Bacteriapocalypse

“No…this can’t be!”

I stumbled through the sea of bodies, unable to process what I was seeing. There were hundreds of thousands of them sprawled across the ground. And I recognized each one.

They were all my family.

I knelt next to one. The hairy body immediately gave it away: it was my sister. Or, at least it looked like her. It could have been my uncle. We E. coli all look the same.

We are all the same.

But if nothing sets us apart, why am I the only one still alive?

It was an ordinary day just an hour ago. I had been in school with the other few thousands of my young, green, pill-shaped brothers and sisters, ready to learn about how our species was going to take over the world.

The teacher had been going through role call (which typically lasts the entirety of the class). “Coli, Flower,” he said, hunching over the endlessly long list of names.

“Present,” said the bacterium next to me.

“Coli, Seum.”

“Here.”

“Coli, Tis.”

“Unfortunately still here.”

At the end of the class, the teacher asked if he missed any names. More than half the class, including me, raised their flagella.

The teacher groaned. “I knew there were more of you than when we started.” He let out a long sigh. “Please refrain from replicating yourself in this room. There should no copying in class.” He pointed at me. “Name.”

“Broc,” I said. “Broc Coli.”

He hadn’t finished writing my name when something made him freeze. We all froze. For the loudest sound I had ever heard exploded from somewhere high above us. It was like the sound of a cell bursting from drinking too much (I definitely can’t relate)—a “pshhhh” sort of sound, but magnified to the highest degree.

We all scuttled outside, tripping over each other’s tails. Someone gasped. “Look!” they said, pointing up. We gazed at the sky.

At first I didn’t see anything unusual, peering through the dusty, microscopic atmosphere, but then my sight caught something shiny in the distance. It was white, round, and almost transparent. And it was falling slowly toward us.

“There’s another one!”

“And there’s some more!”

After only a few seconds, the whole sky was dotted with small spheres of shiny white particles. They floated gently down.

My E. coli brethren stretched out their bodies, eager to get closer looks.

“Ooh, they’re so pretty!”

“What are they?”

“They look like water droplets to me,” said my cousin, Nic Coli. He climbed onto our great aunt and extended one of his flagella up to the sky. As the particles got closer, I noticed that they were about half his size, and seemed to be liquid. At the same time I perceived a change in the scent of the air; I was used to the wonderful taste and aroma of the rotting organic filth in which we lived, but what I was smelling now was repulsive.

I had never smelled it before, but I knew what it was. It was the smell of death: cleaning products.

Nic noticed it too. He recoiled. But before he could retreat, a shiny droplet slowly settled onto the tip of his outstretched tail. We all fell silent, watching him. He stared at his flagellum, where the droplet sat on its end. Nic trembled with fear, but the thing didn’t move.

He gulped. “Guys,” came his shaky voice. “I th-think they’re harmless!” Relief broke out throughout the crowd with sighs and the sound of nervous laughter.

“Ha, you wish!” cried the droplet, and it started moving up his tail.

The crowd of bacteria immediately drew back. Nic let out a wild scream. “It’s burning me!” I watched the droplet progress down his tail, enveloping it and, to my horror, dissolving it. It was quickly approaching his body. I glanced up at the sky: thousands of identical particles were falling, whooping with excitement.

“I’m getting out of here!” I yelled. I bolted, shoving my nearby relatives to the ground. There were more screams. As I ran, I saw many family members wildly thrashing their tails, which was stupid, since it gave the particles something to grab onto. Some particles fell directly onto them, pressing into their bodies, burning straight through them. The rest landed on the ground. The air smelled horribly clean, and it stung my nose.

I saw someone who I was pretty sure was my driving instructor lunge himself at a particle, attempting to fight back. The second his body touched it, his cell wall and plasma membrane tore open. Cytoplasm gushed out, as well as his DNA, which unraveled wildly all over the place. Well, there go my hopes of getting a driver’s license.

I saw relatives writhing on the floor, being cornered and enveloped by the liquid particles. Some were trying to stuff their DNA and cytoplasm back in their dying bodies. It was an unpleasant sight. I rushed past them, trying not to picture myself in their place.

“Broc!” groaned a straining voice. I whipped my head around. It was one of my cousins, either second or first removed, I couldn’t remember.

“What do you want?” I hissed.

“Can you help me untie my DNA?” It was spilled across his lap. He fumbled with it. “It’s got some knots in it.”

I roared in frustration. “Do it yourself! Can’t you see I’m busy?” I scurried away, dodging a particle that would have fallen on my head. I needed some protection, fast.

Then I saw my Great Aunt Wrink, flat on her back, with her cell wall torn open, and I got an idea. I scuttled up to her. She turned slowly to look at me. She coughed. “Oh, Tink, is that you?”

“Sure.”

“Oh, it’s so nice of you to visit your aunt. I’ve been wondering when you were going to come and—WOAAAGHHH!”

I hoisted her up onto my back. “No time for chit-chat, Aunt Wrink! We’ve got to move!” Now with a shield, I thought, I might survive a bit longer.

I had been running for what seemed like hours. The particles had stopped falling, and there were none in sight, but the air was harsh and still smelled like their poison. I hurried past more bodies than I was able to count. It was nice having my great aunt to keep me company, but she had stopped talking a little while ago. And then I noticed that everything was quiet.

I stopped. My flagella loosened around my great aunt and she toppled to the floor. I took in the scene. The fighting had stopped. The green bodies of my family were littered all around me. I had survived. Had anyone else?

“Hello?” I called. “Is anyone still alive?” Silence. I realized I hadn’t a living creature for about ten minutes. I crept further. Wherever I turned, I was met with countless dead bodies. Then I had a terrible thought: if I was the only one left, then any hope of ruling the world would be more impossible than it was to begin with.

“No!” I cried. “This can’t be!” I wanted to keep searching, but the air around me had gotten so unbearably noxious, I had to move on. And I also didn’t want to hang around in case any of those particles were still lurking about.

It took a long time before I passed by the last of my relatives. Since then, I had been on the move for hours, and I couldn’t imagine how many centimeters I had traveled, looking for any sign of life.

The landscape was unforgiving. The delicious, nutrient-abundant environment my family had lived in was now gone, replaced by a barren, hygienic, though still dusty, wasteland. Shapeless formations of moisture and dirt swirled slowly in the sky. The ground was jagged, and my flagella kept getting snagged in little crevices. Breathing was difficult and I was losing my energy, but there was no food to be seen. I collapsed in the dust.

I stayed down for a while. My mind was racing. I couldn’t stop thinking about why I wasn’t killed; I’m really no different from anyone in my family; everything about us is the same. I have no right to be alive. So why was I still here?

“I guess I’m just better than them,” I concluded, which I had always known regardless. But then it hit me. I sprang up from the ground. “A mutation! I must have a mutation that makes me immune to the particles!” I laughed. “That’s it!”

“Brilliant!” said someone behind me.

I spun on the spot, thrusting my tails out in defense.

“Woah, easy!” In front of me was a bacterium quite like myself, with a round, hairy body and multiple tails. She was only slightly bigger, and was a pale pink. “I’m not here to hurt you!”

I didn’t yield. Not yet. “Are you with those death particles?” I demanded.

“What?” said the bacterium, clearly offended. “Of course not. They wiped out my entire family!”

I lowered my tails. “They got mine too.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry. I know—burp—how it feels.”

“Uh, how what feels?”

“Losing the bacteria we love.”

“Love?” I waved one of my tails dismissively. “It’s not that deep; it was just my family.”

She stared at me. “Uh, right…” She extended one of her tails. “I’m—buurp—Isabella.”

I reached out and grasped her tail. “Nice to meet you. I’m Broc.” We shook. “I’m an E. coli.”

“Oh, that’s lovely. I’m a Salmonella.”

“A Salmonella?” I slowly pulled my tail away. “Um…great…” I wiped it on my side. I don’t want to get sick.

“I overheard you saying that you think you’re a mutant,” whispered Isabella, excited. “I think I’m—belch—one too.”

I backed away from her breath. “You think you have what it takes to be a mutant?” I didn’t like the idea of someone sharing my unique gift.

“Why not!” she exclaimed. “I—urrp—survived the invasion just like you. If we’re the only ones left alive, we both must have a variation in our—BURP—DNA.”

I glanced at her. Something in my gut didn’t sit right, and that’s coming from somebody who likes to sit in people’s guts. “What’s with all the burping?” I asked.

“I—I don’t know.” She looked worried. “This has never happened before…” Then her body lurched. “Ugh,” she groaned, doubling over. “I feel terrible.”

I glanced at her. “You look it, too.” Her belly rumbled. “Um, did you eat something funky?”

“No, why?”

“Let me take a closer look.” I moved up to her. Studying her stomach, I saw it bubble, sort of like boiling water. I could have sworn that there was something inside her that was moving. Crawling.

“Ohhhhh,” she wailed in agony. Her stomach was now bulging. Pulsing. Something was pressing against her cell wall. Trying to get out.

“Um, bad news,” I said. “You’re about to die.”

Her cell wall exploded. I flung myself back just in time. From inside her flailing body crawled hundreds of small, six-legged, spider-like viruses. I cursed. “Bacteriophages!” The small parasites sprung out of her deflating body and sped toward me.

I had heard stories of these creatures—undead beings that inject their DNA into the cells of living bacteria so that the host cell will unknowingly replicate them. Then, when the moment is right, they burst out of their host, killing it, and move on to their next victim. It’s nightmare-level stuff.

Unfortunately, I was the only available host around.

I swung my tails, smacking the parasites away. But some held on. I felt one spiraling up a tail, closing in on my body. I tried to swat it off, but it was too fast. The rest capitalized on my hysterics and quickly overwhelmed me. I felt them latch onto my body, crawling all over, chattering excitedly, and attempting to burrow under my thick hairs. They swirled around me, eclipsing my vision. I couldn’t see the sky anymore. I was done for.

I waited for the end.

And I waited.

And waited some more.

But it never came.

One of the bacteriophages snarled in rage. “I can’t pierce it for some reason!”

“Neither can I!” The little viruses tried biting me, but I couldn’t feel a thing.

Suddenly, a strong sterile smell wafted over me. I, along with the viruses, gagged. A commanding voice spoke from a few microns away. “You won’t be able to harm him, bacteriophages. Not while we’re still here.”

The viruses shrieked. Their legs gripped tightly onto me, but I felt them get violently ripped off. They screamed in pain.

I gasped for air. Then I felt my body—they were gone. I was free.

I rolled over. But looking up, my body gave a terrifying jolt: a row of the round, liquid particles that had killed my family stood before me. I scrambled back, but when I turned to run in the other direction, I was met with even more of them. They had me completely surrounded.

Fear overtook me. I must have looked crazed. “What do you want?!” I screamed. They stood silently, staring at me. “Why are you here?! Tell me!” Their round bodies remained still.

“We were sent from above,” said one of them, finally.

“We’d like to call ourselves angels,” said another.

“But we’re just Clorox,” said a third.

My body trembled. But then I remembered something. “Listen,” I said. “I don’t know what that means, but I’ve got news for you: you can’t kill me! That’s right—I have a mutation that makes me invincible!”

“Wrong,” boomed the first particle, bobbing forward. “You don’t have a mutation.”

“What?”

“No. You aren’t any different from your family. Instead, you’ve been chosen…”

“Chosen?”

“Yes… To be our lucky winner!” he said, his voice bursting with glee. The surrounding particles cheered and celebrated.

“Hooray!”

“You did it!”

“Congratulations!” said the particle. “I’d shake your tail but I might burn it off.”

I stood, dumbfounded. “What’s going on?”

“Allow me to explain! We can’t legally kill you; it’s part of the contract. We’re allowed to kill ninety-nine point nine percent of your relatives, but according to the rules, we have to leave one alive. And that’s you! Isn’t it great?”

He handed me a badge. It read, “CONGRATULATIONS! YOU’RE THE LUCKY 0.1%!”

The disinfectants applauded. “That’s all we’ve got! Have a nice rest of your day!” And with that, they disappeared.

I stood silent for a while. Then I looked at the badge. “Huh. Cool font.” I pinned it to my chest.