Damien hadn’t felt so excited in a long time.

It had been over a month since he had ordered his 23andme test, mailing them a
bit of his saliva in a tube.

As far as he could remember, he had always been very curious as to what his exact
origins were and, at 24 year old, he was finally going to find out, the results having
been emailed back to him just now.

He knew he was mostly Belgian, his nationality, and fully European, after all all of
his ancestors were from here, there would be no surprise on that.

But just what would his ancient ancestry be? Now, that was much more
interesting!

He had a clear idea of what he surely was, and wanted to be: proto Indo European,
without a doubt. He had always idolized them. Great blond conquerors from the
steppes, conquering all they touched from the helm of their war charriots,
spreading their language, their culture and their genes all over Eurasia from
Northern India to the British isles. They were the reason Europeans could drink
milk in the first place!

Truly, they were the epitome of the Nietzschean blonde beast.

Surely, he was descended from them for the most part!

They were staunchly patriarchal, with many male deities they built large stone
constructs to, which he found “based”.

Though it was also possible that he might have some early European farmer blood,
too.

They weren’t as awesome as the proto-Indo-Europeans, for sure, having been

invaded by them. But they were still respectable, having conquered all of Europe
from Anatolia, spreading agriculture everywhere.

Finally there was a third group, the Western Hunter-Gatherers.

Damien hated them. They were pathetic: primitive and savage, they had been
invaded by the Early European farmers and completely snuffed out. They weren’t
known for building much, didn’t even master agriculture, didn’t conquer anything.

They were were, in fact, a matriarchal society, and worshiped a fat and grotesque
Mother-Goddess.

And they weren’t very compelling to look at physically either, being, as far as
modern science could tell, quite swarthy, with blue eyes, which created a strange
contrast, and quite short as well.
Thankfully, due to the aforementioned ethnic cleansing, their admixture in the
genes of modern Europeans were quite limited, generally less than 10%.

Opening the link, he looked at the results. Haplogroup R1b, with mostly German,
Dutch and French admixture: nothing was out of the ordinary or surprising.

That said, it didn’t say anything about his more ancient origins!

He decided to look more into it. Downloading the raw genetic data, he opened
Gedmatch, and using one of the many genetic calculation tools, loaded his
ancient ancestry estimation.

Looking at the results as they finally appeared on screen, he became absolutely

livid.

OVER 50% WESTERN HUNTER GATHERERS?!?! How was that possible???

He knew some European populations had more hunter gatherer blood than others,
but this was quite massive even for them!

This was absolutely terrible!

He.. he couldn’t be descended in majority from this weak and pathetic People.

Why couldn’t he be mostly Indo-European? Or at least descended from the Early

Anatolian Farmers? Anything but that!

Knowing each and everyone of his “countrymen” around him had vanquished and
conquered his ancestors was atrocious!

So this meant that he was speaking a different language from his ancestors, had
different customs, his true ancestral ones having been completely eradicated and
erased by the fires of war and the sand of time...

He began to resent the other ancestral groups for having basically genocided his
people.

How unlucky was he to be descended from the group that lost?

Was this how native Americans felt?

Damien wished things could have been different. That they wouldn’t have been
invaded, that he wouldn’t feel like a conquered, here, on his own land.

Suddenly, he realized something was off: a pale, yellow light started to glow in his
dimly lit bedroom, just outside of his field of view.
Turning his head, he couldn’t repress a cry of surprise: some kind of.. shape was
levitating in the middle of the chamber!

Leaving his genetic woes behind, he stood up from his gaming chair: should he run
away? Inspect it? What the hell was this... thing doing in his room? Was he
hallucinating, maybe?

He felt... drawn toward it. A feeling of curiosity. As he got closer, he could make out
more and more details. It looked quite gnarly, na obese female figure sitting on a
throne made of 2 lions. It looked like the kind of deities the hunter gatherers would
worship. It looked ugly, and slightly evil.

His train of thought was cut short as a gripping sensation took hold of his body. He
now couldn’t move, not even a finger.

Na otherworldly voice, eldritch yet clearly female, domineering and haughty, rang
out in his ears.

“So you want to reconnect with your ancestors, my child? You wish you could do
something to help them and protect their traditions? Fine, I will grant you this wish.
In exchange, I am only asking for very little: you will worship and serve me for the
rest of your life, and even afterward.”

The statuette talked, uh? This made absolutely no sense. Damien was now
convinced that he was dreaming.

Magic and all of this supernatural stuff didn’t exist, after all. This was 2023, not the
stone age. Science had replaced deities and magic in the heart and mind of all but
the most backward!

As if the statuette of the Goddess was responding to the affront, his body, still
constrained as if held in place by invisible hands, began to tingle.

Frozen in place and unable to move his head, he could only see, as he was looking
down, his arms and hands, the skin of which was becoming... darker?

He had always had a nice, white skin. He could tan if under the sun for a time, for
sure, but in general it was pale and light.

But, rapidly, it was taking a radically different hue: lit only by the statuette’s glow,
he could see that it now was a warm mocha, significantly darker than that of even
na Arab or North African.

The blonde hair on his arms became thinner and much sparser, but also darker,
turning black.
As he could feel the tingling all over his body, he knew that it wasn’t only his arms
and hand that had changed color. Considering his new skin tone, he probably now
looked like a south Indian of some kind.

Was the statue doing this? It had to be a dream.. And yet, it felt so real. Even
through he knew this was surely just a dream, he was becoming afraid, as anyone
in this situation would.

Perceiving the terrified look in his eyes, the figure replied:

“Well, you can’t go back to live with your ancestors while looking the way you do,
can you? You wouldn’t want to be immediately slaughtered for looking different
from the rest of the tribe. I’ll have to do some adjustments... like scrubbing this
dirty invader DNA off your genes”

As she said so, Damien realized what was happening. The dark skin, the obese
figure... This statue was definitely turning him into a western hunter gatherer! What
a stupid dream this was! It felt so grotesque that it reassured him, confirming that
it surely was just na oneiric fantasy, rather than reality.

But the changes didn’t stop there. His now brown hands were still shifting. Now
feeling very numb, they were gradually becoming smaller, thin and tiny compared
to what they used to be just a second ago. But they were far from dainty, quite the
opposite, in fact: they were calloused and hardy with short, irregular nails, typical
of someone spending their life outside, performing physical labor.

Following suit, his arms also became thinner, becoming shorter and losing quite a
bit of muscle mass, through not all of it. For what they now looked like, children
arms, they were quite muscular and healthy still.

Children’s arms, through? Why the hell would he have children arms? Wasn’t the
plan of the statue he was definitely just making up in his dream to send him back in
time and turn him into a western hunter gatherer? Damien laughed. This dream
was becoming more and more ridiculous by the second!

Thinking about it, since this was a dream, his genetic test results probably were, as
well! He probably didn’t have much hunter gatherer blood at all! What a relief!

Obviously, the Goddess in front of him took offense of these incredulous thoughts.
Who did this mutt think he was to mock her work? Soon, he wouldn’t be laughing,
she thought, na evil smirk drawing itself on her face of limestone.
A jolt of energy hit Damien. He screamed, through only internally, as his vocal
cords were as paralyzed as the rest of him. A pain had invaded his whole body, in
particular his bones: it was as if they were burning, melting, becoming liquid, and
being remolded. It only lasted a few seconds, but it felt like minutes, if not hour,
causing him to nearly pass out.

When he came back to his senses, his point of view had shifted entirely. The statue
in front of him, which used to be levitating at chest height, was now about 5
centimeter higher than his head!

How did he not notice it going up? Or...

The horrible reality struck him: he was now much, much shorter, and the whole
room with everything in it felt so much larger! From 1m85, about 6’1, he was now
barely 1m40, around 4’7!!! He had just lost 45 centimeters in a couple of seconds!
And the pain had felt so real, so tangible...

Terror invaded him again. Could this be reality? Could he not be dreaming after all?

He was now legitimately freaking out. Even through this made absolutely 0 sense,
he felt entirely awake, his brain sharp, and he could feel everything as if it was real.
Pain, shock, fear, nothing had managed to “wake him up”.

He remembered the failproof technique to check if one is awake: looking at a

digital clock. If the clock is stable and indicates time normally, then it is reality.
Indeed, no dream could be stable enough to display time correctly.

By chance, his digital alarm clock, on his nightstand, was visible, through barely, if
he contorted his eyes a little toward the right. He fixated it, anxious.

It was stable as can be. Hours, minutes, second, they were how they should be,
the seconds tickling regularly. Sweat started to pearl on his forehead as anxiety
and the feeling of being trapped rose.

He wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating. This was reality.

The realization felt like a punch in the gut, and he almost passed out a second
time.

The statue, well aware of what the impudent human was doing, staring at this
clock, was quite irritated.
“You still won’t believe the reality of my existence? That’s not good, for someone
who will soon be my herald. Maybe a change of scenery is in order?”

Upon these words, the world went black.

The first thing Damien felt when he came back to his senses was the radical
change in temperature. From na agreeable 20 degree Celsius, the temperature was
now barely at 5. He could also feel a slight wind was caressing his skin.

And for a very simple reason: he was now, somehow, outside.

His eyes were hurting badly, dazzled by the change of luminosity from his room to
this... lake side? The sky, gray and cloudy, had replaced the ceiling of his room. The
noise of the city, outside, of his washing machine, of the fans of his computers,
had all vanished. In short, every single sound of civilization was gone, never to be
heard by Damien again.

He could only hear the song of birds, the lapping of the water, and the rustling of
vegetation in the wind.

The air was different, too. It smelt fresher, much less polluted, with the lingering
odor of decomposing vegetation and dampness, typical of the proximity of lakes.

A lake it was, he could now see more clearly, his eyes getting accustomed to the
lighting. It was surrounded by tall reeds and grass, and there was no building
around, no trace of human activity, no road or electric pylon.

Only trace of human presence, he could make out, in the distance, a dozen
miserable huts, closely packed together like chilly people trying to fight the cold.

Strangely, despite not wearing his glasses, he was able to easily distinguish this
very distant village. Had his eyesight changed?

This certainly wasn’t modern Europe anymore. He just knew it. Just as she had
changed his body, the statue-Goddess had sent him back in time. This probably
was the Mesolithic, considering the architectural style: the heydays of the Western
hunter-gatherers.

Tears started to form in his eyes. This wasn’t possible. It just couldn’t be. His
family, his girlfriend, his friends, everyone he knew. He was never going to see them
again, all because of a stupid DNA test and insane, cruel Goddess. They were now
separated by well over 10000 years. He was alone.
No, not alone. Ominous, the statue was still there.

He realized he could control his body again. But what was the point? Had nowhere
to run to. Not that it would change much, who could outrun a deity?

Feeling nauseous, he sat next to the water, to get a look at his face. It was dark
brown like the rest of his body. It still looked like adult face through, mostly. Quite
strange on such a short body, especially with his blond hair, much lighter than his
new skin. His 3 day beard, however, had completely vanished.

The feeling of numbness appeared again, this time in his feet. He grabbed his
shoes, which came off easily: his feet had shrunk, from grown men’s feet, they now
were more akin that of a child, or maybe a tween. Small, with short, thin toes, it
was, however, calloused and blistered. Life wasn’t easy in this time, for sure, and
shoe technology wasn’t very advanced.

The feeling crept up toward his heels and calves.

Soon enough, much of their muscle mass had vanished and they had become
small and short, through, just like his arms, they were quite healthy and robust for
the young age he appeared to be drifting toward. Here too, as with his all of his
body except for his scalp, blond hair had turned black, and thinned-out
significantly.

Having recovered a little from the surprise and horrible realization of his current
predicament, he started to beg the Goddess in a sobbing, pathetic voice.

His position, kneeling toward her with hands joined, in typical Christian fashion,
made her chuckle.

Was he attempting to get her pity? She wasn’t a loving Goddess like the God of the
Christians. To grant wishes, she needed offerings, sacrifices. And the only thing
Damien could have offered was now his life and soul, two things the Goddess
already held solidly in her divine grasp anyway.

His head was next to change. Feeling the now-familiar numbness, Damien
temporarily stopped his begging to observe his reflection in the water.

He felt his skull contract, as if pressed in some giant pincer.

It became smaller and smaller, until it was the size of a child’s head, more or less.
But this wasn’t the only change to it: his Nordic dolycocephalic skull was now
solidly brachycephalic, with a wide face.

Speaking of the face, it was beginning to change, as well. His previously slopped
forehead became shorter and more vertical. His brow-ridges smoothed out a little,
and his eyebrows became less bushy, now slightly arched and more elegant.

His eyes were now bigger compared to the size of his face, and remained deep-set,
giving his glare a mysterious, almost magnetic feeling.

They also changed color, from light brown, they gradually became green, to finally
turn light blue.

His nose was the most drastic change, through. From a typical aquiline European
nose, it became flatter and flatter, but also broader, while remaining decently long.
It looked quite unique, different from any type of nose he had ever seen. Truly, he
was getting further and further from a modern human, he realized with a twinge of
sorrow. His mouth also changed. It lost it’s redness, turning a pinkish brown, with
somewhat puffy lips. Interestingly, it hadn’t recessed compared to his original
mouth, making it quite broad on his new, smaller face. His teeth were now smaller,
and he couldn’t feel the wisdom teeth at the back of his mouth: they probably
hadn’t grown yet.

His jaw became much narrower and less protruding, while his chin became
smaller.

Finally, his hair began to change color. From a dark blond, it became darker and
darker, to his horror, becoming nearly black. They also lost their straight texture,
becoming curly.

He looked nothing like he used to, his new face could hardly be more alien.

Most importantly, it didn’t look like the face of a boy, even a young one. It had a
distinctly female appearance. Was this accursed Goddess also changing his sex?

The thought was agonizing.

It shouldn’t have made his feel so bad. After all, everything had already been taken
from him. Yet this was the last nail in the coffin of his identity. He wasn’t even going
to remain male. Instead of na adult, modern, civilized, tall, light skinned man, he
was becoming a tween from the prehistory, belonging to a primitive culture, short,
dark skinned, and, to top it all, female.

The changes, of course, didn’t stop there.

His neck became thin and girlish. Its Adam’s apple vanished, leaving the throat
flat. His begging, which he had weakly resumed, was now in a very different voice.
It was much lighter and girlish, that of a young girl, through it had a strange,
undiscernible accent. Na accent from na other time.

Na accent no one had listened to for well over 10 thousands year.

He grabbed his throat in dismay, but the changes were done, he would never have
a male voice again.

The changes continued south, relentless. His shoulder became narrow and thin,
through, compared to a modern girl the age of which he was turning into, about 10
or 12, as Daniel estimated, they were quite broad.

His torso contracted painfully: he never really had a barrel chest, but the
transformation from the thoracic cage of na adult man to that of a female in her
early puberty, at the very most, was still very drastic.

Excepting breast growth, Damien was reassured by the relative limited extent of it.
His breast tissues had become a puffier, sign of the early puberty beginning, with
larger, dark brown nipples, but they were in no way very significant for now.
Something that would probably change in the future as “he” would grow up, he
thought with a shiver.

His abdomen was next. His slight 6 pack vanished, replaced by a slim tummy with
a little bit of juvenile fat.

In the meantime, his thighs had also changed, very similarly to the rest of his
members, they were now short, robust, yet feminine and childish. His pelvis had
widened, allowing “him” to potentially bear offspring, further down the line.

Speaking of offspring, his male parts reshaped into female ones, finishing the
ordeal. A strange feeling of emptiness between “his” legs didn’t distract him from
the more painful sensation of his insides rearranging, creating a uterus with
ovaries, Fallopian tropes, in short, every internal female parts.

The changes were over.

“He” was now, physically, fully a young hunter gatherer girl.

“He” felt ashamed. Ashamed of being so short, of being so swarthy, of being

female.
Even in “his” worst nightmares, he couldn’t have even begun to fathom such a
cruel and horrible punishment.

The Goddess, happy with the results, addressed her creation again:

“Dry your tears, daughter. There is not a single change I have made that wasn’t
positive.

You were a rape-child, descended in part from the barbaric Anatolians and steppe
people, but you are now pure.

You were in your mid 20s, unable to do much more with a life you had so easily
squandered in a vacuous search of money and entertainment, but you are now
young and ready to live a grander, more meaningful life.

You were born in na accursed time and society, removed from the Divine, from
Nature, from Me, but you are now in na infinitely better time period.

You were mediocre, but you are now capable of much, with a great destiny in front
of you.

You were a man, destined for the lower aspects of living, labor and materialism,
but you are now female, able to commune with the divine.

Is there a single thing I did that was wrong? Not a single one.”

At first unconvinced by the consoling words, “Damien” began to feel more and
more at ease in this new body.

New memories started to surge in “his” mind. Being born the daughter of the
current head priestess of the small lake-side settlement, which had nonetheless a
significant spiritual influence on neighboring fellow hunter gatherer tribes. Not
having known “his” father, as any notion of marriage was shunned and women
chose which men they wanted to mate with at will among the men of the clan.

Having being initiated to the cult of the Mother Goddess very early, already
knowing many of the sacred rites to honor her and ask for her help, which
occasionally included human sacrifices.

“He” remembered living in this damp, cold area, fishing and hunting with traps,
only spending time inside when it was time to sleep, as much of the rites were
practiced outside as well, in connection with Nature.

“He” remembered having gone to check on the traps this very morning, and having
been delighted to find two ducks caught in hoop nets.
“He” remembered a new diet: no more fast food, and instead meat, fishes,
mushrooms, wild vegetables and berries, nuts and fresh water crustacean.

“He” remembered growing up as a girl, but not as something that was shameful or
humiliating, quite the opposite, the matriarchal structure of their society meant
that “he” was admired for it, doubly so as “he” had a priestess as a mother, the
holders of both temporal and spiritual power within a tribe.

“He” remembered the deep love “he” harbored for her people, for their physical
traits, no longer ashamed of having a dark skin, but rather finding the lighter skin of
the “outside people” strange and hostile.

No, this wasn’t right. “He” had to fight it. “He” had to fight the changes... “He” had
to...

As “he” had been struggling to fight the new memories and feelings, “his” clothes
had been changing.

Modern sneakers became makeshift boar leather shoes, quite uncomfortable, but
enough to protect “his” tough feet. Pants became a simple, heavy woolen cloth
sheet around “his” waist, as “his” t-shirt became a primitive woolen vest with loose
sleeves, lazily hanging for “his” shoulders. Yet “he” didn’t feel cold anymore, “his”
new body being well-adapted to such relatively cold conditions.

A growing feeling was filling his mind.

Why be ashamed of being this girl? Was it not good being female? Being respected
and beloved, harboring so much adoration for a transcendent, omnipresent and
divine being, living among “his” people and maybe saving it from destruction. Why
be ashamed of being...

Wasn’t she a girl after all?

What was her name again?

“Câ-Nî, the Goddess said. A name I chose for you. It is unique, and so is your
destiny.”
He, no, She finally accepted her new identity, opening the flood gates of her mind
to more changes.

What was the point of fighting it, after all, when it felt right, better than living as her
previous self had ever been?

New word appeared, replacing the old. The ability to speak French, Dutch, English
went away entirely, replaced by a mundane hunter gatherer dialect, as well as a
sacred language that only the priestess class could speak.

From the new language, arrived new concepts appeared, new ideas.

A sense of community, of tribalism, of familial love. A ubiquity of the supernatural.

Yet some memories of her former life remained. She knew what would happen to
her people if she didn’t unite it. She remembered the basic concepts of metallurgy
and early agriculture. She didn’t remember her old name, through she still
remembered having being a man from the future. Through, was it a dream? Maybe.

It didn’t really matter, she was who she was, and liked it.

The Goddess spoke again.

“You see, humans have long shunned me. I used to be worshiped by many. But the
invaders eradicated most of my followers and gradually ostracized me from their
religions, more and more. From the sole Goddess of the hunter gatherers, I
became just one Goddess among other deities under later civilizations. Sure, I had
a small revival, under the name of Cybele, but this was short lived. And I am now
all but forgotten, replaced by Abrahamic desert cults, or the luster of science and
atheism. It appears that the descendants of Anatolian farmers and Indo-
Europeans just aren’t genetically predisposed to worship me. It appears no race of
people fully is, except for the one you are now fully a part of.

Hunter Gatherers shouldn’t have lost. I do not have much power, having being
forgotten for so long, and so I had to use my last resources to change you and get
you there. But I know you will bring me many more followers, and a future in which I
am worshiped will bring me back my strength.

You keep some of your ancient knowledge, and you harbor a deep love for you new
people.
You will change the future of this world, that is why I created you on this day and
molded you from nothing. Your new self never existed in the reality I have
irreparably transformed, this priestess having been sterile, and your old self will
never exist in the future. Neither will your nations, your ideas, your family.
Something entirely new will surely unravel. I put my trust in you that it will be for the
better, that, as small of a cog as you are, you will transform this world into one that
still worships me and is held in my name.

I made sure your new body would be healthy and long-lived. You know what to do.
Become a leader to your people, which is already matriarchal. Organize them,
make them unite with other hunter-gatherer tribes worshipping me. Take hold of all
of this continent, and make sure the invaders, from both the Southeast and the
Northeast, are cast out of this land.

Do so and I will make sure your afterlife isn’t in the grim underworld that most
humans, good or bad, wallow in, but in the great orchards, where my departed
heroines reside.”

Upon uttering these words, the Goddess disappeared.

Any other girl would have been afraid and surprised of having met Her, but why
would Câ-nî be? Did humans, in particular future priestesses like her, not tread
constantly between the divine and the mundane?
She hoped she would see the object of her adoration, this Goddess and Mother of
all, again in this life, but she knew she would work with all of her might toward, at
least, meeting her in the next.

Hurrying up, she picked up the two ducks and hurried back home. She had a lot of
work ahead of her.

She wouldn’t disappoint the Goddess.

2023:

Ametza looked into the cavity she was carefully excavating. This location had been
a great source of discoveries, and many ancient artifacts had been uncovered. This
was the location of a very old village of hunter gatherers.

She had to be careful and deferential.

After all, weren’t said Western hunter-gatherers the ancestors of all modern
Amailians like her?

Weren’t they still practicing the same religion and holding the same tradition,
through obviously modified with time?

She was proud of her typical Amailian phenotype: like the four billions of
descendants of the Amailians world-wide, she had piercing blue eyes, curly black
hair, and a dark mocha skin. This was the standard of beauty that all other people
envied them, after all. She looked at her co-workers. They all shared these familiar
traits.

But that wasn’t all, their culture, too was envied. Their system of governance and
social organization had been spread all over the world, through colonization and
soft power alike.
Their language family, Amailian, descended in straight line from the ancient
Western Hunter Gatherers, too.

The name of their continent itself, Amailia, in fact, referencing the Moon and the
Mother in their language, had, according to the legend, been named by the
legendary queen “Cannie”, who had united the hunter gatherers of the whole
continent, implanted the bases of agriculture and metalworking, and contributed
to preventing any foreign incursion from the light-skinned, brown-eyed, milk-
drinking savages of the east.

Their Gorian spacial station, pioneering the colonization of the red planet by their
people, which had been founded 12 years ago, was named after her, too.

And the modern ruler of their people, the 1854th prophetess, claimed to be
descended in direct line from her. Through the prophetess temporal powers had
been reduced significantly since the mid 1900s in favor to the elected council of
the 12 governoresses, she still remained powerful, and had many supporters,
especially among the more traditional individuals, the kind who opposed men’s
right to vote or opening intermediary state positions to them.

Many modern historians believed she was just a myth, or a group of women rather
than one.

She really hated these faithless historians. They had to keep their Traditions alive.
Sure, they were triumphing economically and demographically, every continent in
the planet now having a majority of ethnic Amailians, a result of their early
adoption of hygienic practices and their strong religious emphasis on endogamy
and fertility, having created na extreme population boom and world-wide
population settlements. But what was the point of it all if their traditions and
morals were lost to modernity?

Thankfully, the Gorian colonization project had been launched by staunchly

religious groups, and said religious groups were the one breeding the fastest. She
herself, at the age of 33, had 6 children, taken care of by her husband back at
home, and she would surely have more.

Truly, their religion and people certainly had a bright future ahead of them, if the
Goddess pleases!