Symbiote

Normally at night there are stars, the occasional shooting star, and even the ever-present moon; however, on this particular night, the darkness didn’t have to compete with the light—the light vanished. Its dominance was far deeper than anything ever experienced or imagined. It was as though the heavens themselves turned their back on the Earth, disgusted in what they saw and not wanting to view the repulsive planet they once used to shine upon. The rare blue pearl of the Milky Way was a shadow of what it once was. A world once teeming with life, both on and off land, now sported oceans of dead, rotting sea-life. All seafaring mammals and fish coated the entire surfaces of oceans, seas, rivers, and even the smallest of ponds. Nothing was left untouched. A sickening film coated all major water-bodies, yielding a sickening, noxious smell. The once blue planet, Earth, was now a ghastly gray globe of death. But the seas only showed half the Earth’s epitaph. On the land, billions of wildlife lay decomposing in the hot, unforgiving sun in the temperate zones and completely frozen after their unforgivable deaths in the ice-covered tundra. Lying in collapsed positions throughout major cities and across the globe were rancid remains of what used to be the human race. Neither continent nor the most isolated island was left untouched by the putrid remains of both man and beast. Wherever the diseased flesh touched plant life, that too withered and died. Insects and bacteria normally assisting in the decomposition of the dead also perished when coming in contact with the infected. It was a plague that did not leave anyone or anything unaffected. It was complete and utter eradication of all life on the once-shining blue marble. No longer was it a planet of such probable rarity in the Universe. Once it demanded the light from distant stars to shine on it, and now it forced those same stars to turn in disgust. The only star that continued to shine upon it was from the same solar system. As the planet orbited around it, this star was determined to burn the festering remnants of life off the surface. If biotic decomposition was no longer possible, it would do the best it could to purge the blight and hope that one day, a millennium or two from now, it would recover—somehow. What fueled the fire of the sun even more was the presence of the three life forms remaining on Earth. They lumbered around aimlessly, desperately trying to find the existence of some life. Perplexed by what they’d seen and incensed at how they could’ve been so wrong with their predictions, they argued among each other. They went over their plans in detail, leaving out nothing in debate, and yet couldn’t understand the results they now walked among. They were cursed to live out an eternity on a lifeless planet, none of them having the fortitude to extinguish their existence. They’d rather live this hellish existence, raiding grocery stores, debating what could’ve been, while migrating at night to avoid the blistering effects of the sun. A lifeless globe of death left for the three to roam for a millennium. A millennium, since the three couldn’t die. An immortality once seen as a blessed gift was now a hellish existence. Why did they continue to live amongst such conditions? Why did they persist? The question, so simplistic in nature, failed to realize the complementary answer. Why did they continue? They continued because they couldn’t conceive the fact they were wrong. Everything they did and strived for was wrong. They were flawed in their presumptions, thus leading to a devastating and ill-conceived result. And it was this they failed to perceive, still driving them forward, hoping to correct what had happened. They will be forever stuck in this deplorable state of a proverbial, indefinite loop. They will never stop devising a plan to reach their goals, no matter how improbable. A soft voice emanated throughout the Universe in response to all that was just seen. “They must be stopped,” it said. “Time is short. All you have seen will come to pass unless—”