What annoyed the others about my use of the time machine was my lack of interest in dates. I was more interested in finding a specific moment. A concept.
‘What if you try to go there, and it does not even exist?’ Said my colleagues. But I had done my research. I knew I was onto something.
I had researched as many sea gods as possible. All had various tropes that matched, but no one entity emerged as the original. Instead they appeared to have fragmented. Human beings had snapped off ideas of a core concept, and split them down as we moved across the planet.
But that suggested there was a starting. A point where the sea gods began.
This is what I wanted to discover. To find a point of reality beyond stories.
I found it. The moment where mythology kicked off. A lake foggy with algae and mosquitoes. The air humid, richer with more oxygen than I have ever known.
A head emerged from the water. Emerald scales surrounded dozy, yellow eyes. A noise somewhere between a yawn and a croak emerged from a sloppy mouth.
This could not be the godhead. This could not be everything we had been waiting for.
The head creaked downwards, dripping hot saliva onto my face. In a few seconds the creature swallowed me up, and gained the ability to travel.
