The Vanished Epoch

Imagine leaving on a trip that will take 140,000 years to complete

The starship Eryndor gleamed faintly against the cosmic dark, its hull etched with scars from a 140,000-year voyage. Launched from Mahasthana, the greatest city of its era, a bustling river port on the fertile delta of what would later be called Bangladesh, it carried the ambitions of a civilization lost to time. Its mission: to explore Proxima Centauri, plant humanity’s flag, and return with wonders. The crew, preserved in cryosleep, had no idea their world had been erased.


Captain Ayesha Rao stirred first, her breath misting the cryopod’s surface. The ship’s AI, SOMA, spoke evenly: “Approaching Sol System, June 3, 2025. Earth orbital insertion in 48 hours. Systems optimal.” Ayesha’s mind flickered to Mahasthana—its reed-lined rivers, clay towers glowing in dawn light, the hum of markets thick with cardamom and fish. Home, 140,000 years distant.


The crew of 12—scholars, builders, dreamers—awoke, gathering at the observation deck as Earth swelled into view. But it was wrong. The planet shimmered with unfamiliar lights, jagged landmasses framed by too much ocean. No signals answered their hails. No trace of Mahasthana’s delta beacon.


“SOMA, locate Mahasthana,” Ayesha commanded, unease creeping in.


“Scanning,” SOMA replied. “No matching coordinates. Region submerged. Sea level elevated approximately 200 meters.”


Dr. Elias Chen, the geologist, pulled up the data, his eyes narrowing. “This isn’t our Earth. The coasts are… gone. And these lights—what are they?”


In orbit, they saw it: where Mahasthana’s delta should have sprawled, there was only sea, glinting under a 2025 sun. The crew scanned globally—cities they’d never known, like Dhaka, Miami, Tokyo, were half-drowned or missing. Strange, sprawling metropolises blinked with electric grids, but none matched their world’s patterns. Humanity existed, but it wasn’t theirs.


“SOMA, reconstruct the timeline,” Ayesha ordered.


The AI sifted geological and atmospheric data. Its report chilled them. Around 137,000 years ago, a barrage of asteroids had struck Earth, triggering cataclysmic tsunamis that obliterated coastal civilizations like Mahasthana. Volcanic eruptions followed, blanketing the skies in ash, collapsing societies in a frozen dark. As the planet warmed, melting ice caps raised seas, erasing their cities’ foundations. Humanity had survived, rebuilt, but 140,000 years had buried Ayesha’s people in mythless oblivion.


They landed near the submerged ruins of their delta, on a high ridge overlooking the Bay of Bengal. The air was warm, thick with unfamiliar smells—petroleum, salt, distant industry. Below, waves lapped over where Mahasthana’s markets once thrived. No trace remained—no pottery, no stone, no echo of their tongue.


Zara Khan, the navigator, clutched a handful of alien soil. “These people… they’re not us. Skyscrapers, machines, languages we can’t understand. We’re strangers here.”


Ayesha gazed at a distant city—Dhaka, SOMA called it—its towers alien yet hauntingly familiar. The Eryndor held their culture’s seeds, texts, and genes. “We’re not strangers,” she said. “We’re their roots, forgotten. We’ll learn this world, share what we carry, and find a place in it.”


Under a 2025 sky, they stepped into a present not their own, ghosts of a drowned past carrying the embers of a lost dawn.