Desmond and Telereus, Chapter 1.
Disclaimer: This is the first chapter, and I have a good storyline in mind, that will ultimately involve a lot of yiffing. But the first chapter doesn't have any. And if I don't get enough encouragement, I may not feel motivated to write the chapters that are more "fun" for you. So be nice, and let me know if you enjoy reading it and want to know what happens to our hero. Standard all rights reserved comment here.
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The sound of children's silent screams and the smell of wild jasmine both hung heavy in the air this morning... or at least that's what they told me. After a while, you stop hearing the screams; and the smell... well, the smell just fades away under the assault of burning flesh and sulfur.
My name is... was... Desmond.
My company was the first one with the ingenious idea... terraform Calen IV, open a new world to humanity... one with all the things earth used to have. Oceans, mountains, an unspoiled atmosphere, all accessible through the dimensional gate. A few tweaks to it's atmosphere and a seed-ship later, and colonization was seeming more and more like a reality.
My team was the first group of humans through the gate. Stepping through the gateway onto Desmond's Hill (yea, I named it.) we couldn't even imagine the beauty that stretched out in front of us. The terraform seemed to be a complete success... a nearly endless rainforest surrounded the hill, and as I spoke the words of our forefather's so many years ago, none of us could deny the feeling of serenity in this place: "...Calen IV... it came in peace, and for all mankind."
That was about three months ago... if I had known then what I do now, I would have taken my team and run screaming back to earth. How could I have known though? There were animals, plants, oceans, freshwater... everything the seed ship was meant to create was finished. So we gave the all clear to the folks back at HQ, and colonization began... our blissful ignorance paving the way.
As it turns out, some geneticist somewhere along the line didn't cross his tees and dot his I's quite right. The seed ship was meant to create our utopia, deplete its DNA and RNA banks doing so, then simply shut down it's isothermal generators and wait for us to collect it. To put it simply... the ship adapted. Somewhere in the banks of biogenic circuitry, the switches flipped and it began to produce DNA instead of just distributing it according to our measurements.
Caroline was the first to notice, now that I think about it... she was my team's chemist. For the first week we were there, waiting on the first group of colonists, she swore up and down on a daily basis that she was getting taller. You have to understand, the woman was pushing 6' 6" when we got there, so we all just thought it was her imagination. Anyways, the colonists arrived... about 15 thousand in the first group, and New Eden was born.
It took about three more weeks for people to start noticing the subtle changes the seed ship was making. To it, we were just more genomes to be sequenced. Skin tones got darker, hair grew faster... we blamed it on the sun being a little closer than earth's sun was. There was fur... scales... long incisors... we were being rewritten in the image of the DNA the ship had access to... fused with the animals we had wanted to imprint this planet with.
People started isolating themselves... about 90% of us were slowly becoming... these freaks. The colony was on the verge of collapse when I called the company again. I'm ashamed to say it now, but I was convinced I was the only human in New Eden. Caroline... Paul, our botanist... Celia, our geneticist... my entire team had long since vanished into the endless rainforest that surrounded us, all changed into unrecognizable horrors incapable of even speech. I called them... I begged for the gate to be opened... I started the war.
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I'm Dani. For the last two years I've worked at geolud's genetic engineering facility in Tuscon, working mostly on project 8471-b95, the seed ship destined for humanity's foothold in the universe beyond the dimensional gate. Hell, I won't lie... that ship was my life the last few months, tweaking it, perfecting it. It was my ticket to immortality in the scientific community... it was my child.
I'm sorry... I'm sorry... whoever reads this journal know that I didn't mean for any of this to happen when I disabled the ships autopilot and landed it on Calen IV myself. I couldn't just let it rust there... I couldn't let my ship die. So I stowed away and witnessed the terraform for myself. The videos... and I'm quite sure they've shown you some of them... could scarcely do it justice.
In a flash, the sky burned crimson and was subdued by a lavender haze that washed the land with the first wave of DNA, giving rise to lush tropical forests and arid deserts. Running every step of the terraform myself, I watched the replicators I designed immediately begin to draw in excess DNA to refill the ship's stores... it all worked so beautifully. Some fish for the oceans... birds... everything. I watched it all... I directed it. My wonderful ship... my own direction. I didn't know.
I'm a geneticist. I know, I've said that... but it bears repeating, because of all people I should have known it wasn't safe to be that close to the seed ship's generators when I was seeding Calen IV. It changed me... every iota of DNA I released was painting me with its influence... what have I become?
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I watched the dimensional gate for weeks from my makeshift observatory. My radio never crackled to life, though I was certain they had received my plea for help and explanation of what was going on here. I expected the cavalry to come and rescue those of us who were still human, but the days turned into weeks then into months... no one was coming.
I'm truly alone in this strange new world. The city, half-completed to begin with, had been abandoned save for me alone. I look down at the smoldering remains now from the hill, my namesake in this world... and I wonder what the company told my... our... families. The colony was lost, victim to some calamity they wouldn't name. The gate sealed shut after the gen-3 missile they sent through to undo the evidence of their misdeeds.
The screams finally faded last night... I guess the poor victims, what remained of the humans here, stopped suffering and were silent at last... it's their charred flesh that still lingers around the city walls. What hope do I have left?
Tomorrow I will wander into the wilds and let the freaks who I once called friends destroy me. It's fitting, really. These... beasts... sprung from my mistakes. The last vestige of humanity here (save myself) was snuffed out by my cry for help. That I allow my own mistake to finally claim me... it's almost poetic. It's dark outside now, and I hear their calls... whispering to me in the dark.
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I am Dani no longer. What he was is something far removed from me... socially inept, weak... a lapdog to anyone who provided some direction to his life. My ship has changed me... shaped me... purified me. I am more now. I am all the things on Calen IV.
And my family is safe now... my world is pure, with thanks going to geolud. Humans will never again set a ridiculing, abusive, coercive, and wicked foot on this world. I am Telereus, god of Calen IV.
End of Chapter One.