Destruction
My love was doomed from the start. She only ever loved one thing. I remember sitting under the stars at the
ripe old age of fifteen staring up at the universe. She filled my ears with facts and her dreams of
the future. My arm was touching her and
to me it felt hotter than the sun. I was
conscious of every breath of wind that played with her hair. When we kissed even though she was looking at
me it felt like she was looking at the stars in my eyes.
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| Credit to Molly Mccauslar at https://mollinda.deviantart.com/ |
We grew apart. I couldn’t handle being second place and she
let me go. There was somewhere she
needed to be. I became entranced with
the building blocks of the universe. My
studies took me inside what made us what we are. I never expected our paths to cross
again. I didn’t expect this.
The request from Exocom was simple. They needed humans capable of surviving long
deep space voyages. Humans as they are
now are simply too big and expensive.
Spacecraft are more expensive the larger they are multiplied over the
light years to be travelled. It just
made more sense to engineer smaller astronauts.
Their request was primarily for a retrovirus to shrink their astronauts,
but they also wanted things like a clear extra eyelid, darker skin and
infertility. All of these aspects
logical for deep space exploration but monstrous from an outsider’s point of
view. I drew the line on
infertility. If it ever got out of
containment it would decimate the species but for the rest of it as long as
their subjects were willing I really couldn’t care less.
I never expected to see her. On day one of the human trials in she
walked. She was so excited her cheeks
were flushed pink. She was more beautiful
in that moment than I remembered. She
was a woman now and so close to fulfilling her dream that every fiber of her
being practically oozed joy. If the
trial was successful she’d be flying to Alpha Centauri before the year was
out. I had no doubt my virus would work
but looking at this living breathing part of my past my chest began to
hurt. As I walked up to her bed a flash
of recognition passed her eyes.
“Benjamin?” she asked. “Ellie.” I replied in acknowledgement. She looked down in sadness and guilt. I casually rolled up her sleeve so that it
rested above her shoulder and wiped the injection site with alcohol. I filled the syringe with the virus and
turned back to her. “Please answer the
following questions truthfully.” I said.
“This virus has been created to: shrink you to half your current size,
give you a clear false eyelid and darken your skin. Do you agree to these changes?” In a soft voice whilst examining her hands
she said, “Yes.” My voice caught briefly
before I continued, “This is a virus.
This is no injection that will violently change your DNA. We don’t know exactly how the transformation
process will occur. It’s highly likely
to be very painful. Know all the risks
do you still agree to this trial?”
Again, she said, “Yes.”
I slammed my fist into the wall startling
her to lift her head and look at me.
“Damnit Ellie! If you agree to
this I don’t even know if you’ll be you anymore. I made this exactly how they asked me. I had no idea I’d be giving it to you!” She reached up and cupped my face in her
hand. “Listen Ben.” She said, “I know you don’t understand. I know you’ve never understood and I suppose
I don’t really either, but I don’t belong here.
I’ve never felt like I’ve belonged here.
Something is forever pulling me up and this is my last chance. If I don’t do this now my life will end up
empty.” I stared into those eyes and
again felt like they were looking somewhere far away. Somewhere I could never reach. In the end I don’t know if I did the
injection because she wanted me to or if I simply wanted to destroy those eyes.
Destroy them it did. Moments after the injection she started
screaming. The virus was literally
eating half of her mass. As I watched
from the observation window it looked as though her body were slowly
disintegrating. He skin was
melting. The waste byproducts pooling in
a red mess on the floor. By the third
day we noticed her screaming had died down and it looked as though the virus
was working as at the end of the bench we could start to make out her new feet. Gone was the Irish porcelain skin of the past
to be replaced by a dark almost ebony brown.
By the fifth day it was over. After noting that the virus had run its full
course we dared to go in and wash her off.
What remained was still recognizably Ellie, but she was now tiny. About the size of a five-year-old child. As we were gently washing off the blood she
opened her primary eyelids. Underneath
we could see the clear protective membrane operating perfectly. A second later she opened those eyelids
too. My assistant looked at me with
jubilation. One of the major concerns we
had originally had was if we gave the subjects the new eyelids would the brain
be able to reprogram itself enough to learn to use them. I tried to meet his enthusiasm, but my smile
was forced. I had destroyed one of the
only things in this world I had truly treasured.
Ellie didn’t talk until the day after. She was sitting in her bed eating ice-cream
looking very much like a child when I walked in. The trauma of the past week was still showing
clearly on her features. Though her body
was practically new her face looked tired.
“How are you?” I asked. She quickly glanced up her eyes full of weary
accusation. “It hurt a lot.” She accused.
I sighed and said, “I warned you that it would hurt.” She looked back down and said, “You did but
deep down I didn’t really believe you could do that to me.” My head snapped round, and I said, “I didn’t
do this to you. YOU asked me to do this. Do you want me to play you the
recording?” She looked away and refused
to answer.
After that day I delegated her visits to my
assistant. She was kinder to him and
this way I didn’t have to see the results of my handiwork. All the other patients transitioned in a
similar way though none of the others tried to blame their decisions on me. I submitted my results and was highly praised
by Exocom. I assumed I would be getting
more work from them in future.
A year later I received a video call. There was no tagline. When I opened it up there she was floating in
space. She didn’t say a word but those
eyes which had always been looking through me to something else seemed to bore
right into me. They were sad eyes. Betrayed eyes. They were the eyes of something I once loved
and destroyed because I could never keep it.
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| Credit to Belinda Morris at www.belindaillustrates.com and www.facebook.com/belindaillustrates |
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