Deadly Silence

What I felt was the acids in the air nibbling at my skin. After being inside so much I yearned for the sun, for the singing birds and the fresh air. I was outside all day, every day, despite the fevers. I did think it strange having a fever, never having one before, but then I thought the men made a mistake and maybe I wasn't immortal. I was running a lot more now so the heat could have been caused by that, too. Either way, I paid it little mind and went on with my day to day activities.

Soon after the fevers came sore throats. Then came the nausea and the lightheadedness. I was weak all of the time. My body seared with anger at those mysterious men. They had created me regardless of the long term side effects. Those life-taking jerks could have cared less for me. All they wanted was to be the first to do something like me and get credit for furthering the field of science.

Everyone wanted to do something, regardless of the pain it might cause, or the damage it might do. Look at where cloning got us. After the first thirty humans were cloned, and all the "bugs" were worked out, there was no stopping the process. Everyone wanted a clone; it was the new "in" thing to have. I've nothing against science, so don't get me wrong, but they were in such a hurry that they overlooked one little detail. Cloning someone was like giving the clone a multiple personality disorder. People were against making humans with the exact same personalities, so genes were replaced, and the problem solved. The real problem, however, was that there was a specific gene that everyone had, and no one knew about, that influenced the personality of a creature, so that remained in the clone. So in the end, the clone had its host's personality, but another one plugged into it, so multiple personalities showed up. These "different" people soon became destructive and killed around 1.6 billion people.

Everything died down after the clones were all destroyed. But taking the opportunity of no one paying it mind, the monster made its presence known. It had been there all along, but with the new developed ways to produce machinery, computers, cars, and timber, it came as if out of nowhere. It had been silent for all of these years, but it had now found its voice, and was all too willing to use it. The monster had always been a problem, and a human induced one at that, but there were no real strides taken to stop it, if not to at least hamper it.

For some phenomenal reason all of my fevers and headaches simply went away. I suppose it was a miracle, but I was hoping that maybe whatever it was would somehow reverse what was done to me and make me mortal once again. Whatever it was, it didn't last. Maybe it was a different chemical used in the production lines for that one short week. Humans give the monster fuel everyday and live with its wrath, yet they still didn't get four when they added two and two.

I suppose we could call the monster by its given name, but there are so many. The most common is pollution. But what's in a name, right? Call it happy-go-lucky-smog and it would still be just as deadly; just as lethal. I had to find this out the hard way.