Some might find echoes of Annihilation in this story, but I didn’t write it with that in mind.
This was born from a dream—one that left a mark. Make of it what you will. This world only exists for one chapter.
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The world has been taken by infection.
I think.
“Not in the traditional sense.” That’s the phrase, right?
I found it in one of the books we have here, though I’m still not completely sure what it means. And… after reading a lot, I’m not sure this thing even falls into the category of “infection.”
A spreading, maybe? Growth?
So many meanings, and I haven’t the slightest clue what to name it.
We call it the Alteration.
Because it alters our world.
The records here say it started fifty-something years ago and spread fast. You could tell by the dark green hue it gives every piece of land it touches. A type of grass that appeared one day out of nowhere… and then just started growing everywhere it could.
My mom died because of it. She stepped on it for too long.
You see, it hurts humans.
Normal grass is soft, vibrant—the kind you can lie on. But this… it just makes our whole bodies hurt, until eventually, we die.
No human has ever adapted to it, though some tried. The longest anyone lasted was 20 seconds. I wonder what made that person try. Were they doing it for science? Hope? Desperation? I guess we’ll never know.
They couldn’t recover his body. No one was willing to take that risk.
He was impressive. Most people, including my mom, die after about 5 seconds. They say that’s the norm.
She couldn’t escape it. But somehow, it still hurts.
I wish it had done to her what it did to the animals and insects.
I sometimes dream about what she would have looked like if it had.
Because the Alteration didn’t kill them.
It just… changed them.
In horror stories, the animals turn into monsters—things we have to fight to survive.
But pigs stayed pigs.
Ants stayed ants.
Just different.
They have different legs. A different way of moving. A different color. Different eyes… though I’m not sure if you can even call them “eyes.” Maybe that’s their mouth? Or do they even have one anymore?
I don’t know how to describe the way they move. I don’t even know if there’s a term for it.
Trust me, I’ve looked.
I watch them sometimes, through the window we have here. I try to understand them. They don’t seem to think they’re strange. They don’t move in a way that feels unnatural to them.
But their behavior doesn’t make sense to me. Or to the scientists.
Even the way they’re built…
It’s like we’re guests in someone else’s dream.
We tried to capture one. And we succeeded—once.
But after eating what I assume was its flesh, we just started to hurt all over. And then, we died—just like we would on the darkened grass.
That’s how we found out how the grass spread so fast.
It didn’t just affect animals. It changed the flora, too. The trees.
The tree we have in here works the way all trees used to: we breathe out carbon dioxide, and it gives us oxygen in return.
But the trees of the Alteration… they give us something else. Not air.
Something that hurts and kills us.
Something that helps the Alteration spread.
It’s like life had enough of us.
It wants to move on… but without us.
I wonder if, after we’re gone, there will be different humans, too.
Some of us pray to the Alteration, believing it’s a new god.
I believed it, too—once.
I prayed to it. Asked it to return my mom.
But it didn’t.
We are now at the Final City.
A 50-by-50-meter laboratory. I am among the last twenty-one people alive on planet Earth.
We have a tree. A pair of pigs. And an old duck that is about to die of old age—and go extinct.
We have a tree. We have a farm.
But even that won’t last.
The scientist gave us about a week.
Not because of starvation.
Not because of the Alteration itself.
But because the air outside—the air created by the altered flora, the altered trees—isn’t air anymore.
It can’t be filtered. Can’t be cleaned.
It isn’t oxygen. Not the way we know it.
I’m writing this because I love stories.
They’re my way of interacting with this altered world—even just a little.
A way to see my mom again, even if only through words.
So if the Alteration takes these words I write in this journal, will it turn them into something new?
That would be really cool.
It makes everything outside the Final City look so… illogical. Bizarre.
I wonder if, somehow, it will make these worlds I write about real.
Like—what words will be written after this book is Altered?
No one has ever retrieved a book after it’s been altered. I guess no one deemed it important enough.
I wish the Alteration would let me live long enough to see it.
…Though, probably not.
I went to see Marvin.
Our last remaining scientist who hasn’t taken the pill yet.
He was the slowest one among them. The other scientists—when they were alive—would insult him a lot. Laugh at him when they had the chance.
Maybe that’s why he hasn’t taken it yet. Because he’s dumber?
I hope he doesn’t see this journal, then. Haha.
He’s a dark-skinned guy. Wears glasses. Fancies himself a white lab coat.
I like being with Marvin. He makes me feel safe—the way he leans back in his chair, spreading his arms and legs like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
I wish I could do that.
I tried imitating him once, but I have a feeling it wasn’t the same.
But I’m straying off the subject.
I looked at Marvin clicking on the keyboard.
It was late at night.
The sun and moon were still the same—the Alteration only affected the clouds.
The lab was dark, lit only by the glow of the bluish computer screen.
I asked him, “Marvin, you’re clicking a lot. Did you find something?”
He was so focused.
He answered, “Nah, little fella. I haven’t the slightest idea what I’m doing.”
Then he grinned. “I’m just clicking on the keyboard, and sometimes a gray box pops up on the screen and makes a sound. Wanna try?”
He looked at me with that same casual smile, leaning back in his chair like always.
My eyes lit up.
I had never touched a computer before.
“Sure!”
I took the seat next to him and started clicking. It was so cool. Every time I pressed a key, it made a noise.
“You see,” he started, “I do this so these people won’t take the pill too quickly. I love talking to them, you know? So I make them think I’m doing things here.”
“… Oh. Okay.”
I kept clicking, still in awe of the sounds the keyboard made. I understood he was trying to talk to me, but this was the coolest thing I had ever done in my life.
He chuckled, rubbing my shoulder as he pulled me in. “You’re a curious little guy, aren’t you?”
We sat there like that for a while.
I liked being with Marvin, even if he was a little different right now.
I guess he was like everyone else. But I hoped he wouldn’t be.
“Are you scared?” he asked me.
I didn’t answer.
I kept clicking the keyboard.
Then he went quiet, just sitting there with me.
We listened to the noises it made.
Sometimes, we tried pressing keys in quick succession, making the sounds repeat over and over. We laughed when we could get them to line up just right.
It was one of the best nights of my life.
Today, Marvin took the pill.
He died.
A family asked me to take the pill with them.
I didn’t want to.
I ran and hid in the laboratory. Beneath the computer Marvin worked on.
I’m writing this as I sit under the keyboard.
They’re all looking for me.
… I don’t hear yelling anymore.
They stopped.
They must have wanted to hurry and take the pill too.
I sat at the computer and clicked the keys.
But it didn’t make a sound.
The screen was black.
An hour left before the oxygen runs out.
I’m just standing here.
I slept really well today.
I clicked all the buttons in the lab. It was fun.
Eventually, I pressed something, and I heard a door open.
I followed the noise.
It sounded like a breeze coming in.
The door to the Final City was open.
I’m going outside now.
Bye.
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