Two Short Biology Horror Stories (Fiction)
A couple more very short fiction pieces I had lying around. Enjoy!
Cells
Scientists seek to know. They seek to understand. How better to study the cell than to study very large cells.
They took the largest there was, the Chaos carolinense, the giant amoeba, and they took the biggest, and the biggest. Then they took the genes and tweaked them and spliced them, because 5 mm was not long enough, and because it didn’t give them what they wanted.
Tweaked them and spliced them and the cells grew and the cells grew until they barely fit in a man’s palm.
Then they bred, oh how they bred, and you cannot stop an amoeba from breeding, because all they do is split and divide and then grow again and feed. T fed on the lab and they fed on the scientists’ lunches.
And they fed on the scientists and broke out into the world, and fed on the town, a great swarm of them, protoplasmic fingers seeking only their next meal, the energy they needed to split and breed again.
In the end, they nuked the town.
The amoebas were the only thing that lived.
The Immortal Rose
It was perfection itself, the deep red flower, its rich scent. In the vase it sat, not wilting or dying. For that was its secret, a rose that would not die, could not die. It waited on a windowsill, turned slightly towards the brilliant sun outside. Bred and spliced for this, forever to brighten a woman’s life and echo a man’s love. Yet it was still a rose, with thorns. She reached to pick it up, to hold it where the scent could reach her. The thorns pricked her, and she fell. Nothing can live without food.
