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The Little Things

@flashfictionfridayofficial

Um... who knows where this came from.... I'm tired and well the tired brain will make what the tired brain will make.

I hope you enjoy it!

He’d been gone for a few days, and at first, the silence had been nice. She’d enjoyed the silence in the beginning, but as the days dragged by, Lua noticed that the hearth lacked a familiar glow she’d had grown accustomed to. It surprised her how cold the house she’d lived in for so long felt with the absence of one thing. There was no food in the pantry, and the outdoor light had been left on even though the sun was shining high in the sky. Then the storm clouds had come on the fifth day, and with their arrival, Lua realized that among all of the things that were absent, she missed Aaron most of all.

The rain beat down, and lightning flashed across the night sky as Lua paced the dark halls. The dogs hadn’t returned that evening. It seemed that the light had finally died after burning for too many nights in a row. After calling for them over roaring thunder, she relented and spent a good hour trying to track them down in the rain.

Rain drenched her armor, weighing down her head and making the fir of her mask more cumbersome than usual. Following the fading traces, Lua hunted them down in irritated silence. When she finally returned with one of the dogs held firmly by the scruff of its neck, she was greeted by the cool glow of the lantern, burning just as brightly as it had almost a week ago. Without thinking, Lua released the dog and rushed to the house, flinging open the door to find Aaron standing there stunned, with two of the other dogs. He was drenched, and she could smell blood on him. It wasn’t right. Without thinking, she rushed forward and picked him up, spinning him around in unexpected excitement before pulling him close.

The tightness that had been welling up in her chest dissipated in a puff of smoke as Lua dragged the irritated human further into the house. She slowly pulled off his wet clothes as they went until finally reaching the living room where the empty hearth sat as cold as ever. It didn’t matter right now, though. Aaron was back, and soon, things would go back to the way that they should be. Wrapping them in a warm blanket, Lua held him there, soaking in the feeling of someone close once more.

“Did you have trouble while I was gone or something?”

He leaned back his head to look up at her, pressing his head against the fur of her hood.

“No trouble, it was just weird… Don’t go away for so long next time.”

He gave a small smile and lit the hearth with a flick of his wrist. The warm glow of the fire gently lulled Lua to sleep as she held Aaron close.

Short Story: Green

The end of the world happened slowly; as most things do. The plants began to disappear—one by one becoming extinct—too gradually for the general public to take seriously. When they did notice, humanity shrugged it off as the natural cycle of things.

And then it was the animals. That was harder to ignore.

It was the pollinators first, of course. Without their help, much of the flora could not proliferate as they once had. The lack of sunlight, of fertile soil, of bees or butterflies or hummingbirds were the beginnings of the end. Grassy meadows became barren deserts and lush forests became wasteland littered with twigs and branches—the corpses of once-mighty trees. Green became a lost color.

There weren’t many humans left when Zoe found hope and began her journey. The last human interaction she had was years ago to a man dying of smoke sickness; a common story for the few still alive. The ever-smoking towers brought industry, jobs, prosperity for a while…before they brought illness and death.

Over time, the smog and ash the towers spewed blocked out the sun, displaced the air, and changed the color of the world. Those who inhaled too much of the toxic fumes died slow deaths. Many grew up breathing it, assured by charismatic politicians that it was not harmful. They didn’t want to see past the lies; humans were an optimistic species after all.

Zoe walked past one of the many ever-smoking towers—still spewing death into the air—and took a moment to gaze at the darkened sky. She wondered what the sun might have looked like; what it still might look like hiding behind that veil of black and gray. There were stories, of course, but she liked to imagine that the sun was green.

With one hand, she adjusted the breather that sat over her nose and mouth, clutching a small egg-shaped container in the other before continuing her stroll, stopping at at a flickering metal box that matched her in height. An oxygen vending machine.

She had stopped by every O vendor she had come across in her years-long journey. Air was something she could not afford to let run low. Her expedition was a long one and she didn’t even have a notion of when it would end. It was better to refill her breather as often as possible before there would be nothing left; when soon—she assumed—there would be a large stretch where there would be no more O vendors to provide breathable air. She didn’t know when or where, but she knew it was inevitable. There were only so many O vendors that could have been put up before the smoke sickness claimed too many lives to justify the expense and many were already running low on supply.

She inserted a plastic card into the machine and fresh air was pumped into her mask. She breathed it in appreciatively, taking in the slight chemical smell of the original container and wondered what air from plants smelled like as she crossed empty streets and passed more ever-smoking towers.

Her destination was far but she was almost there; or so she hoped. Just a little farther, she kept telling herself, repeating it every so often. Her personal mantra.

She held the little container close to her, afraid that she might lose it; that it might slip and tumble down somewhere she could never hope to reach; that it might wither before she got to the one place in the world the sun was said to touch. The Sunpatch she had been seeking since she had found the egg-shaped thing—her hope—that she carried with her.

She had walked for so long with no direction save for the little information she had managed to gather after so much research on the Sunpatch. Much of it were rumors that lead to dead ends, others were educated guesses when information was obviously incomplete. She hoped to the hidden sun that the one she followed now wasn’t another dead end. It was her last lead and she was so old and so tired.

Her elderly legs hurt and her feet were numb from so much walking but she soldiered on as always. Zoe was determined to get the little egg-shaped thing to the Sunpatch no matter the cost to herself.

Her journey was a lonely one; solitary but never by choice. Often she wished that she could have company; another of her kind. The egg was a good listener but not much for conversation. Had the world not ended, her conversations with egg would be seen as madness but there was no one now to judge her.

For years, she trudged through desert and dead forests and broken cities and rock fields. She searched every used-to-be settlement for survivors—but always found no one—and stopped by every defunct food store to stock up on liquid snack cakes, bottled water, and portable air cans. On rare occasions, she even found running water in the long-abandoned cities. In those, she had the luxury of a quick bath and change of clothes. This wasn’t one of those cities.

She chose a building that looked to be in good shape and tried the door. Locked. A quick glance around found her some rubble; pulled up concrete from a sidewalk.

The aging woman lifted the heavy fragment and hurled it at the window, shattering the glass in an explosive cacophony of clinking, clanging, and crashing. No one will care about a broken window. No one is here to care.

She swiped the opening with a balled up rag, sweeping away bits of broken glass before carefully climbing in; agile despite her age.

The space was lined with mostly-empty shelves that made little paths. Zoe noted these as she passed the counter with an old register caked with dust sitting on top of it. It must have been a corner store once.

She searched and found a few bottles of liquid snack cakes and water. No canned air, unfortunately. Whomever owned the business—or perhaps survivors that had fled the city in search of better homes away from the towers—had taken most of the supplies before they had gone.

Opening and attaching one of the little bottles of liquid snack to her breather via a short, thick straw, she sucked on the meal, reading the text on the bottle. She had read them a million times but the mind needed something to keep from going mad and with the world so empty there weren’t many options. “Now with 50% less fat and 100% more calories!” it claimed. What a load of ash.

Zoe rested well that night before awaking to bottles and cans strewn about the former shop. Wakefulness came slowly and she didn’t notice the peculiarity of the out-of-place things at first. It was after a few blinks that it registered. “No! No no no! Where is it?!”

Her heart skipped a beat and she went into a frenzy looking for the little egg-shaped container; missing from the rotten pillow where she had left it before falling into an exhausted slumber. She dug through her rucksack, searched every nook, every cranny, and under every store shelf, but found nothing but rubbish.

The floor was sticky from spilled snack cakes, their bottles chewed by the incisors of a small creature. She had no guesses as to what it could have been but it had left a trail of liquid-snack footprints to follow and so she got to tracking the thief.

The tracks lead her to the store’s backroom; dark without electricity to light the way. She squinted, backing up a bit to where there was light enough to see as she rummaged through her pack and pulled out a small metal flashlight. She shook it a few times, and then flicked the switch on its side. The beam of light flickered before holding steady.

She ventured into the dark room, sweeping the light beam from side to side in an effort to continue tracking the creature that pilfered her hope. The backroom was in worse wear than the store’s front. A thick blanket of dust and cobwebs covered just about every surface that wasn’t disturbed by a certain little thief. Zoe found the footprints again etched into the dust and followed them, taking care not to step on any of the impressions.

They lead her to stairs going down to a basement darker than the backroom. She gave her flashlight another shake before venturing the stairs—step by cautious step—holding the railing as she moved down. The old wood creaked under her weight and she feared that she would fall through, break her neck, and die in a dusty dark basement under an abandoned store in a long-forgotten city. For much too long, she tested every stair before proceeding.

Her feet found purchase on solid concrete ground fifteen minutes later. She swept light over the new room slowly, almost missing the bundled fur in the corner. There it is!

The rat turned when the light touched its black fur and hissed. Behind it was the egg-shaped container that Zoe had been looking for; a bit scratched up but otherwise fine.

She crouched down on creaky knees and attempted to reason with the animal, “Come on now, I need that.”

The rodent responded with another hiss, back fur prickling up.

Slowly as to not make any sudden movement, she retrieved a bottle of liquid snack cake from her bag. “How about a trade then?” She twisted the lid open.

The rodent watched her intently, the over-sweet smell of liquid cake entering its nostrils and masking every other scent in its tantalizing aroma. It wiggled its nose in satisfaction as it began to salivate.

“You like that don’t you?” Zoe cooed, removing the lid completely. She poured a small amount of the contents onto the floor in front of her, “Come on. I know you want it.”

The rat hesitated before cautiously approaching.

She poured more liquified food onto the floor, pooling it up for the little scoundrel.

Temptation and instinct overwhelmed the rodent and it scurried to the food. It lapped up the thick batter; greedy from hunger.

The human added to its meal, pouring a bit more for it before righting herself and walking around the rat to the egg. She bent down and retrieved her hope up off of the floor, giving it a quick inspection under her flashlight when she was standing again. “Well, you didn’t damage it too much…” she said to the hungry rodent, “I’ve got to go now, little rascal. Enjoy your meal.”

She carefully made her way around the sticky mess and the rat to the foot of the stairs and frowned at it, annoyed at having to climb back up. Fear began to well up in her at the thought of falling and so she took a moment to breathe, steeling her nerves for the ascent. I made it down all right; I can make it up again…

The rat squeaked then, interrupting an otherwise still scene. She turned her light on it as it ran in a circle once, twice, and then scurried to the shadows of the back wall. “Where are you going?”

The rat squeaked again as Zoe realized a bit late that this rodent is the first sign of life she had found in her travels in years. She had been too focused on retrieving her stolen hope that she had nearly missed the fact that this creature survived the smoke-sickness that was choking the life of nearly every living thing…and it wasn’t wearing a breather. Here?! No…we’re too close to towers…but it has to breathe somehow…

She touched the latch of her breather, tempted to remove it to see if perhaps the air was breathable here, but she thought better of it. If I die here, it’s over for real. There will be no hope left…Some animals had adapted to breathe less air and this rat was probably one of them. She couldn’t be fooled by it.

Instead, she followed the rat deeper into the dark; hand outstretched, shaking the flashlight every once in a while as if it would keep the battery going.

It wasn’t long before the rat lead her to a hole in the wall just big enough for Zoe to crawl into. The old woman sighed and considered turning around. The rat squeaked impatiently at her before scampering into the tunnel.

Against better judgement, she latched the flashlight to the shoulder strap of her pack, slipped the egg into one of its more secured pockets, and got on her hands and knees.

She crawled through the tunnel, surprised that it didn’t narrow or end so abruptly. Someone must’ve dug this before they left the city. Stinging pain throbbed in her old knees as she continued shuffling forward, following a used-to-be common pest through a tunnel under a convenience store.

The passage was longer than Zoe had ever expected an improvised excavation could be. She had to stop and take breaks, maneuvering herself into a more comfortable laying position every so often to rest. It lead deep into the earth before steadily slanting upwards; so gradual that Zoe hadn’t noticed until light shone through ahead of her.

Eager to escape the cramped walls, she quickened her crawl toward the light. She didn’t know how long she had been shuffling in the subterranean tunnel but she guessed from her backaches and bruised knees that it must have been a while.

She pulled herself from the hole, moving dirt and small rocks as she surfaced. The light was blinding after some time in underground darkness and her chest was starting to feel tight. She had enough air for at least another day! Surely she hadn’t been traversing underground for that long! But she was gasping for air, struggling to fill her lungs. Her breather was running low.

Panic starting to intrude on her psyche, Zoe desperately scanned her surroundings. Massive dirt and rock walls bordered her from the outside world. Stalactites hung from the earthen ceiling above, drops of water falling from their tips in rhythmic succession. She found herself in a vast cavern of sunken earth; nowhere near an O vendor.

All of this for nothing…because of my foolishness…because I followed a rat of all things!

As if in response to her distress, a whistling gust of wind—gray particles dancing within it—embraced Zoe in its cooling hug before racing up toward an opening in the ceiling, blowing out of it like a volcano and parting the endless gray-black clouds of the ever-smoking towers. It was from that opening that a beam of yellow light pointed to a single circular patch of yellow-green before dissipating a moment later.

Zoe’s eyes widened at the sight; brief but certain. She had been searching for so long and here it was; hidden under a city, under ever-smoking towers that blocked from view the few moments of sun that managed to touch earth periodically when upward wind broke black clouds. She stifled tears as she approached the Sunpatch.

Reverently, she held the egg-shaped container in both hands, dropping to her knees before the little patch of life. With shaking hands and burning lungs, she set the egg aside and began to dig, clawing the earth with bony fingers until she was satisfied with the divot she had made.

Dizziness was setting in as she lifted the egg and popped it in twain above the little hole, dropping a singular ball—smaller than her fist—into the exposed earth. The tightness in her chest was nearly unbearable by the time she buried the seed.

Her life’s mission finally complete, she smiled with satisfaction; with all the love and hope she could possibly give to the world. As the wind returned, quickly flying toward the opening in the ceiling, she laid her tired body down and faced the beam of sun as it came in for another few precious moments. Her air had run out and the world was closing in around her; replaced by an overwhelming serenity. The tension left her body, smile softening but never vanishing as she stared at the mound she had created and the brilliant streak of dusty yellow light that caressed it.

The sun wasn’t green but it was beautiful.

Originally published on renalawhead.com on July 22, 2024

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

Writer Questionnaire Tag

Thanks for the tag @renasdoodles !

What is your absolute all-time favorite idea you’ve ever had?

I really don’t know honestly, there have been so many that I’ve been scared to touch for years at this point. I couldn't pin down a favorite though, my top favorites are all there for different reasons.

Is there a question you’ve been asked in the past that really stands out to you, and you still think about sometimes? 

‘Are you a cat person or a dog person?’ This one always gets me conflicted because by all accounts I would say a cat person because I am far closer with them, but I also really like dogs. It’s a bit of a stupid question to keep thinking on, but it keeps popping back in my head at the most random times. 

What is your favorite part of being a writer? What parts could you take or leave?

I love being able to write the stories that I want to read, sometimes I go back to a draft that I abandoned months ago and re-read it to find that I'm really interested in what happens next, and that's a really fun experience. 

What I don’t particularly enjoy is probably when I leave notes for myself to fill stuff in later and it really isn’t enough information to know what in the world I was intending to write. 

What is your greatest motivation to Write/create? 

When It comes down to it I really want to be able to reach a point where I can write the stories from my mind in a way that does them justice. I also want to be able to draw the things that are rattling around in my head.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever heard or been given as a writer? 

First drafts aren’t meant to be perfect, you are just getting the ideas down on the page and setting the ground work for your story to start solidifying your next steps. I particularly struggle with this one since I want to have everything perfectly in place but for my writing style that just isn’t realistic. 

What do you wish you knew when you were first starting out writing?

Don’t be scared to ruin your stories, just write them. If you get to scared to even try working on something it will die in your mind forever unspoken and for me that is worse than failing because I gain almost nothing from the wasted creativity.  

What is your favorite story you’ve written to completion? Link it if you’d like and can!

Honestly, I’ve disappointingly only been able to finish a couple of fan fictions since I developed a really bad habit of abandoning story ideas out of fear for the results. I’m trying to get myself back on track but it’s just a bit of a task to keep myself in line. ;-; Sometimes I wonder if the writer part of my brain got switched with that of a hyperactive child. Of the Fan Fictions I've managed to post on Ao3 'A Bit of Clean Water' Fandom: Vampyr (Video Game) is short little story that I'm pretty happy with.

Which of your characters would you say has the most controversial mindset? Why do you say so, and how do you particularly feel about their ideals? 

I won't mention the character but their mindset is that people are inherently weak short minded creatures that are incapable of governing themselves. No matter how great a thing they might make it can be devastated in the span of a generation because their will could not be inherited by their successor. The character believes that because of this people are inferior and do not deserve to stand at the top of the food chain.

I personally understand some of where he's coming from because it is pretty scary how easily something great can be destroyed by a bad successor no matter how great the founder might have been, but I feel like this character is a bit to critical of the race and extreme with his execution.

If you when you first started writing met you now, what would younger you think? 

Probably be a bit horrified at first, but the first story I wrote before I was ten ended with the main character dying in a car crash after someone cut her breaks for a petty reason, so I like to think that my younger self would at least somewhat understand where i'm coming from with my writing. As for my personality... That would probably be a much harder sell. (Younger me could barely play mobile games that had any community features, knowing that I put my writing out for people to see might give younger me a heart attack)

No pressure Tagging:

@kuebiko-writing @wyked-ao3 @creatrackers @davycoquette,

@somethingclevermahogony @laisley-writes @flurrysahin @zaynabameen,

+Open Tag

Intro Post

Hi,

I made this blog to try and force myself to be more productive with my original writing/drawing. My success is unfortunately an uncontrolled variable right now.... I am a serial procrastinator and I'm pretty introverted but I'm trying.

Most of my writing tends to be a bit on the darker side and geared towards fantasy, but I dabble in various genres as ideas come to me.

Feel free to tag me in writing games and just to share something that you are proud of. :)

Note: Please let me know If I am ever coming on too strong because I can be a bit dense at times. I'm open to and encourage constructive feedback.

I also have a secondary blog for Fan fiction mostly for updates and fan art.

Side Blog for Fan Fiction

Good luck today/night and happy writing!

@kuebiko-writing Thanks for the tag! I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, but here we go.

My favorite books to read are about messed up people trying to be better for either themselves or for someone important to them, while everyone expects the worst of them, and the world just decides that it has no intention of giving them a break.

My favorite books as a writer (that I attempt to write)....

Honestly, it's hard to boil what I like to write down to a favorite, but I do enjoy writing stories about people who have been dragged into bad situations and try to keep their lives and sanity intact with varying levels of success. Not everything works out for them, but sometimes I give them nice things.

I have a question for everyone who would like to answer:

What are your favorite books as a reader and what are your favorite books as a writer?

Writing share tag 

Thanks for the Tag @wyked-ao3 ! I haven't gotten to the stage of editing yet, but here's a little something that I was able to get written a couple of weeks ago.

Blood Mage: council meeting 

No one enjoyed these meetings, but unless the fairies or vampires picked a fight with Luis there was usually no cause for concern. At a subtle gesture towards Marie’s seat, Susian’s face went pale. The witches were fairly peaceful these days, why would they go and pick a fight with Luis of all people?

As Susan decided the best way to word such a question to the already dozing representative, she was interrupted by a loud boom accompanied by an explosion of plaster and metal crashing down from the ceiling above. 

“What is the meaning of this?”

A cry came from the indigent Fairy King now covered in a layer of dust and red crystal fragments, his ever-faithful guard having taken the brunt of the explosion’s force shielding him. 

“Shut up bug. I have no time to prattle with insects.”

Susan and the others froze at the vitriol in Luis’ tone, sure he never got along with the king, but that voice wasn’t one that he used on anyone unless he had a mind to end them. The eyes of everyone drifted to the enraged bloodmage now standing several feet from the table, carefully trying to gauge how to react. Red lines covered his skin, pulsing with an unnatural glow, threatening to split him at the seams if he let himself slip even minutely. Her mouth went dry as Susian realized he had entered a frenzied state, and even the Fairy King made no move to speak now.

“I came to inform the council of my formal intent to eradicate the Witches.”

His words felt like a hot iron being slammed into Susan’s gut. Her predecessors and colleagues had long wondered what to do if such an eventuality came to be, but to hear it now drove her mind to despair. What had they done to offend him to this degree? Why in their right minds would the witches have picked such a foolish fight? Now everyone would be dragged into this insanity, and more than anything that meant she wouldn’t be getting her time off again, no one in the Order would. 

No pressure Tags: @renasdoodles @kuebiko-writing @laisley-writes @leahnardo-da-veggie ,

@creatrackers @somethingclevermahogony +Open tag

Who is the evilest character in your wip Bloodmage and why do you feel that way?

Ohh great question. Thanks for the ask.

I don't have a full name for him yet since I'm waffleling between a few of them at the moment, so as of now, I just call him the Major.

In his quest for power and an extended life, he had committed just about every war crime he could manage to in the ten years of the war before he found a way to turn himself into a vampire. Needless to say, he just got worse with the increase in power.

When his country started losing the war, the Major allied with the tech witches to try and mass produce bloodmages to send the world into chaos and take attention away from him so he could regroup his vampire army.

His ultimate goal is enslavement of the world, and he will search out any and every person who is even slightly aligned with his mindset to use them for his greater purpose.

He enjoys the challenge of breaking people and veiws mercy as weakness.

He might have been a monster in the beginning, but that is what fear and his twisted heart drove him to become one step at a time.

Thanks again for the ask! I haven't had a chance to talk about him yet.

Beautiful Things

@flashfictionfridayofficial prompt

Summary: A snippet of lore for the story I have been attempting to write. Pulling back from a crazy world, is it any suprise that the universe could be just as odd?

He’d watched over the small egg for millennia, protecting it from harm. It hadn’t been the only one. It was just the one that had yet to hatch. As the centuries passed and the number of guardians slowly dwindled, *** had chosen to stay. They had warned him that if the little one could not break its shell, then it could not last in the expanse, that its light was not worth protecting. *** had stayed silent and watched the other newborns hatch one by one, following the guardians into the expanse of space to learn of the universe and their place in it.

Guardians labeled him foolish while retreating, but *** waited for the child to form. He could hear the growing heartbeat through the shell getting slightly louder with every passing century until it was just as strong as the others who had hatched before it. Then he could feel its will and knew the child should have been strong enough to break its prison, but still, it did not act. After waiting for a century more, *** pressed his conscious forward to question the child. He asked if it required help breaking the shell.

While guardians were forbidden to interfere with the hatching, *** had been helped as a newborn, and he would not let this newborn rot because of tradition. Even through the shell *** could feel that despite what the others had said, this little one’s light would be something truly beautiful.

{I don’t want to go… I love these creatures too much to destroy them.}

Its voice was stronger than he had expected, but *** understood the newborn’s conviction. The creatures that lived on the surface of its egg were fragile beings that would not survive the hatching process. He’d watched countless species destroyed that way as he sat among the dying husks of empires.

Reaching out again, *** warned the newborn that if it did not hatch after developing, then it would surely parish. Then, after rotting, it would lead to the death of the creatures that it cared so deeply for. They had good lives, and they had been given millennia to grow and experience so much. *** explained that this was simply the conclusion of their natural existence, but he could feel that the newborn’s conviction did not waver.

{No… I have heard their song and it is too beautiful to be lost, so I will give them what time I can until my end comes.}

*** frowned and reached out a finger boring deep into the surface of the egg. If the newborn felt so strongly, then there was another way, but it would have to commit to a lesser form until it had seen the terrifying nature of the song that it longed to protect.

Pulling back, *** caught a glimpse of the newborn’s light through the opening he had formed and knew he could no longer watch the child if he wanted to respect its wishes. Without him, the newborn would be alone for the first time in its existence, and *** shed tears, which fell like stars smoldering in their dissent. *** knew its light would have been the most precious to behold, but its memory would have to be his alone.

{Thank you}

Spark of Progress

Thanks for the prompt @flashfictionfridayofficial !

Warning: minor science and bugs. Picture has mutated body parts displayed in the background.

Word Count: 395

Story: original snippet, apocalyptic

Cells danced across the lit slide, quickly overtaking the benign tissue and effortlessly mutating the sample. Carl attempted to focus in on the process for any notable variation in its pattern, but after sixteen hours, his dancing vision was persistant enough that he probably wouldn’t catch anything of note even if it bit his face anyway. 

“Sleep, or I’m gonna break that piece of junk.” Pulling away instinctivly, Carl clutched his microscope protectively. 

“Touch it and we all go up in smoke.” His baby-sitter shrugged and picked up the pile of papers that he’d haphazardly arranged for collection. These brutes had their uses but they were far too blunt for his purpouses most days. 

“See anything interesting today?” He shrugged.

“Nothing significant, the infection has been resistant to everything I’ve thrown at it.” Feeling less insecure about the safety of his equipment, Carl leaned back a bit in his chair and raised his coffee to take a drink before he caught sight of something floating along the surface. Pulling it away from his mouth, he set the ceramic mug onto the table and eyed the strange insect floating belly up on the surface. It was obviously infected, nothing that would cause significant damage by itself, but how had a dead infected bug gotten in his cup? 

“You okay?” Carl’s guard was already by his side, checking him for any signs of injury. He knew he wasn’t turning, He’d run enough test to know what turning felt like, at least what people documented it feeling like. Pushing past her, he grabbed a pair of forceps from a loose pile of tools and picked up the bug quickly dragging it over to his work station. Despite his earlier exhaustion a sence of urgency had driven the sleep from his eyes. Quickly preparing a tray, he slid the pieces into place and engaged the magnification. 

Silence settled over the room as he watched the aggressive cells shrivel up and flake apart when contacting the coffee residue. After all this time… Shaking his head, Carl pulled away to grab another sample, he’d have to isolate the cause, figure out what exactly was triggering the reaction. His fingers shook with excitement forcing him to slow down his work for the sake of accuracy. Every moment crawled by in agonizing silence, but If he was right… humanity could finally be saved.