I…I must apologize for what I am about to share. This is not my usual writing style, and it has been many years since I have written an apology letter. While the words that follow this are entirely true, I urge you to think of it as fiction. You deserve to have hope, for your children to have hope, until the events that I will describe take place. If you know that what I am telling you is true, I fear any semblance of optimism you may have for the future of humanity will cease, and I do not want your suicide on my hands. Your death is already.
I am, first and foremost, a scientist. I am bound to my work by curiosity and a ceaseless hunt for answers. The natural world, while incredibly straight forward, is also a tremendous mystery. It’s the “why”. The question was not answered easily. Things work but why? How is a close second. How do things work? How and why are we here? These questions almost sent me into a philosophical career, but I wanted to figure the answers out more than I wanted to ask the questions.
Morally speaking, I am a good man. I care deeply for my family, I spend quality time with them, I am faithful and devoted to my wife and children. I donate to the needy, I reduce my carbon footprint when I can, I attend church against my own beliefs because my wife wants my soul saved. I know if hell is real then I am damned as they come. The devil himself will probably have a throne beside his for me when I enter, considering my sins. Sin. Singular. And I am so, so sorry for it. If the Lord is real, he will never forgive me for destroying his most precious creations. All of them. All of you. I am so sorry.
I am writing this because when the day comes, whether in five years or 50, I want to take responsibility for this. You see, while I am not typically a prideful man, this is my life’s work. I never imagined it would get so out of hand. I am a biologist by trade, and I specialize in astrobiology. The world has been so sure that the zombie apocalypse would happen because of a new disease or virus. I am sorry to say that it won’t. And while what I have found does not crave human flesh, it will not leave humanity alone until we are all eradicated. I know this because I am patient zero, and it is spreading fast.
It’s not a virus or a strain of bacteria. It’s actually nothing that has ever seen before because I engineered it. No, I didn’t purposely create the organism that would end all of humanity, it just sort of happened. And yes, I said organism. It is alive. It is intelligent. It is multiplying at a rate far greater than I could have ever anticipated. It is virtually undetectable. And it is the end.
Now that I have your attention, allow me to set the stage. Six months ago, I was researching some new samples that had come into the lab. While studying the rock samples that had come from a meteor found on the floor of the ocean, I noticed some small specs that called for closer observation. They were not algae, microorganisms from our ocean, nothing explainable. I had done what every scientist in any field hopes to do at least once in their lifetime - I had discovered something new.
My joy and excitement were overwhelming, and my findings lead me to becoming the lead researcher on this new project. Through countless experiments, we learned that the specs (we ended up calling them ENILs or, extraterrestrial nitrogen intaking lifeforms) were actually intaking small levels of nitrogen from the atmosphere. Meaning, they were alive. They were extremely hard to study, they didn’t reproduce and there were only about 10,000 of them. At 500 nanometers, they were barely visible with even the most powerful microscopes. They didn’t move, cluster, or seem to change in any way. But they did intake nitrogen, and they did not emit anything.
After five months of no new discoveries despite numerous new experiments, I had an idea. After getting approval to separate one of the ENILs from the rest, I introduced it to a controlled environment of NO2. To my surprise, the ENIL remained much the same, taking the nitrogen in and leaving the oxygen. I then introduced it to a pure oxygen environment, and it remained much the same, with no change. Lastly, I introduced nitrifying bacteria with a regular air environment. The ENIL fed on the bacteria’s energy that it sourced from the nitrogen in the air, killing it.
In my excitement, I made a mistake. A fatal mistake. I grabbed the slide I had been observing and I was going to place it in the carrying case so I could return it to its regular environment, I dropped it. The slides are made to withstand small mistakes, but as I whirled around to find where I had dropped it, I stepped on the glass. There was barely even a crack, but when I went to look at the ENIL under the microscope again, it was gone.
I noticed the spots three days later. They began as small clusters, barely visible. They looked like flat little red pimples. I thought it was razor burn. By day seven they were all over my face, and by day ten my entire body was red. I was quarantined on day five, but it was too late. Everyone I worked with, my family, people I passed by on the street, they all began to get the same little red pimples. Some people didn’t notice until day five or six, and by that point, everyone that they had come in contact with was infected.
We thought, maybe it wouldn’t be harmful. While in quarantine, we began to look for a cure. The symptoms weren’t terrible at first, mild itching, sore muscles, a headache. Being patient zero, I have been the guinea pig for treatments. More and more people are being quarantined each day, but it’s still spreading. Through vents in apartment buildings, doctor’s offices, and most people think it’s just a mild case of acne. Some people don’t even get a single patch large enough to see for two weeks. None of the treatments are working. And the symptoms…they get worse.
What started as a mild headache has blossomed into a full blown constant migraine. I can feel the ENILs in my skin. Under my skin. It feels like they are wrapping around my brain and suffocating it. My body has begun to take in Nitrogen as its primary life source. I can’t eat or drink without my body’s instant rejection. And the worst part is…they talk to me.
I have begun to hear thousands, millions, maybe billions of tiny voices in my head. They drown out everything else. My body is covered head to toe in them. They thank me. Endlessly they thank me for my “contribution” to their society. They thank me for their introduction to different chemicals. They thank me for sustaining them. They speak in different languages, different voices, and it’s an overbearing volume. And, they communicate with my other quarantined colleagues. They use my mouth to speak to one another. It’s so strange to open my mouth and without moving it, voices ring out. It’s taken me over a week to write this short passage, as most of the time I cannot think of anything other than what they say. I am an imposter in my own body, and the others are getting worse too. Day by day, we are being taken over. I feel them making my fingers twitch, learning how to operate my body without permission. Today, they made me stop scratching my thigh that itches so terribly from them.
Tomorrow, I am not sure how tomorrow will go. I am not sure if I can withstand this pounding headache. I don’t know how to stop them, or how to make the pain go away. I am sorry. I am so sorry. They are spreading, they are coming, and they are a life form unlike anything I have ever known. They are relentless. Endless. And I want you to know I am responsible for this. I am Doctor Eddard Brewing, a government-employed microbiologist, and I am saying goodbye to humanity for the last time.