Mutant

Six

The sun was like a giant yellow God that made sure the trees, traffic cars, stray dogs, cats, and civilians to melt. Nobody could withstand the July heat.

Arch, Ellie, and Emmer walked on the thin sidewalk that strayed them along to a black metal gate.

"I'm sorry about your father," Ellie said as they inched themselves closer to the gate.

Arch shrugged it away. By now, he's already gotten over it.
"Everyone dies right?"

"Hey man, are you okay?"

Arch and Ellie found that Emmer had knelt beside a grown body that was lying against the sidewalk grass in a facedown position.

They cautiously walked up to Emmer.
"Is he dead?" Ellie asked.

Emmer hesitantly pulled the body right side up. It turned out that flies had been hovering upon the corpse. The face and skin of the body appeared to be decayed and the eyeballs that were supposed to be inserted in its face was rolling off. And the foul stench could be easily noticeable.

"I don't think that needed to be asked Ellie," Emmer muttered. "It's quite clear just by looking at it."

Ellie rolled her eyes. "Just asking, geez!"

Arch noticed something green hanging from the lip of the unidentified body.
"What's that thing on his lip?" Arch pointed.

Emmer carefully touched the green substance and rubbed it on his finger tips while carefully examining it.
"I've seen it before, on another body. So it's got to mean something...but what?"

"Wait," Arch paused. "This isn't the first body you've seen?"

Emmer shook his head. "Yesterday, I saw a female body laying on my dad's lawn. And then a few hours ago, I found another one hanging on top of a dumpster. At first I was surprised, but now that I've seen this one, not so much. And it's definitely not a coincidence."

"And that green thing," Arch said, now starting to whisper. "You really don't know what it means?"

Emmer shook his head just as he was tapping his glasses. Arch had seen Emmer tap his glasses a lot, but that only meant he was thinking. Anyone who knew Emmer, would know he was thinking.
"I can't really trace from it, but I can tell you one thing,"

"What?"

"Whatever that green substance is, it probably got on your father just as it did on this body."

"What do you mean?" Arch quizzed.

"What I'm trying to say is that this green goo could have led to your father's death. Someway, somehow."
******************

The Remirda Town local swimming pool wasn't as big as it needed to be, but it wasn't tight in its perimeter either. It seemed that the area around the pool was packed with a bunch of teenagers mostly around the age of fourteen through eighteen. There were rarely any real adults supervising the crowded pool.

Arch unlocked the black gate, and the three of them excitedly ran in.

"CANNONBALL BITCHES!!!" Ellie roared as she drove herself toward the blue depths of the water.
She jumped right over the pool with her feet and hands tucked together and then plopped right in. Everyone cheered along, happy to have a newcomer in the pool.

"Great, she dropped the towels," muttered Emmer as he went his way to pick up every single one. Afterwards, he went by a nearby white pool chair and layed the draping towels there.

Arch, on the other hand, has already jumped in the pool and was already enjoying the cool blueness that banished away the sweaty aroma.

Emmer stood on the surface, watching as his friends happily glided and flapped away in the gushing water.