THE HOPE OF MANKIND RESTED ON THEIR SHOULDERS!
All I and Joan heard as we made our escape from the horror behind us were the screams of our colleagues as they were slaughtered. Then I remembered John and the sacrifice he made for me to live in his stead and my leg wobbled as fresh tears flowed down my eyes, but on we kept for we also carried fresh hope for our civilization and as we turned the corner the most beautiful sight beheld us. The mast of our shuttle came into view to give us a glimmer of hope and we picked up speed with renewed vigor.
*****************************************************
THE YEAR 2765
Months ago we left Earths orbits with hope in our hearts because we had stumbled upon an astonishing and monumental discovery, we were not alone. Human race as we knew it was at the brink of extinction because of the Pandora virus that had already wiped out more than half of earth’s population. The Pandora virus was very similar to the AIDS virus that wrecked havoc on humanity half a century ago because it attacked the human immune system and rendered it defenseless, but it was fifty times deadlier than the AIDS virus and it rendered the body system defenseless in a matter of days after first contact and all efforts to contain it had proved abortive.
Like the Greek mythology of Pandora's creation in Hesiod's works and days. The box which was actually a large jar was given to Pandora and it contained all the evils of the world. When Pandora opened the jar, all its contents except for one item were released into the world. The one remaining item was Hope. The Pandora virus was so named after it because it was first contracted three years ago by a group of scientists from a similar capsule that had just returned to give us hope. The capsule had been designed to gather upper atmosphere micro organisms and to give proof of the existence of life outside our galaxy, and when the capsule returned, it was discovered that a micro organism rested within it that was alien to our world, so the excited and curious scientists opened it without taking certain precautionary steps and it was let loose into our world.
The strain was so aggressive that within a week it had killed over one hundred thousand people and by the end of the month it had spread like wildfire and wiped out half of the Mediterranean. For a year we battled to find a cure while we struggled to contain the spread but we failed. So in the second year of our relentless search for the cure, as a last desperate bid, it was agreed that the several capsules [with trackers showing where it had been upon return] should be sent to the different regions of space in the hope that a cure will be found.
Three hundred and eight seven days, eighteen hours, fifteen minutes and thirty two seconds later one of the capsules returned with a sterile strain which suggested that somehow and somewhere in space, in an unknown planet, the virus had wrecked havoc and a cure had been found, hence the existence of a superior life. So a team of the best scientists, anthropologists, micro biologist, medical doctors and other related fields were quickly dispatched for our voyage through space and time to a desolate part of the galaxy where a planet we called “Pandora X” was situated. We entered Pandora X orbit six months later and a small exploratory group that consisted of me, my husband John, Joan, her fiance and six other men were sent down in a shuttle to explore the planet and after a week of hard search, experimenting, exploration and having the hair at the back of our necks constantly rising because of the eerie feeling of being watched on a planet that looked devoid of all form of life, we discovered the cure.
The cure was found in the form of a bacterium with a strange genetic make up unknown to us. The bacterium some how attacked the Pandora virus and renders it sterile by mutating its DNA, furthermore we discovered that the bacterium could be cultured in a lab and that got us so ecstatic and jubilant. We immediately dispatched a radio message of our discovery to our mother ship, then harvested enough of the bacterium and kept it preserved in two cylinders in preparation for our trek back to our shuttle. That night I celebrated and got drunk with the rest, made love with John under the Pandora X sky and later had the of weirdest dreams.
The attack which began at the break of dawn was swift and organized. They were very fast and we were quite helpless to defend ourselves as all we saw were blurs of movements and by the time we gathered our wits three had already died. With both of us carrying a cylinder of the preserved bacteria, I and Joan ran for our lives, while the five remaining men, my husband included stayed behind to buy us time.
As our shuttle began its ascent from the God forsaken planet I remembered the look John had given me before he yelled at us to make a run for the shuttle, I remember the look of love, adoration and pain I saw in his eyes as he and the others bravely stayed to fight a faceless enemy they stood no chance against. They were the real heroes not us the survivors and they shall forever be etched in mankind’s memory as our saviors.
*****************************************************
The last of our dying race gathered sated and bloodied under the dust of the ascending Shuttle to bid our future farewell.
We were once handsome, Intelligent, beautiful and elegant like these humanoids that came, until the virus we had genetically engineered threatened to wipe us off the face of the planet. For years we battled the virus till we found a cure in the form of another genetically engineered bacterium. But alas, the cure was like a doubled edged sword.
We began to physically mutate after it cured us, we became stronger, faster, uglier and it rendered our females counterparts barren, hence extinction all over again. So for years we again battled to find answers to why and how the essence from our manhood could never fertilize the eggs of our females even after we had been able to separate it and incubate in a lab.
And just when we were loosing hope about the continuity of our race an alien capsule landed on our planet.
Then we realized that we were not alone and concluded that whoever had the technology to create the capsule could also know how to fly one, so we hatched a plan and sent a strain of the aggressive virus along with the capsule back, in the off chance that if the virus begins to reign destruction, they would want to find its origin.
And when the humanoids came, we were astounded by the similarities they possessed with our former self. So we watched them and made sure they found the cure to take back to their planet and on the night of their celebration after they had gotten drunk and slept we crept into their camp and injected, the essence of our manhood into the two women’s womb, making sure one carried a boy the other carried a girl
So the attack in the morning was only a ruse to make sure the two female humanoid immediately left the planet and carried our seeds that was already naturally immune to the virus, an immunity that was passed on to them by us. For they would be carried to a land where our seeds would be superior, will multiply and rule after the humanoid race had been driven to extinction by the virus and the cure.
