The Youthful Flesh

by angelscoverupyourpin

Carmen is a survivor after the world was left ravaged by nuclear extinction. The land of Contania lives on through it's few people. Believing that they are the last people left on the planet, no one knows of the inhumane acts that occur beyond the nuclear radiation. Something is evolving within it, and it's up to Carmen to end it.

7. Chapter 7 - Patchwork Evolution

What happened next was the beginning of the end. Soon after their intentions were revealed - making us all resort to mass murder of unborn children - one of our people threw something sharp and metallic. I don't know how anyone could throw so hard, but it managed to sink it's blade deep into the side of the ship, just inches from the start of the sea. However, the toxic gases in the ravaged atmosphere had taken it's toll on the aging ship. As the blade punctured, the hole began to spread like plague. The metal looked softer than snow, decaying away as the rust began to devour. Water began to pour into the ship, causing it to lurch down at the front. Unlike the images I saw in Chronology class of a ship called Titanic, the Graftling ship tilted fast enough for us to realise that they were going down with it.

'We can't just stand here!' I shout, only to be met with silence and defiance. From the depths of the sinking vessel, the moans and cries of the half-dead began to reach us. Disgusted in our inaction, I turn away. I knew that this would result in at least a large skirmish. On the other hand, the ship's drastic descent swallowed up everyone on board so fast.

'You will pay for this, Pure Ones!' whisper/cried the apparent leader of the Graftlings. By the time he'd finished that sentence, the entire ship sunk beneath the water silently. Anxiously, we waited to see if any of them had survived. We all began to think that they had all died, and our thoughts seemed confirmed by the decapitated torso floating to the surface. One by one, sodden body parts began popping up: half an arm with the bones showing; a head half melted away from the salt in the water.

That was when live bodies began swimming towards us. Their dying flesh seemed to be compensated with the patches of 'new flesh,' with some of it appearing to be spreading out as the old skin fell away. It seemed that the people of Australia have found a way to create immortal and reproductive flesh: it was keeping them alive. As I looked on, I saw the body parts of different people stitching together in irregular forms. One mismatched body began swimming, with one arm longer than the other, and the other arm had a foot instead of a hand at the end.

This is the evolution of the human race; it's patchwork.