Author POV
100,000 years ago.
Location: unknown
"Kaach"
"Kaach"
"Kaach"
The sound of digging echoed in the darkness. A closer look revealed the diggers to be humanoids. Their skin colors vary, from being fair-skinned to medium-tan and pitch black.
Their hair colors varied between black, brown, red, and blonde. Their eyes varied between different colors too, their noses wide and crooked, their midface protruding outwards, and giving them a ghastly look.
They were simple-minded; though they had wisdom, it was used for doing things they already knew. Not being able to think beyond what their ancestors thought in the last hundred millenia led to their current condition of being controlled by a more advanced race.
"Kaach"
"Kaach"
"Kaach"
They kept on digging mindlessly, carving a mountain up; whether they were making a monument or statue wasn't clear yet.
Not far from them lied countless corpses, looking just like them, their bones sticking out from their bodies, with maggots crawling on their bodies.
Under the harsh and unkind sunlight, the bodies were decomposing fast. The site became a breeding ground for diseases, which would spread slowly to the diggers and bring their eventual doom.
No matter how strong and resilient their bodies were, they were still mortals.
The fate of mortals in the current time period wasn't good, to say the least.
"Thud"
A man with a haggard face collapsed to the ground, signaling the end of his life. With his legs completely rotten and worms crawling in and out of his pores, it's an achievement to be able to survive this long.
"Thud"
"Thud"
"Thud"
A series of sounds echoed one after another. More bodies kept falling lifeless; some of them fell from great heights, granting them a quick death. The rest were not so lucky, as they lied in the same spot, their bodies drained completely of energy, and all they could do was look at the harsh sun with dazed eyes as their flesh got cooked.
"Thud"
"Thud"
"Thud"
With the fall of the last body, there was utter silence at the site.
"Screech"
"Screech"
The predators in the air screeched for some unknown reason, their sharp eyes glaring at the freshly fallen corpses, and their talons flexed as if wanting to grab them, but there was some hesitation in their eyes.
"Screech"
With a screech, the vulture swooped down, intending to take a bite to soothe its hunger. The nearby vultures didn't follow it, their hesitation clearly visible in their eyes.
"Woosh"
The vulture tore through the air, managing to grab a portion of delicate and clean-looking flesh. It screeched in what seemed like joy. It flew away just as quickly as it dove down, wary of something terrible on the ground.
The remaining vultures didn't follow it; instead, they flew away from the vulture who swooped down, treating it like plaque.
The vulture didn't worry about being alienated; it only wanted to quell the fire of hunger.
"Kaach"
The sound of flesh being torn echoed from the nest. The ravenous vulture ate the whole chunk, and the remaining vultures hovered in the air, their gazes on the ravenous vulture, wanting to see its outcome.
"Screech"
With a delightful screech, the vulture cleaned its feathers with its beak, completely unaware of its doom.
The hovering vultures aimed their gazes on the nest, and soon the result they wanted arrived.
"Screeeeeech"
With an ear-piercing screech, the vulture went insane. It started pulling on its prized feathers, smashing its talons on the hard floor until they completely broke.
"Thud"
Eventually the pain became too much for the vulture to bear, and driven to madness, it mashed its skull on the hard rock.
With its death, the painful screeches stopped. But the decay continued. The once beautiful and fierce feathers turned pitch black before dissolving in a pitch black sludge. The talons and beak were next; their breakdown started slowly because they were made of tougher elements, and soon the black sludge spread to the rest of the corpse, coloring the entire nest in its miasma.
"Screech"
With a loud screech from the vulture flying at the center of the flock, all the vultures dispersed quickly, like they were running for their lives.
The diseases breeding here had become so deadly that even the vultures had learned to avoid them.
"Thud"
"Thud"
"Thud"
A series of footsteps sounded, and the last rays of sun illuminated another horde of ancient human subspecies, making their way slowly to the mountain.
The path they were trailing on was unstable, leading to many falling to their deaths. But they continued, uncaring about deaths.
As they arrived on the site, they slowly dispersed from their singular line and spread out. With dazed eyes, they carried the fresh corpses of their kin before throwing them off the mountain.
All along the process, there was no hesitation or mistake; the proficiency was so high that it seemed unnatural for the beings of this era to be so efficient.
"Thud"
With the last body disposed, the new horde picked up the fallen tools and continued digging in a systematic manner. Their individual actions might seem chaotic and without any order, but the action of the whole horde together seemed very precise, like they had a proper goal.
"Kaach"
"Kaach"
"Kaach"
Under the twilight, the digging continued, and under the caress of a cold breeze, they continued digging, completely unaware that their lives would end by the time the sun rose in the morning.
Then another horde will come after that to clean up the mess, before continuing the digging until the work is completed or until their masters are satisfied.