Experiment One

They sat on and watched as the rain continued to fall, no longer red but now a deep shade of grey. The fighting had stopped little over a week ago and the rain was still cutting through the blood that lay spilt on the ground. Aerathun brushed a tear from his cheek and looked to Guthri, his superior and mentor.

"Is it done?" His voice quiet but unwavering.

"Tis that, friend." Guthri sighed quietly, more under his breath than anything. "And a sorry job too." Aerathun, whose eyes had returned to the land below them, now turned sharply back to Guthri.

"A sorry job? Is this not meant to have happened?" Aerathun was keen but had much to learn and his naivety made Guthri chuckle quietly, slim wrinkles appearing around his eyes.

"Meant to have happened? Oh no. This wasn't exactly what we had in mind at all." He paused and looked to the sky. "Not long now. So, where was I? Oh yes, I remember. This was one of, well, our first experiment, way back when we first discovered that we could manipulate and even create life. We wanted to see whether the life that we created could develop, or whether it would stay as we had created it. We weren't even sure it would survive without our aid." Aerathun nodded his understanding, recognising their surroundings for the organic laboratory it had been

"Well, it seems safe to assume that it survived. Did it change at all?"

"A matter for debate really. Biologically it changed; it developed and grew, mutated and evolved until it didn't even resemble our first creation. It wasn't the way we'd imagined it though. We assumed that once our creation began to thrive that it would continue to do so. We didn't even consider the prospect that it could become so destructive.

"We did the best we could but you have to understand that it was an experiment in to how this life would develop on it's own. So many times we wanted to intervene, but we had to wait for them, for their decision. I think we knew that it wouldn't end well though. The dominant species hit a threshold and couldn't turn things back around. They destroyed almost every other species on the planet, next to nothing left, then turned on themselves. Some think that we made them so destructive, and that in that respect they didn't develop from the way they were created, but really that's a question for the philosophists. Either way, we couldn't let it go any further. We have so few laboratories of this manner as it is, without these creatures destroying one. We couldn't let that happen." Guthri now wiped a single moist tear from his cheek before standing up. Aerathun stood too, looking across the plain as the rain continued to fall.

"Is it time Guthri?" Guthri nodded, his manner entombed in solemnity.

"Tis that friend. You're about to witness the final moments of Experiment One."

Aerathun cocked his head inquisitively.

"What was its real name Guthri? All of the experiments have a name other than their number, what was this one called?" Guthri began walking, first along the path and then climbing gently in to the air. Aerathun followed.

"We called this one Earth."


A quick note in case anyone reading this is feeling a little deja vu. I did have this item posted in my port previously but took it down when I was having a clean up. It's since had an edit with a few small changes, mainly grammatical, and has returned to my port.