“It is as if the humans kept slicing into the umbilical cord that connected them to the womb of nature … until, after every possible concession to necessity… it snapped.

And then, they looked around in great confusion, trying to understand the causal factors from beyond themselves that surely must have resulted in this grave calamity.

Later, they would invent stories of this to ensure their progeny had medicine during times of great travail. But for the moment, they were without insight. Lost. Alone. Abandoned.

The parents had departed. And they did not return.”

— Old One-Tooth, circa 2032