Heatwave

Let this be the chronicle of how humans were eradicated from earth.

There were no signs. No warnings. They appeared suddenly, and started reaping human lives as quickly.

It began with several locked-room murders, all around the globe. They were strangled to death.

Bruised around the lower neck, they appeared to have been choked by some thick rubber pipe.

But there were never signs of struggle.

“Everyone, stay indoors. Avoid all contact with anyone else.”

They never listen. One by one, slowly but surely, they were infected with the mark.

It showed up in unexpected places – their bodies, their clothes, their possessions. Even on the wall. They saw the mark.

A rounded arrow, pointing to the ground.

The moment they saw it, they would lose consciousness. They would faint. The past month would wash over them, like their life flashing before their eyes.

They would remember the faces of everyone they met, everyone they saw.

They would remember these faces. The ones that came to survive.

And when they wake up, they would see their room, completely covered in white. Then the serpent would come to judge them.

That was their trial. Their burden. Was there another person to feed upon? Another soul to take?

If there was, they were no longer useful. They would need to die.

If there weren’t, then they weren’t going to be useful now, nor the future. They would need to die.

By the simple act of being alive, they were punished by death.

But there were those who knew this would happen.

As the sun grew hotter, and the heatwave came, the Migrants were coming to life.

Like organic material in the primordial soup, the heat supplied energy for the scattered members to find each other.

As they remembered each other, and recognized each other, their idea was incorruptible.

They walked around the air conditioned hallways of society and seeked to draw more in to their cause.

Before the fall began, they were isolated. Complete Eden.

They knew not the future that awaited them, but they knew that this was the only way to guarantee a future.

In their isolation they built a giant ship. An ark to reignite life to humanity.

Two by two they came, searching something less than meaning. Searching for survival.

As the parasites took root in the established society, the Migrants separated themselves into a new one. As the roots of the parasites grew larger, as the invisible vines that wrapped and strangled humanity grew stronger and branched out, the Migrants were preparing to egress.

And egress they did.

They were no longer on earth. And only a few weeks after they left, humans were eradicated from earth.

And thus, the Migration began. A small segment of society that existed on earth for epochs was now traveling to Mars. A new home. A new life. A new Return.

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Afterword.