Science, religion, old scriptures, or urban legends, all failed to explain it. No one knew how the creature obtained the unexplainable gift of endless respawn and what seems to be an infinite lifespan. All we know is the same old ritual we were obsessed with for thousands of years in the Spire colony, taking place precisely every fifty years in the thick of the northern forest under the full moon. We called it the Respawn Ceremony.
Spire, a remote earth-like planet in a densely populated solar system with twenty-four other planets, orbiting Alpha Trianguli Australis, the brightest star in the southern constellation of Triangulum Australe, 390 light-years from Earth, celebrated the respawn with a unique tribal ceremony few would dare follow. Every fifty years, the colony priest elders would gather the chosen new generation of priests who will serve the colony for the next fifty years and travel to the forest clearing where the creature always respawns.
The elder priests would sit in a circle around the massive flat rock where the creature skeleton would rest while the young ones would sit behind them, handing the ceremonial psychoactive brew to the elders who play the drums faster and faster toward the respawn moment. An hour before the respawn, the young priest would retreat toward the colony, leaving the drumming elders behind to their fate as the creature respawn back to life for another fifty years cycle.
One life ends, another begins.
