• The cold glow of the computer screen stared back at him, as his page remained blank. He wiped his eyes, for it was late, and still, nothing had come to him. Although his actions required explanations, and although the power was still on, (for now) time was indeed of the essence. He ran his right hand though his light brown hair, and paused when he got to the back of his neck, and he scratched it a little. With a sigh and a grunt, his hand returned to the keyboard as he began to type. Clicking away, a sentence filled the screen.

    "So... In all fairness, hindsight is twenty-twenty-"

    No. He didn't like it. He tapped on the backspace button, erasing his work. He started again.

    "Had I known what my work would have done, I never-"

    Oh, how easy to admit ignorance, and such a blatant lie. He knew full well the possible outcomes, and though himself prepared, figure the world would be prepared. He was wrong on one count. He was ready, still was. It was the world that had failed him. Again, he backspaced, erasing the words on the screen, never to be printed nor see the light of day. Thoughts ran through his head, images on the news casts on the result of his work.

    "I did what I did in the name of science. To cheat death-"

    Backspace. Nothing seemed right the words were a jumbled mess. People called him a monster, his work the end of life on earth. How would he know of the terrible consequences? Perhaps he should have learned from the countless stories and films about men of science going to far. Shelley, Lovecraft, Romero, all spoke of the dark nature of science, of the danger of playing God. Other scientists create clones of sheep, and grow organs. Yet, he was the madman, the Great Destroyer.

    "So, I guess it was a terrible idea-"

    He looked at this sentence, mulling it over for a bit. He liked it, yet at the same time, he hated it. To judge his work, his creation, his baby, as it was, as a bad idea that required an abortion before it spiraled out of control. He shook his head, and stood up from his computer and looked out the reinforced bars of his window.

    Two stories of the ground, it was still difficult to see because of the snow. Well, the bodies and the blood were easy enough to see. Finding the sun was the hard part on certain days. Most days you could still see it, but it gave off now warmth. The Norse were closer in their talks of Rangnarok that the Christians with their Revelations. There were no ten headed beasts, only two blasts that had destroyed the sun.

    When the outbreaks began, Nuclear weapons were used to help combat the growing threat. L.A. and New York were hit first. After that, the government realized how it was a lost cause and didn't drop anymore. Now it was just cold, the early winter settling in over the planet for the next thirty or forty of a hundred years. Not that it mattered. In his room, he was warm. For now, as long as the power stayed on.

    He returned to his desk, the glow of his computer once again filling his eyes. He hadn't checked his e-mail today. Not that it would change anything. There would be no new message and he knew this. There never was. But it didn't matter. He checked anyway.


    Japan had lost contact with the outside world shortly after the U.S. government dissolved, and no one had come in or out. He highly doubted she was still alive, as her research team had been far too close to one of the infected areas. But still he checked, every day, and would every day, as long as the power was on. The news had not been updated for months now, and that all too familiar picture, no larger than three inches right next to the headlines still scared him. The skin rotting, the blood around the mouth fresh, the eyes sunken and distant... The greeting of his test subjects, the testament of all his "research and development."

    After checking his still empty mail, he leaned back in his rolling chair. So little to do, so much time to do it in. He light a cigarette, the voices of the past filling his ears as he used his Zippo lighter to bring the warm glow to the end of his coffin nail. His friends and family had told him it was a terrible habit, that it would be the death of him. How the tables had turned. Now, here he was, alive and well, while all of them were out there, either as prey or a predator.


    The thought of lung cancer causing his death now brought a smile to his face, and that became laughter. It was not the forced laughter after the telling of a long and awkward joke. It was not the laughter of a madman, pushed too far. It was an innocent laughter, the laughter of children. It started out as just a chuckling, but became louder and louder. The laughter slowly changed to sobbing, as he could see the faces of his mother and father and brother and friends, and her face, all of them slowly decaying, or being clawed away, the flesh torn and devoured, their silent screams falling upon his ears.



    In his depression, he had not forgotten about his cigarette, which he then took another deep drag, not only for his cravings, but for comfort. She was not longer there to tell him that everything would be fine, to have him believe her. Now, he was alone, and the tasks of comfort and pillow talk came to his packs of cigarettes. He rationed them out, so his stockpile of goods would last him the next three months, not that he expected to live that long. Once the power went down, he would only have a few days before his own curse came barging in through the front door, hungry for his flesh and blood. No, he had a gun with a few bullets left. He'd use that first, if it came down to it. An express ride out of town via the Bullet Train.



    He finished his cigarette as his tears stopped showing up, his body deciding he was done feeling sorry for himself as he looked back to the blank screen.

    "My name is-"

    He stopped himself. Would it matter who he was? Why give the future generations his name, to use as a curse, if there even was a future? He deleted this line, and slumped his shoulders in defeat. He needed to tell them what he had done, why he had done it.



    He paused for a second, and thought about it. Really thought. Did they really need to know? Who was going to question him? He made this world the way it was, not them. He had the authority to say if he needed to explain himself, not them, those faceless bastards who have yet to exist. He was the one who had discovered the mutation; he was the one who experimented on it. He was the one who oversaw its development. He was the one who had stated publicly it would cure cancer and AIDS and everything in-between. He was the Giver, he was the Life Saver. A Saint. A God.

    And when Gods give, they can taketh away. His gift turned into a curse. An unseen side effect in one out of every three million. How could he have known? How could anyone have known? They could have tested it for years and never run into it. Of course, then it mutated and…



    "It grew out of control."

    Deleted. No, it could have been controlled. He told them, when it started, what to do. The Three C's. Contain, Conserve, Control. But, they didn't listen. They again! The Faceless Nameless Ones who took his good work, his Gods work, and turned him into a monster, a demon, a Devil. He was called a madman, a destroyer, the Anti-Christ. He deserved such names, perhaps.

    "Whatever they say, I am not proud of what I did-"



    Again he was lying to himself. He was proud. He had shown humanity joy, a cure for all that ailed it. And then he had given them fear and terror. He was the stuff of legends, a modern day myth. A Loki of the Twenty First Century. Yes, such a title was bad, perhaps, but maybe not. He deleted the sentence, and stared at the blank screen.



    Perhaps that was the answer. That little line kept blinking, waiting for him to type, to give it life, to move it across the screen, from one end to the other. He would give it no such satisfaction. As he could not form his sentences to describe what he had done, his motives, perhaps no explanation was needed. He would simply say nothing, and perhaps speak volumes in his silence. Satisfied with this result, he stood from the computer, and took a second cigarette out from the pack, and ignited the end, the smoke filling and soothing his lungs at the same time.



    Then the lights went out. He would enjoy his last cigarette in the dark, listening to the chorus of moans and screams from outside.