Dystopia

Prologue.

Everyone always thought the next war would be fought with bombs, drones or some sort of technological hogwash.

They thought the world would crumble upon itself like a ball of dirt thrown in the sky, or would burn like a matchstick. They were all, of course, wrong.

The next war wasn't even fought.

It was over the moment it began.

All that it took was, after all, but a single terrible mistake in choosing the members of the personnel. Personnel that was set to work in the department of the defense of a certain nation, for the development of new biological weaponry.

That mistake was what sent the world down the drain faster than it took for the president of the United States to blink his eyes and realize that not only he was surrounded, but that he didn't have a choice but capitulate.

No matter what, the future of the human race was decided when a simple vial was voluntarily spilled on the ground. There was no sort of flashy alert or contamination hazard, no humanity's last stand in some ditchwater place hidden in a corner of the world. The virus simply spread. Albeit calling it virus would actually be an offense.

It was a biological super-weapon after all.

Then things became cheesy, like those horrid B-rank movies that they force-feed you down the throat on a Saturday night, when you have no idea what you want to do, and you have no intention whatsoever to leave the house to go somewhere else.

People panicked. "This isn't my son!" some exclaimed. "You traitorous bitch!" others remarked. Somehow, nobody believed it strange when the rate of children born with something different from dark hair plummeted to minimum levels. It took them months to realize what was going on.

The funny thing was that Nerds got it right in the first week of hearing of it through the net.

Wasn't surprising: the government wanted a reason, a why, a certain proof of what was going on and had the means and the money to scientifically research it. The Nerds just had to point their fingers at Star Wars and remark 'Clones'.

And every woman was a vat-tank.

It spread worse than Aids. It migrated through air, water, animals and whatever it could find like some sort of ultra-powerful pest that just couldn't be stopped no matter how hard you tried to sanitize things. It resisted to antibiotics, it survived the abortion pills and it even regenerated in the damn womb if you tried to stab it with a pointy hook!

Everyone and everything was a carrier.

By the time the world of old ended, only one thought crossed the minds of the multitude that remained behind. It was, objectively, the logical thought to have in such a situation.

"What now?"

As luck would have it, they just had to turn to their father for the answer. He was, after all, the one responsible for letting the vial drop.

He pointed his index finger upwards and to this day, there is a statue five times as big as he was in that moment, made of pure brass, that depicts him in that specific pose with a smile. Beneath it is a tag, that has written the following words:

Now, we reach for the stars.