The Transcended: They call him Lucius

Part 3: Blood ~ Chapter 4

"So," Zoey started, breaking the awkward silence. "Can you tell me why we need to..." She gestured to the spoon filled with stew.

Gwen raised a brow. "I just told you."

"Yeah, I get the whole going insane part, but why? What causes that? Is it some sort of curse?"

Gwen tried to suppress her amusement but failed. "Oh, Zoey." She shook her head, giggling. "First vampires, now curses?"

Zoey put her spoon down, her cheeks flushed. "Can you blame me?" She looked away in shame. "From my point of view, vampires still seem fitting. Though, I suppose zombies are—"

Gwen burst into laughter. "Zombies?"

Zoey huffed. "Having to eat human flesh to survive sounds like zombies, yeah."

"Just one major difference: we're not dead—or undead, for that matter." Gwen took a deep breath as she tried to regain her composure.

"How about you just enlighten me instead of laugh at me."

Gwen's expression dropped. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you."

Zoey remained silent as she stared down at her stew, stirring it without any incentive to take a bite.

Getting the hint, Gwen sighed. "Fine, I'll tell you." She pointed at the bowl. "But you better finish that, deal?"

Zoey nodded and reluctantly continued her lunch.

"Considering I'm only allowed to tell you the basics, I'll try to keep this short. Transcendence is caused by a microbe called Parakaryon athanasia." Zoey's puzzled look caused Gwen to add, "Yeah, we renamed it a few years back to stay in line with recent scientific findings. Just because we keep transcendence a secret doesn't mean we don't follow naming protocols—and because we never published this, renaming it was easy."

Zoey shook her head, not understanding what Gwen was on about. "Okay... So it's a germ?"

"Not really; it's actually an endosymbiont. However—" She pointed at the bowl of stew. "—if you don't eat that it will become pathogenic."

"And now in English?"

Gwen sighed. "A germ is a pathogenic microbe; a microbe being a microorganism, like bacteria. However, athanasia is not really a bacterium but something ... different. That's what the Parakaryon part clarifies, but the look on your face tells me I shouldn't even try explaining that bit."

"No, please just keep it as simple as you can. Biology isn't really my strong suit."

"Alright." Gwen thought for a moment. "So, how's this? We become transcended when the athanasia cells successfully merge with our own."

Zoey nodded. "So, kind of like a parasite? Or a virus?"

Gwen took a deep breath. "Yes and no, to both. You wanted me to keep it simple, right? Problem is: this isn't really a simple process."

"Please try. I really want to understand how this works; maybe then I can better accept the fact that I need to eat ... stuff like this." She lifted a spoonful of stew and tilted it, causing the contents to splash back into the bowl.

"Don't play with it—eat." Gwen glared at her until she finally took a bite. "Good. Now, how to explain this to you... Do you know what gene therapy is?"

"Isn't that where they try to fix broken genes? Like, I heard they wanted to try that for diabetes."

Gwen smiled. "Correct. Well, athanasia performs a form of gene therapy. It alters our cells to such an extent that we become immortal. To name a few perks: our muscles are stronger, we heal faster, and our endurance is greater."