SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST | original

prologue

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

"WHAT ARE WE going to do, Barry?"

It was six o'clock in the evening in the Green household. Jessica and Bartholomew were sitting at their dining table in the room adjoining the lounge, looking at each other in something that could only be described as fear (but not the selfish kind, a much deeper, selfless fear brought on by love for someone else). In unison, they glanced at the ominous sheet of paper on the surface between them. The mere sight of it caused Barry's heart to pound in his chest like a jackhammer and tears to come to Jessica's eyes. The Scottish woman's hands were shaking as she rubbed her face in utter exhaustion. She'd been up all night the night before waiting for the results of the tests, which were now on the paper that was causing the two to break down.

"This could kill them," Barry said, still not quite believing what he'd seen. His voice was oddly muted, so unlike his usual confident, loud demeanour. He looked over his shoulder into the lounge, where their two children sat playing on the Xbox, yelling battlecries and making sound effects, so young and oblivious to the world around them. Ignorance was bliss, after all. But could they afford to be blissful in times like these, when the government and even their own genetics was against them? They had no idea what was coming for them.

No idea of the pain their futures might hold.

"Or it could be worse," his wife reminded him, voice thick with despair. "So much worse... Who knows what they'll do to them if they're affected?" She swallowed. "We've got to leave." At that point, their youngest child, five year old Tala, let out a whoop and came barrelling through the door followed by Fionn, who was three years older. Her blonde hair hung about her face in ringlets, cheeks red from the excitement.

"Mummy, I won!" she crowed, circling the dining room table and giggling when her brother chased her, chuckling. The parents smiled to hide their utter hopelessness, drinking in the sight of their children as if it was the last time they would see them.

"Come here, you," Jessica said in an attempt to be light, catching Tala as she passed and lifting her into the air, all to a shriek and peals of laughter. She pulled her in for a hug then set the girl on her knee, pushing aside a tuft of ash blond hair on Fionn's forehead when he stopped beside them.

"You know Mummy and Daddy love you, don't you?" she said, glancing between them, the tears she wouldn't let fall clouding her vision.

"That's right," Barry agreed, his breezy voice also sounding a little forced. "We love you very much. What would you guys think about us moving house to somewhere nice?" Fionn looked slightly perturbed at the idea, but Tala didn't seem to care either way; she was perfectly content playing with their mother's blonde hair.

They didn't know it, but from that day on, the futures of those happy, blissfully unaware children, were set.