This piece was written a few months ago, emailed, forgotten about, and rediscovered. I am aiming for a hind-sighted dystopian plot in this short story. I am revisiting the plot line loosely outlined in this story for a longer short story, more news later. As always, leave comments and feed back! I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!
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As the dying gas giant lights the united surface, the remnants of the evolutionarily excluded stage a coup in the Stronghold of Barna atop the Pangaeic mountain range central to the previously divided world. Knowing was the key, knowing their demise under the heel of a sister race which sprung from the stars, perhaps their best weapon was simply the fact of knowing their acts were futile no matter what direction they transpired in. When The Visitor arrived, the surging masses were unaware and unprepared, but how could they be for something so out of their naive control? In the night, a film spread throughout the land and sea from an ever expanding point somewhere in the deep azulite recesses of the ocean Pacific, a film unknown to this dimension that radiated and permeated onto everything it touched in an endless cycle that could only terminate upon completion. Upon awakening, those possessing what scientists would confirm to be ‘the God gene’ endured a meta-evolutionary process that resulted in heightened psycho-mental awareness and mass inter-humanoid communication via the mind. Those excluded from the supposed ‘God gene’ pool were routinely hunted and slaughtered or forced into hiding as the fear of dismemberment or being the subject to uncouth experimentation until annihilation was a threat all too real to allow stagnant stubbornness keep the unaffected undetected. The Stronghold at Barna crowns a mountain range with naturally occurring labyrinthine caverns, water dredged vaults, and a sheer face allowing no mountaineer any quarter for footing as the drop climbs to thousands of feet. For six years after the spreading of The Visitor’s gift the Stronghold at Barna shelled only small amounts of its population in exchange for an innumerable amount of invading ‘God gene’ possessors. Coordinated and focused attacks stressed the very chakra points of the structure, forcing its denizens deep into the tunnels and hidden pass-ways. In its last days, the stronghold’s reinforced walls and bolted metal doors gave birth to the unified world’s last three surviving homo sapiens, the last known free-thinkers of the new monadian world order. The surrender was peaceful, they were taken into custody as the rest of the world saw visions of their capture, interrogation, execution, and the dissection of their thoughts and bodies. These minds were among the most coveted, providing one final insight into who we used to be and how the individual mind worked in the petty squabbles and stresses of the previously modern world. Emotions unique to life were sensed one last time as the new face of hive-minded humanity took turn as a wholly unified and truly interconnected utopia of transparency. Individualism’s death was the key to a utilitarian life that until The Visitor appeared, remained a dream unseen in the eyes of Earth’s leaders. When the last of the Stronghold at Barna’s vaults had been pried open and investigators narrowed in on the most sought after room, a question was scrolled in human blood upon the walls of the hallway leading down deep into the mountain range’s core. The meaning of this question sent a shockwave of calculated and weighed response throughout the connected collected mind of humanity at large. It read, “Choice is the spawn of chaos, a gift unlike any entrusted upon us, will the death of deviance in thought quench our thirst for control or will our quenching of chaos only fuel thought in the direction of deviance?” Behind that last vaulted door of homo sapien withholding was a vibrant orchard in bloom with color, fruit, and aroma. In the center was the long decayed corpse of a woman, the most vivid colors of sprout came from her bones that peeked timidly from the soil. This perplexing mystery remains unknown as the hive-mind surges upon itself until the dormancy of chaos awakens from slumber, whenever that may be.
