Crack... crackle...
The campfire was still going strong. The clan sat around the flames, silent, watching the guy who had been bitten by the coral snake.
He was a goner.
Coral snakes are bad news, especially the ones with those red, yellow, and black bands. The worst part is the bite doesn't even hurt at first. You think you're fine, then a few hours later, the neurotoxins kick in and shut down your lungs.
The guy was already wheezing, his muscles twitching and locking up in a way that was hard to watch. He let out a series of wet, garbled groans—he was begging them to end it.
Everyone turned to look at a man built like a brick tower.
This was Dare, the leader of this small group. He was their best hunter: strong, smart, and the kind of guy people actually listened to. He stood up, walked over to the dying man, and whispered something low.
The guy's expression finally relaxed.
Then, Dare pulled a stone-tipped spear from his belt and drove it straight through the man's heart. Quick and Clean without Mercy.
The rest of the clan didn't waste time. They grabbed crude stone shovels and headed out to a clearing near the cave. This was their graveyard. They buried their dead deep to make sure scavengers like Terror Birds or hyenas didn't come digging for a snack.
Dare stood off to the side, wiping the blood off his spear. Death was just another Tuesday for these people. Hunting accidents, predators, sickness, tribal wars—the Reaper was always leaning over their shoulders. But that constant threat just made them want to survive even harder.
These weren't just random cavemen. These were the Clovis people, the ancestors of the Native Americans.
About 15,000 years ago, the glaciers started melting and revealed a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska—the Bering Land Bridge. The Clovis people trekked across that bridge, covering over 12 million square kilometers in the biggest intercontinental migration in human history.
Within a few hundred years, they had spread from Alaska all the way down to South America. They were specialized hunters with their own language and a social system that actually worked.
Their calling card was the "Clovis Point"—a stone spearhead with razor-sharp edges and a unique groove for mounting. With these tools, even things that big cats wouldn't touch—like Mammoths, Giant Ground Sloths, and Camels—became dinner.
In the Pleistocene, these "naked apes" were the scariest predators on the planet.
That evening, the cave was loud. The clan was dancing and shouting around the fire, celebrating a successful haul.
At the cave entrance lay a blood-soaked Woodland Musk Ox. It wasn't dead yet, but its legs were shattered. It just lay there, its huge eyes filled with terror as it watched the tiny, two-legged monsters jumping around. It couldn't understand how things less than a fifth of its size had become its worst nightmare.
"Wu-wah-wah!!"
Dare let out a sharp bark, giving the order. A few younger men stepped forward and grabbed the ox by its horns.
"Mooo~~"
The ox let out a frantic, desperate low.
Shua—!
The men pulled out flint knives and drove them into the beast's neck. With one heavy, sawing motion, they opened the throat and took the head clean off. The ox's eyes stayed open, frozen in a final look of shock.
As soon as the head hit the dirt, the clan cheered. It was time to eat.
Some of them picked up the head to drink the warm blood pouring from the neck. Others hacked off chunks of meat, skewered them on sticks, and held them over the fire. Some didn't even bother with the cooking—they just started gnawing on raw steak like it was a side dish.
The hunting dogs—essentially domesticated grey wolves—got their share, too. They were big, mean, and loyal, and they tore into their beef rewards with a frenzy.
Eventually, the party died down. It was getting dark.
The exhausted hunters spread out animal skins and dried grass on the cave floor. A few of the bigger guys teamed up to push a massive boulder in front of the entrance, sealing it tight against the night.
The cave went silent and dark.
Outside, in the canyon, the wind picked up. Scavenger birds circled high above. The scent of fresh blood lingered in the air, drifting out over the plains.
Far to the west, the sun finally sank below the horizon, red as a fresh kill.