31 August 2011

Sam At The End Of The World - (Prologue)

(Click to return to INDEX)
The Elixir of Life had been created and, quite unfairly, I’d been flatly denied a chance of receiving any of it. Me and the rest of the world’s miserable poor. The rejection left us feeling pretty well gutted, but we consoled ourselves by pretending that we didn’t really want to be injected with a miracle bug’s shit anyway. Admittedly some of us were beyond consoling and went a bit overboard with the rioting and burning of entire city blocks.
I do recall having to restrain my glee; glee that a majority of us have-nots expressed openly; when the thousands of graced recipients of that drug began to exhibit… side-effects. I must admit, at the time, their predicament seemed to fit their crime of being rich and famous.
We only had a few days of warning, and none of us knew how to pay heed to the signs. We saw initial reports of a spreading sickness that solely affected the inoculated. Our most celebrated TV personalities, who we invite into our lounge-rooms each night, faced us lethargically, with a distinct lack of expected vivacious banter. More interestingly, the slim and beautiful got fat overnight. No, not just fat. Grossly distended! Regardless of gender, their stomachs’ ballooned in grotesque, immaculately conceived pregnancies.
My self-righteous gloating soon turned into a terror that continues to this day. The births! They were synchronised in an explosion of gore the day after the symptoms began. Some were televised for brief seconds as the camera crews fled from things within. The radio stations lasted longer, but those verbal reports are not as clear in my memory as the foul images of blood and spreading guts. And especially of those small, vile creatures that whipped and writhed amongst the ruined flesh.
But the end of the world’s elite also meant the end of the world for the rest of us. The man-made monsters that spewed forth from their Hosts weren’t picky about how rich their incubators were.
A second wave of births sealed our fate. Communications were down and, of the isolated few millions of us left, many were displaying that eerie lack of human response.
These new life-forms could choose not to gestate more Younglings. They were using our bodies to walk the earth, and devouring or dragging off the uninfected for unknown purposes
The accumulation of money no longer drives us. We survive by scavenging from our abandoned city’s stores or take what we need from someone who has more. I bide my time, waiting for that same inexplicable something that would make my life worth living. It had evaded me when the world was still ‘normal’, and can’t see why it would visit me now. Really, nothing has changed.
I was overweight back then; and I still am now, despite the forced exercise of running for my life every other day. I was introverted and socially inept; another aspect unchanged as uninfected people shun me, and Hosts want to kill me on sight.
Of course my sexual resume is difficult to enhance under the circumstances. In fact it’s still that single time with ‘Carol’ who charged half price if you were quick; which I was.
It’s quite true Host women can’t get enough of me. Men too, actually! However their desire to eat me is very literal and non-sexual, and pursuing my scared little face or fleeing buttocks does not involve any kissing or fondling.

3 comments:

Heymary said...

Yea!!!! Welcome Back Sam. I have missed you. Bravo Coops!!

Thought Control said...

Thanks Mary. Once again thanks for all your editing. I really need that extra set of eyes. Owe you big time.

Fiona said...

Hi Coops, I've updated the title and link on your Web Fiction Guide entry (Fatal Cure) for you.