Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Infection for +Karen Shackles


They came from the sky. Thousands of them; too small to do damage, although large enough to be noticed. The astronomers never thought they would make it through the atmosphere, but they did; pebble-like, the size of a penny, burying themselves in whatever they hit.

The fatalities were minimal, luckily. Very few people were hit, and many of those that did survived. We thought it was over.

We were wrong.

As the years passed and life continued as though nothing had happened (aside from another mark on our calendars), we noticed changes. People, those struck by the objects, began acting strangely. They developed fevers; began striking out at there fellow man. A few went on sprees, killing and maiming whomever they came across.

We thought perhaps something in the objects... the Seeds, as people were beginning to call them... was driving them insane. And we were right, in a sense; but we did not know that until later.

The study of the victims and the seeds began in earnest. They tried to pluck them out, but found their dubbing had been more accurate than at first suspected; the seeds had joined with their nervous system, rewiring it for... something.

An EEG revealed new brain waves in operation, confusing and perhaps corrupting original thought patterns. We assumed these came from the seeds themselves, that they were some kind of intelligent parasite. If so, this would be at once a terrible and wonderful thing, as it would prove we were not the only intelligent species in the universe.

Again, we were wrong.

Have you ever wondered about the planet? Earth, a wonderful place, the only spot in the entire universe to
support intelligent life. Over the years we have fed from it, blown holes in it, dug in it, survived on it; which in itself is fine, as that is what it is here for; to nurture.

But what happens when your children get greedy? What happens when the punishment doesn't work? What happens when you get an infection that won't go away?

You strike back. You take antibiotics. You kill the infection off.

My name was Billy in a past life. I lived in Georgia. I was one of those infected. We survived because we were infected. The seeds grew in the planet and in us, binding us all together into a single entity. We survived because we rid the world of its infection.

404 words, 15 minutes

3 comments:

  1. *For the curious, my thought process:*

    The picture looked like it should be part of a living thing. I started there.

    Then I thought about what it could be. A cut, a gash in a living planet, healing itself over time.

    I thought, perhaps someone could be caught in it as it slowly healed.

    And then I thought about infections.

    At first I though I would be having a planet, alive, consuming the earth and fighting off infection. This is what I ended up with.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Daemon: Wow. When I read, I almost always envision the actors who'd play the parts in the movie. Corny, maybe. But that's what I do.

    Good story! Of course, I wanna see more. A lot more. It reminded me of "War of the Worlds". "...when your children get greedy..." especially intrigued me.

    If you did this 404 words in a quarter hour, I'd love to see what you can do in a frenzied weekend of writing...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you! I'm working on the book collection now. Maybe a revised version of this will get in it?

    ReplyDelete