On the top perched a golden egg, covered in complex patterns. There were also drawings on each side of the steps.
Elara bent over to read some words on one side of the steps with great interest, “15th, July, 8561 BC. Hey, it's today!”
“What a happy coincidence!” Kairos hailed, but frowned after seeing it himself. “How do you recognize the words? It was also written in the Universal language.”
“I don't know. I just can. What’s more, today is also my birthday!”
“How do you know it's your birthday if you were born to be an orphan.”
“I decided it myself. It's my 26th birthday.”
“Well, in that case, may countless pink nostalgia flood your day!”
“Weird, but thank you?”
“So,” Kairos walked around the altar. “this is it. The radial bursts were coming from here!”
Elara suddenly became nervous. “Is there really a devil down here? What's it like?”
“Well, you know,” Mr Greer hesitated. “The one with the horns and everything. Likes to feed on people.”
Kairos remarked bitterly, “You know nothing about the situation or your tribe, don't you?”
“Why did the Universal Time Planning Bureau suppress a Earth devil? Does theology fall into their expertise?” Elara asked, still perplexed.
Kairos shook his head. “I don't think it's a devil of your planet. The Universal Time Planning Bureau arrests time-regarding criminals and put them behind bars. When I say ‘bars’, I mean this altar.”
“What?” Elara and Mr Greer both shouted.
“Does a singular-time nihility zone sound familiar to you?” Kairos asked.
The others both shook their heads.
“Well, a singular-time nihility zone is like a prison for the criminals who have done severe time-concerning crimes. In this zone, time goes in only one direction, which eliminates the possibilities of the criminals doing cunning time tricks. For this reason, this kind of zones are often set in primitive planets, like Earth, where the pleiotropy of time haven't been developed by their inhabitants, but only in another dimension to avoid unnecessary panics. So normally, you won't feel the zone is there.”
“Like a parallel universe?” Mr Greer asked.
“Yes, well, no, not really. But if it helps you understand, then yes.” Kairos replied, looking gravely at the altar. “The duty of your tribe, Mr Greer, is to keep the altar intact and functional. Because it actually serves as the gate connecting these two dimensions. If the altar breaks down, there is going to be a serious problem. And I'm afraid that's already happened.”