Prologue: In-between
Perspective is everything.
When I sat on the most comfortable textures I had experienced in my 58 years I couldn’t help but just acknowledge I was still in a prison cell. They smiled in this strange ethereal way, their teeth a bit too glossed, bright white, face angles too sharp. And they said it would be okay, it would be an honor. But in all honesty after three weeks of letting the panic sink in I felt like cattle. I was nothing more than human fodder.
I remember 20 years ago when my father first told us that we were making contact with the middle of the country. They dominated almost the entire land of the previous United States with borders that were almost impenetrable and they wanted to make contact beyond killing every emissary that we tried to send.
If it hadn’t been for the cities, if it hadn’t been for the technology and resources we had, I could scarcely imagine what this country of dreams would have turned into.
First it was more simple. Stand in front of the camera stark naked with an all white sterile room as they took pictures, they were simply documenting, waiting. And the change in my diet I appreciated, I hadn’t eaten the healthiest of foods for all of my years, it was why my body was not proportional to those in advertisements. Greens, fruits, white meats, grains, very healthy.
And then came the supplements. And the exercise, the training, relentless but I could feel my body get stronger My perspective was appreciative, I still believe I was chosen. I missed my family but I would see them at some point again, a better person, more of who I wanted to be.
I would go home to my family and watch their eyes light up for the first time in years, the first time in years! I wasn’t craving drinks anymore, and I could feel strength coming back into my confidence.
And at Day 45 they had me hold up a sign saying “maximal human health 2013” with my edited stats; height, weight, etc. I didn’t look like a shred of my past self, the waste that I had become. When they compared my Day 1 photo to what I looked like then, I couldn’t help but keep staring at the mirror. The only time I looked away was when I noticed her almost human smile with the radioactive eyes alight looking at my form.
Yet then they came out with a syringe the size of my forearm. They tested it for air and I swear I could feel the heat from the glowing green liquid almost across the room. Well then I don’t need to educate anyone about how terrified I was, but my mind told me first that they hadn’t hurt me so far. Yet I didn’t realize then that the smiles were plastered on the exact same way for the past 1080 hours.
All of my protests were silenced with “it was all in the fine print” repeated over, and over, and over. They said I was one of their special subjects, they wouldn’t let me come close to mortality, and in all probability I was probably running in the other direction. I didn’t notice how they kept saying probably with an almost lilt. After a concentrated injection into my spine and just passing out from feeling the heat hit every aspect of my bloodstream? The lingering terror I had been feeling since Day 1 of the Worst Case Scenario set in.
I woke up on that same comfortable texture strapped down, with what must have been pounds of my own skin shed off next to me. Eventually I tried the same foods, the same exercise routines, and I did better. That’s an understatement. The different was exponential. And when the full length mirror came back into the room I was terrified. I looked the spitting image of myself from when I was in my late twenties. I had been a wasted, skeleton of demons cloaked in human skin, my hair didn’t even grow in it’s original brown.
When they asked me how I felt on the camera with my Day 60 sign I could only stutter and say amazing.
I saw the commercial they showed the world, it was brilliant. All of the special projects they had been training, feeding were shown in fast forward from Day 1 to Day 90, and the results were just fantastic. Every health board seemed to be supporting the product. They called it the evolution serum, and it spread like a plague, almost completely free.
By the end of 365 days about 76% of the world had participated, even children were given it, with just a healthier chance on life.
Evolution serum eliminated disease, a great percentage of death, and reversed even some of the most terrifying illnesses in the world.
By year 2 it was mandated world wide, and when the 95% tally finally appeared on screen at our facility only then did the smiles of our keepers changed. They didn’t have the smile of consoling yet charming people trying to teach and foster someone else, they had the smiles of conquerors.
A statistic somehow made it onto the airwaves about how birthrates had gone down 55% without most noticing, I’m sure they somehow orchestrated that too.
And then the big ticker was once the 5th year came, to the day of the started trials, 90% of the worlds population died out, and the only technology that worked was theirs. They covered it up, called it a lie, yet we knew better. We watched their plans slowly come into fruition from behind the scenes, knowing we could do nothing.
I sincerely believe I am one of the largest traitors to the human race though, that I have no doubt. I was one of their first guinea pigs, their servant, the cattle. I said yes for what, youth and money? How ridiculous do I think that is now? Well it is a perspective I hate myself more. But the number one reason I feel like I could be nothing more than the scum of the human race, this planet? Is because I had a child with one of my keepers, and I will never tell her. And I love her more than I could ever love the human race again.
