The First Night

A mild and cool wind blows all across the grassy plains which stretches to the distant horizon in all directions. 

"It's weird to see no skyscrapers or any sort of human activity. Perhaps my old head can't change to fit its surroundings," looking around, Kyriaki's heart rate increased with the joy of freedom and the unknown around him. "Though I would absolutely love to go around and explore randomly, sourcing water, food and shelter would be the priority for now." 

My old body has an internal temperature of around 36°C and judging from the landscape and the temperature right now, I should be in a grassland biome—a savanna probably. That's good. It's not too hot during the day nor it is too cold at night. 

After confirming what kind of biome he was in, he searched around his memories to try and remember what kind of animals and plants lived in savannas when he was taking geography classes during his time as a student. He barely remembered anything though, but some key points such as where water is usually found and some meaty animals that roamed the biome. As he set off walking, a sudden realisation came to him.

"Oh no..." he mumbled. "I don't think water should be affected by time... but animals and plants will." groaning, he sat down on a large bolder to reorganise his plans and thoughts. 

Tsk. How come I didn't come to that realisation before?! I am stuck two million years in the past, which means the climates, animals and plants would be tremendously different compared to what I learned and know! Sigh. No matter. As our ancestors did, I shall experiment with everything I come across. And if I record them down in my notebook, I should be fine for later lives. And speaking of later lives, does it automatically give me a new body or something like that? I don't think my old body can handle things any longer. 

Kyriaki debated with himself whether to either continue in his old and frail body or commit suicide to get a new body to work with. But unknown factors such as the body's age and location of where the new body would be granted to him made Kyriaki stick to his current body until it died of old age. 

"I must find my location asap. Otherwise, I lose all the progress I made with this body and will be unable to recover it. And with that said, I think I have reorganised my plans. Let's get going!"

For hours on end, he walked around, recording animals, plants and the landscape with his knowledge of them and other bits of information written down. It wasn't until it was four hours until sundown that Kyriaki made his way into a small yet comfortable cave on the side of a stone hill where he set up base for the night.

He used his remaining time of light to hunt some birds and gather some water and firewood to survive the first night. 

He used his short sword to bleed out the birds and remove the feathers and organs before roasting them on the fire. 

"Let's see..." he said, reading his notebook again. "I have covered a distance of around sixty km, with an area of around two hundred km2. To the north of here is a large lake, probably one forty km2 in surface area, and to the west of here is a forest, strangely enough. And to the south and east of here is basically nothing. The lake is not stagnant and is fresh water so I have a reliable water source for now, and the forest has plenty of plants, animals and fungi that I could eat. That god is kind enough to drop me off where it has fresh water and food—in abundance too. Maybe I should worship him for that or something. Ha-ha-ha!" he jokingly said. "Oh, the bird is ready. Let's eat then." 

 Kyriaki stepped outside as he was eating to examine the stars. A long, colourful and bright string cut through the night sky, shining with yellow, pink, purple and blue. 

"No wonder the people of old enjoyed going to remote areas just to look up at the sky. Truly a breathtaking view." 

A faint glow of yellow and orange would be seen on the horizon which helped Kyriaki determine the cardinal positions of East and West. But finding North would be tough. The North Star, Polaris is what Kyriaki is trying to find to find north. However-

"The tilt of the Earth when I learnt it was around 23.5 degrees. And if we are two million years in the past... that's around forty-seven periods of shifting the tilt... then the tilt should be roughly 24 degrees. Though I think I made some wrong calculations, eh, whatever. First, I need to find the Big Dipper, Ursa Minor and the Little Dipper, Ursa Minor to find an area of the sky to search for Polaris." 

He carefully examined the sky, looking for bright and large stars in the sky. Before long, he had found it, near the horizon. 

"There it is. It's in an unexpected location in the sky though. Near the horizon would mean I would be somewhere close to the equator of the Earth. Great information to have. But now Ursa Minor should be a little up... ah, there it is. And so... the North Star, Polaris should be right next to it!" 

A bright and large star. The most important star in the night sky for most of human civilization, Polaris, the North Star.

"This way is north. Which means the opposite direction is south." Recording that in his notebook, he returned to his cave and finished off the bird he had cooked up. He slept on the cold and hard ground of the cave with the fire still burning for warmth. He used his lab coat as a blanket and before long, the drowsiness took over and he fell asleep. 

...

Kyriaki woke up at the crack of dawn. The fire was mostly gone but still had some smoke. He added some dried leaves to the fire and managed to save it. 

"I'm a bit tired but my water supplies in this cave are running low and I have to hunt for food again. If this continues I don't think my body can handle it anymore. Maybe I should indeed commit suicide to gain a new body. I got the location of this place so I should be able to find it again. I think it's fine even if I don't find this place again," He looked at his short sword. "Well, here goes nothing." he said. 

Stabbing the short sword into his chest, Kyriaki felt a dull sense of pain coming from it before not feeling anything soon after. A blanket of warmth covered him and he opened his eyes. He looked around to see it was the same cave where he was before and all of his things, notebook, pen, short sword and energy orb were all in his bag. He stared at the floor, examining his legs, feet, arms and hands. 

"From the looks of it... I'm in my early twenties. Perfect," he said. "Oh? My voice is different also. Interesting." he pulls out his notebook to note down everything he felt, smelled, heard or saw while getting his new body. 

Right, come to think of it, humans should be here as well. I'm in the early Pleistocene era, so... Homo... homo... homo what again? Sapiens is us, Erectus? No. There were a few more in the Homo genus before Erectus. Rudolfensis? Maybe...

Kyriaki searched through his memories. "No, it's Homo Habilis!" he suddenly cried out. That means they are pretty ape-like with longer arms for climbing and swinging. And if it's two mya, then Homo Erectus should be present as well! 

A while later, with the exciting chance to study early and extinct humans, he does his daily tasks in preparation for the night with joy. And combined with his new young body, he finishes those tasks all within an hour. 

"Alright, I'm done with the preparation for the night, so let's get exploring." he says. 

Heading south with the goal of making more progress and mapping out the terrain before heading east to do the same, Kyriaki burns with even more passion than ever before.

"Ooh! A new plant that I have never seen before!" he hurriedly runs towards the plant, squatting down and examining it. After sketching the plant, he looks for some signs of poison, which he finds to be none. "The leaves are quite large... smooth as well. The stem is rather quite thick for a plant around 60 cm tall. Very interesting indeed."

Kyriaki was enjoying his time examining the plant but he was interrupted by sudden loud screams of pain, grunts and the sound of weapons clashing. 

Hm? Those screams sound like apes... humans?!

Kyriaki quickly stood up and made his way to the source of the sounds. And what he saw was amazing. 

Both sides are not wearing any clothing and they look like apes as well. One side looks a bit different compared to the other... could it be that Homo Habilis and Homo Erectus are fighting each other? If so, then let me record every detail there is to this fight! Truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! 

The fight lasted for over thirty minutes. Both sides were quite evenly matched, with each having around forty-five members. Eventually, the side with less hair on their bodies with shorter arms and longer legs won the fight. Homo Erectus won. 

Oh? Homo Erectus won. That's interesting. Only thirteen of them are left. Oh. I guess they were fighting over food.

Kyriaki saw the Homo Erectus carry large animals away and he decided to follow them. Why? Because it was his nature as a researcher of the future. It isn't every day a person from the modern world gets to study extinct and ancient human species. That is why.