Genesis [undergoing some major editing]

G E N E S I S | 25

30thNOVEMBER 2035

25 DAYS LEFT

I couldn’t help but shiver when the cold wind blew, tugging at the bobble hat that sat at the top of my head. Praying silently that my hat stayed in place, I wrapped my hands around my jacket clad body whilst rubbing them up and down my arms, hoping to preserve as much heat as possible.

Taking large, swift footsteps, I scurried down the street, fighting off the wind as my destination lay in sight.

The lone moon howled in the sky, illuminating the Earth below and its inhabitants.

There were very few people walking on the dark street, just like how it usually was. People like me tended to stay in their homes for as long as possible, not wanting to be caught outside when something bad happened. But unlike them, I didn’t really care.

 Not anymore, not once after I had heard the news.

I would be lucky to be alive for Christmas, they said, chirping happily as they gave me the news. They then ushered me out of the room so they could call in the next person, not caring about any one of their patients, not wanting to waste their time on any one of us.

It was a cruel world, it was. It was a world of discrimination and selfishness, people only caring about themselves and of those of their own kind. If you were to walk down the high street, people would take one look at you and then stick their nose up, moving as far away from you as possible.

It was almost as if they believed that we had the plague. Well, compared to them, we probably had something which they would classify as worse than the plague.

We were ‘Unimproved’.

People like me didn’t gain any respect in this society, no one like me had for years.

We weren’t given a chance at education and it was very rare for any of us to get an interview for a job. And even if we did, they would grill you to the very spot, just waiting for you to slip up so they could shove you to the curb, claiming that they had given you a chance but you just weren’t able to meet up to their expectations.

People only cared about themselves, no one else; especially the people who were ‘superior’ to us.

Scientists were making new discoveries every day, finding out ways to improve the human body. They had learned how to genetically engineer human stem cells and their DNA cells, changing genes so they could ‘improve’ the average human.

Germ Line Engineering had become very common.

This is a procedure where they would genetically engineer the genes of a baby in the lab so that it fit the requirements of the parents before placing it into the mother’s womb, all set for the nine months of pregnancy ahead.

It was a couple of people at first; let me tell you, only those who could afford it. But now, it had become a new thing, a new fashion where scientists played around with the sex cells from the male and female before producing the ‘perfect’ human being.

Everybody was doing it, everybody who could afford it.

And those who couldn’t… well, they were forced into seclusion from the rest of humanity. They had to live in the shabby homes and darks streets, not being seen as important.

More and more people used the help of their scientists to get the perfect baby, and it all soon became a trend; a competition. A survival for the fittest, a survival for the ones with the best brains and the best looks.

And those who weren’t at the top, they didn’t survive.

People like me just couldn’t afford all these procedures and experiments, and that brought on discrimination and a place at the bottom of the social hierarchy. I was living with a defect, a disease, and that gave the people of this world another thing to criticise; another person to monopolise.

It was a cruel world, one that we were forced to live in.