Greece - 2407 BC

The others ran away, leaving the boy alone on the beach, compelled by the events around him. Almost rooted to the spot as though he had some higher reason to be there.

As though destiny had ordered him to stay.

The smell became so strong that he had to block his nose. Then the rumbling started. Quiet at first but building in volume with every passing second.

Then, the gentle lapping of the waves upon the shore was drowned out by the most violent and almighty crash. Three hundred metres out to sea, there was a massive upsurge of water, as though the most immense stone had fallen into the water and displaced huge volumes at great speed.

Except that wasn’t quite right. Nothing had been dropped into the sea. Something had appeared within it. Sending vast volumes of water and rock away from the seabed.

The boy was thrown off his feet, the ground rising up as the displaced bedrock was forced aside by the spaceship, which sat in the water. In an instant, the rock had been exposed to such violent frictional forces that the high temperatures boiled and fused it into molten lava, which in turn came into contact with the water, boiling the area around it and shooting massive columns of steam into the air.

A fast rising wave began to surge towards the shore, and the boy, stricken with fear turned and ran over to the cave. As the wave chased him up the beach he ran as fast he could and shot into the cave, running for his life. Nobody saw him alive again.

The accommodation module became trapped in the rock and instantly stopped rotating.

The spacecraft began to sink slowly into the sea, and soon vanished without trace. The crew inside trapped forever.

But the boy saw the ship, and he saw the word written on its side in bold black letters.

His lifeless body was found the next day washed up on the shore. Near to where he lay were the markings he had made in the cave wall with a stone.

The markings. One word. The meaning of which bore no meaning to any of those who found him.

The men of the village carried the boy back to his family home where his father wept for three months and three days, and the boy’s mother, who was pregnant with child, wept at his side for the loss of their son.

But before the year was out, their new child was born, and their lust for life started anew. The child was a boy. And the final meaningless word - carved by his late elder brother in the stone on the beach - was to be their new child’s name.

The boy had seen the name of the star-bird that now rested beneath the waves. That name was Daedalus.

His newborn brother would grow to become a great architect.

He would be a legend. Because his name had been sent from the Gods.

THE END