May's anthology

Apocalypse of the White-#WhatApocalypse

One moment, you are admiring its nutritious value, the next you are drowning in its deliciousness. That's how it all started.

It was something we had never expected, something we couldn't have predicted no matter how much we tried. To better understand the Apocalypse of the White, I have to take you back when it all started, although no one can tell you for sure when exactly the first cases of the White Attack were recorded.

Before this all started, I was just a regular girl living an ordinary life. There was nothing even remotely interesting about me. I tried to live a healthy life, especially when it came to my diet.

Checking the nutritious value of food was becoming a habit of mine, but, unlike many people of my time, I believed that eating full-fat milk and other natural products was healthier. I believed that the artificial modifications, the skimmed-fat milk and its companions, were bad for our health.

I was right in more ways than one.

Anyway, the whole human race knew that some artificial substances were being added to most of the food we consumed. However, we never tried to look into it. We blindly believed in the skills of the scientists, nutritionists whoever did the modifications.

We should have demanded to know exactly what we were drinking. When we finally did it, it was too late.

At first, it seemed harmless enough, the scientists started experimenting with making artificial milk to satisfy our needs for dairy products without the usage of our usual sources. Milking cows had been deemed torture, thus ways were being researched on how to prevent such degradation of other living beings.

However, no one insisted on the hunting of animals to stop. No safaris were discontinued. Yet, milking cows and getting other products for our nourishment became a major issue around the world. The COW POWER activists insisted that milking cows was a molestation of those peaceful animals, and that something had to be done to stop the horrible practice from continuing.

Being an avid milk drinker, I didn't like the direction in which the world was heading. Artificial milk was not as delicious to me as the natural one. That was until they started producing the humanmade cows that were regarded as artificial products, not living beings, since they were not made by nature.

It made no sense to me since there were many holes in what they considered to be a perfect philosophy, yet I didn't protest since, once again, I was able to drink nutritious and delicious milk. All was right with my world.

I wish I had wondered more about the science behind it all, but at the time, I was too selfish to think about anything but the fulfillment of my needs.

Now I know that those cows were clones, therefore the same taste of the milk. Though, what we didn't learn until it was too late was that a cloning mistake had occurred.

The truth wasn't discovered until it was too late for the ninety percent of the population.

The day when the first case was discovered was like any regular day. There were no indications that it would be in any way special.

The first report came in the morning. All they said in the news was that the famous scientist had died. The cause of death was unknown. Then another one died, and another.

Rumors started going around that something was wrong. Yet no one knew what.

When regular people started dying from 'unknown causes', we started asking questions that we should have asked before. What was going on?

The answers were rare and far between, but hypercalcemia started being mentioned by the coroners and doctors who tried treating the patients. It took us, regular people, some time to figure out that the word itself meant too much calcium, that they might have died from too much calcium.

Those of us who figured it out stopped taking anything that we knew had calcium in it, including milk. Others were not so lucky.

I think that's what saved our lives.

People started dying in tens, then in hundreds. When the death toll finally became so high that the truth could no longer be hidden, they told us about the milk mutation. At least the little they did know.

There was something wrong with their cloning process, and milk they created started, not only generating too much calcium, but it started replicating itself at an accelerated, unstoppable rate. All their efforts to stop it had epically failed, thus their decision to finally enlighten the world.

Finally, the images of those dying from the mutated milk were shown, and it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen.

The first image I saw was the one of a guy about my age staring at the camera in bewilderment as milk poured out of his eyes, nose, and mouth. It was the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen, and I would have laughed had it not been for the screams of agony muffled by the milk pouring out of his mouth.

The official cause of death was drowning. The milk saturated their cells, so much so that they drowned from the inside.

Many people thought the videos were deepfakes. No one wanted to believe that something as ridiculous as that was possible, that it was real.

How could something as innocent and as delicious as milk turn deadly? It was an impossibility that their minds refused to accept.

Yet the moment the truth was revealed, I was sure of its authenticity, I am not sure why. Probably because I was expecting this. I was expecting that genetic engineering, gene modifications, and cloning would be the end of us. The news just proved me right.

For some reason, unknown even to myself, I decided to head for the mountains. Some part of me was telling me that in many possible scenarios, the mountains were a safe bet.

Luckily, I was right.

For you see, ninety percent of the population didn't die because of the milk they had ingested. Only sixty percent experienced that type of drowning. The other thirty percent died in the Milk Flood that followed soon after.

From what I've gathered from the survivors I meet from time to time, as we climb even higher up this mountain, the milk they had in storage burst out of its containers, having multiplied beyond what could be contained. Then it spilled over, and started rising higher and higher.

Many religious people compared it to the Great Flood, only you know, with milk instead of water. It was something that went beyond our wildest imaginations, something so unimaginable that all we could do for a long time was climb.

However, many have died in the sea of milk that was created by just being too stunned to move, to do anything. Delicious a death as it might be, I wasn't ready to give up.

Thus, I went on. It turned out to be a good thing.

Milk kept raising until the temperature finally fell below zero. The frozen beauty of milk was mesmerizing even for us who have seen what milk could do. Even for people like me who have lost their loved ones in the sea of milk, who have seen them drown and scream for help that never came.

Yet milk levels remained the same when it was frozen, and we hope that perhaps once the spring comes again, it would rise no more, that its reign of terror was over.

The hidden killer managed to wipe away most of the civilization but those of us who remain are hopeful that perhaps the coldness of winter and ice that milk has turned into might destroy whatever mutation that formed in the White Killer. We hope that perhaps it would once more be our nutritious friend since we have learned a long time ago that nothing was impossible.

Now we wait to see if in spring we will be dunking cookies in the vast ocean of delicious milk, or if we will be swallowed whole, drowned by once healthy beverage, turned killer.

May the Apocalypse of the White finally end!