Why? Why did we get so foolish? Why did we throw all conventional wisdom out the window, and instead pursue darker paths of discovery, all in the hopes that we'd find the light again, round ourselves back off and come full circle. Dark means for light purposes... resulting in only more darkness. We thought we knew what we were doing. We wouldn't have continued if we didn't. The fact of the matter was, we could have wiped the world clean of the chemical taint of disease-- of pain-- if our plans had reached fruition. But alas-- we were fools. We thought...
I must digress for a moment, my continual use of the first-person personal pronoun 'we' might appear to be aberrant in this discourse. 'We' were a group of scientists, collaborating on the greatest atrocity that humanity had ever witnessed. 'We' thought we knew better than anybody else. 'We' thought we could wipe the slate clean for humanity, to help attain a higher purpose, an opportunity... we thought we could clean, on a microscopic level, the deviant genetic material that left men, women and children, open to cancers, to crippling disabilities, to all the hurt and pain in the world that made life unlivable-- we would change people on a base level, and we thought we had succeeded... until the Scourge began to spread. We discovered-- too late, as it always is-- that wiping impurities from DNA cannot be controlled... we thought it could be controlled, but my God--
Wait. That was it, of course. 'God'. Our complete lack if conviction in his or hers existence, telling us that we must act where this being wouldn't-- we'd have to take control of our own lives. Our own destinies. 'God'-- mocking us, making us strive to better our lives-- God-- it was his fault! It was his fault we did what we did! He mocked us. They all mocked us.
Where was I? Ah, yes, the Scourge. Our experiments went wrong-- so wrong. We couldn't control the... cleansing. DNA began to degrade, but not collapse upon itself... the Faceless were born. Horrific creatures-- human in shape but not in mind-- their bodies twisting and contorting as their flesh dribbled down, sealed up their mouths, their eyes, but their skin became... we don't know, 'permeable'? They lived! They breathed! The act drove them to insanity, but they survived... and clawed open their mouths. You should have seen the first footage of the early transformations! Pink, fleshy things, with bone sharp finger tips, bloody red-raw holes in their faces where their mouths should have been... and their taste for flesh was insatiable.
We. There is no we now. Only me. I. In my lab. In my bunker. With enough supplies to last me over the decades, but alone enough to not want to live another day. I work to figure out where we went wrong, I listen to the radio for a sign of hope-- of survival-- but I hear none. The Faceless roam the deserted streets in the dead cities, searching for survivors. They tear them limb from limb, fight over their flesh and winner take all. I've seen the footage. All I have to see the outside world are my cameras.
My home is impregnable. They cannot get in. If I were to get out... I would be dead within moments. This isn't about them coming out in the night-- no, they sleep at night, as humans are wont to do-- but in the day? They roam... small packs, just small enough so they don't fight over their food... there are alpha males, there are pilot fish, there are bottom feeders... they scar their flesh with their fingers, they rub blood on themselves... and all I can think to ask is this, at the end of civilisation:
Why? Why did we get so foolish?
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