Lights Out

Them

We told them not to.

We told them not to be God. Not to mix ethereal and human DNA. There was no way it would benefit anyone or anything, so why tempt fate?

But they did anyway. They blackmailed pregnant wives of their company, forty of them in total, and began their experiments. The procedures killed them at first, the woman and child both. They lost four in a row before changing tactics. And God, was it an awful way to die. Their skin turned purple and blue, giant bruises with yards of webbing along their flesh, and their throats would swell shut. They suffocated with the first round of DNA. No one would tell us what it was.

And then they tried women early in their pregnancy, the fetus still an embryo. It seemed to work, but the children were stillbirths. Some of the women killed themselves, before or after the experiment, and some had to be institutionalized for the rest of their lives. Still, the company persevered. They had very few women left.

I finally learned the secret of the third round of testing. They planned to use a synthesized DNA, something they sacrificed an animal to a demon for, and they called it RONIN-3. Ronin was the pharmaceutical company, and three since it was the third test. I couldn't believe a group of scientists performed devil worship, but it did make sense. They were so sure they could make superior humans, ones that never aged or sickened. They never thought about what it would cost.

It was a success, as far as they could tell. My superiors were over the moon. I was hiding from them. The births were successful, barely any complications, but the children were different. They didn't cry, their skin was an ash color, their eyes were black as tar and they were born with a full set of teeth. The scientists forced the mothers to breastfeed even though the babies' teeth ripped them apart. I watched the mother I was assigned to cry and scream every time I handed her the child. I didn't like the way the child looked at me, either, as if I were food.

They doted on the growing children, all but forgetting the pain of the lost mothers, and gave them everything they wanted. None of them talked as they got older, but they didn't have to. They looked at us and we knew exactly what they needed. And as they grew, things became dangerous.

One of the children bit their caretaker, taking a chunk out of her arm and giggling while it slowly chewed. Another would make things fly through the air, almost always knocking a caretaker unconscious. They documented everything, praising the spawn. I found reasons to be outside the nursery.

When the spawn were toddler-sized, the government caught wind of the experiments. One of the husbands, bereaved and disgusted by his child, told about all the tests and the resulting...things. We really couldn't call them children anymore. Government officials raided the facility, some of the scientists dying beside their precious documents but the rest were detained. And then there was the question of the spawn.

A political war raged among the parties, some demanding further documentation and some ordering complete destruction. Ultimately, it was decided they should be destroyed. I could have cried with relief, except they didn't know how to destroy them and neither did we. Scientists knew, but they would rather die than see their hard work perish.

They divided the children. They tried drenching the spawn in gasoline and lighting them on fire, but none of them sported even one burn. They laughed the whole while they burned. They tore apart others, decapitating and disemboweling, but they didn't bleed. And they were surprised to see the spawn could reattach themselves. They drowned them, dropped them into acid, and hung them. Nothing worked.

And then, a sort of miracle. One of the surviving mothers spontaneously dropped dead. On her autopsy report, they noted a large mass of blood clots in her brain were to blame. They suspected it was from the damage she sustained breastfeeding and not receiving proper medical attention. The child she birthed also died, within a few days of her death.

It was catastrophic as all mothers, related to a spawn or not, were euthanized. Every single child died within a month and the company building was burned to the ground. All the documents went up in flames...all, but one. It described the final experiment in detail and named every single scientist. It was mysteriously kept so they could never be released from jail.

As for us caretakers, we never returned to childcare. Babies lost their sparkle after what we went through and most of us were still angry with Ronin. But the ones who were bitten or otherwise savaged, disappeared. Before they did, I had lunch with one. She complained of a deep tissue rash on her arm where the spawn had bitten her; how it turned bright red and leaked yellow pus. She said she had a high fever for a week, as well, and how she still didn't completely feel like herself. And then she was gone.

But I already knew of these symptoms. My spawn had nicked a finger when I removed it from its mother. The symptoms had started soon after but I didn't tell a soul. By the time the experiments were dead and destroyed, I felt myself again. Well, almost. I like meat more rare than I used to, and the sunlight gives me horrible burns. But I haven't felt sick or caught a cold once since, and when I prick my fingers on my sewing it instantly heals. And I started my new job in the jail, sweeping floors and taking out the trash.

Won't the scientists be happy to see me? The jail will be, too...before they see what's in the bags.