Unwritten

 

There has been a debate about when, exactly, things got to the point they did.  Some say it was only in recent years, when the gas supplies ran out and the wars started.  Others link it all the way back to the great depression.  A few go further still, and blame it on Eve.  Or Satan.  That group is a bit conflicted.

But no matter how you spun it, the undeniable facts remain; the world was ending.  And scientists were doing their best to hurry it along.  Sounds a bit far fetched, doesn't it?

Hear me out. 

Scientists love finding new things, or creating them.  That's how they're trained.  So when one brilliant geneticist found a way to remake DNA, all of them decided that they had to be in on it.  Thousands of highly trained specialists amassed in one faculty and worked day and night developing the new technology.  They tested it on mice first, injecting them with an artificial DNA sequence modeled after the DNA of one of the scientists.  They monitored it for a few days, and were about to give up completely when the mouse stood with its paws on the glass and demanded to be released from the cage.

Upon further investigation, it was revealed that something in the artificial DNA enabled it to completely rewrite all of the animal's genetics.

Two hours later, the mouse died.  When the dissection was performed, the scientists found the mouse's brain swollen up inside the skull.  The DNA had tried to force it to the proportions of a human brain, effectively crushing it..

Needless to say, the scientists were absolutely thrilled.  This was groundbreaking material!  They tried it next on apes, with varied results.  Some survived, others didn't.

Then they tried it on children.

The first was a boy, orphaned by war.  His name was Ali. He died.

The second was a little girl, Rosa, from an immigrant family desperate for money.  She died too.

The scientists started gathering in children by the masses, all poor, all invisible.  They tried everything they could think of on them.  Bird DNA (turned into blithering idiots and died, hair turned to feathers).  Dog DNA (only one survived, and was kept in high quarantine).  DNA of criminals (did nothing except change their features).  DNA of musicians (did jack shit).  DNA of geniuses (only worked visibly on one, and he may or may not have already been a genius).

Eventually, their faculty was overflowing with children.

Also, bodies.  But they tried not to speak of those.

They needed somewhere to put these children. Somewhere safe.  Somewhere with more room to experiment.

"How about the whole earth?" one scientist asked.  The others thought it was a fabulous idea.

And that brings me to the story today.  The story of these children and what they sacrificed - and gained.  The story of how they saved humanity.

The story unwritten.