Hall of Infinite Doors
A quick motion of your hand, and the rodent's eyes go dead and its cry ceases. You hoist the thing onto your back; it's got some weight on it, that's for sure. With all the other animals gone, the lower herbivores like this one must have grown much larger than they normally would. Should the trend continue, in a few years these creatures might be populating the forest in extremely high numbers. You hope they taste good.
The walk back to your cavern is long, and it's deep into the night by the time you reach the bowl-shaped canyon. As you stride into the midst of the group of caves, you feel the jealous eyes of the gathered primitives as they spy you and your catch. A sense of pride overcomes you, despite yourself, a primal and deep emotion as you step into your cave and see the lighted eyes of your mate at the sight of your fat prize. It is prepared and cooked instantly, and your stomach is full for the first time in this strange and primitive age. The skin is removed and hung to dry, and the rodent's organs and meats are cooked and wrapped in shreds of hide for future food and superstitious purposes.
Winter comes swiftly after. Though you manage to capture several small squirrel-creatures (they're more like cats than squirrels, you discover, though small and quick with a bushy tail), you don't manage to land another large catch before the real snows set in. The path to the forest quickly chokes with drifted snow, and soon it's all you can do just to gather firewood. You must work constantly to keep the mouth of your cavern free of packed snow, and often you and your fellows must drink much snowmelt to keep the grumbling of your stomachs from being too distracting. Despite your slightly larger stores of food, you don't have anywhere near enough to be comfortable for winter. You carve your bones and cure your hides and try to show your fellow tribesmen the more advanced things you might remember, but you find the memories of the being you were and the creature you've become almsot melding together as times goes on into an incomprehensible, instinctive soup. When winter breaks, you and your mate and your child have survived, though you are weaker and hungrier than you ever remember being. What's more, the creature who caused the drought of food has not been discovered, and the famine continues for many years, causing many deaths and more misery than you believed that any human (or humanlike ancestor) could possibly experience.
The walk back to your cavern is long, and it's deep into the night by the time you reach the bowl-shaped canyon. As you stride into the midst of the group of caves, you feel the jealous eyes of the gathered primitives as they spy you and your catch. A sense of pride overcomes you, despite yourself, a primal and deep emotion as you step into your cave and see the lighted eyes of your mate at the sight of your fat prize. It is prepared and cooked instantly, and your stomach is full for the first time in this strange and primitive age. The skin is removed and hung to dry, and the rodent's organs and meats are cooked and wrapped in shreds of hide for future food and superstitious purposes.
Winter comes swiftly after. Though you manage to capture several small squirrel-creatures (they're more like cats than squirrels, you discover, though small and quick with a bushy tail), you don't manage to land another large catch before the real snows set in. The path to the forest quickly chokes with drifted snow, and soon it's all you can do just to gather firewood. You must work constantly to keep the mouth of your cavern free of packed snow, and often you and your fellows must drink much snowmelt to keep the grumbling of your stomachs from being too distracting. Despite your slightly larger stores of food, you don't have anywhere near enough to be comfortable for winter. You carve your bones and cure your hides and try to show your fellow tribesmen the more advanced things you might remember, but you find the memories of the being you were and the creature you've become almsot melding together as times goes on into an incomprehensible, instinctive soup. When winter breaks, you and your mate and your child have survived, though you are weaker and hungrier than you ever remember being. What's more, the creature who caused the drought of food has not been discovered, and the famine continues for many years, causing many deaths and more misery than you believed that any human (or humanlike ancestor) could possibly experience.
