The Foundation's Mysterious Key

Humanity has existed for nearly a million years, but only the last 4,000 have mattered.

So what were we doing for nearly 25,000 years? We hid in caves, huddled around tiny campfires, afraid of the things we didn't understand: explanations for how the sun rose, monsters with human heads and bird bodies, and stones that were alive. So we called them "gods" and "nightmares," and begged them for forgiveness and prayed to them to save us.

After that, their numbers dwindled while ours grew. As the things we feared became fewer, we began to see the world more rationally. Yet the unexplained things never disappeared, as though the universe deliberately wanted to show us how absurd and incomprehensible it could be.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental. Please do not imitate.