Playing God
Here we are with another week’s Friday Fictioneers, the weekly photo prompt hosted by Rochelle over at Addicted to Purple. This week’s photo, which inspires our 100-ish word stories, was contributed by fellow fictioneerer Douglas M. MacIlroy.
All our stories are added to the link-up during the week, so click on the little frog badge to read them, and add your own if you wish!
Professor Drake smiled as his team celebrated. Inside the tank hundreds of insects buzzed, painstakingly cloned from the DNA of a single specimen entombed in amber for millions of years.
“Science fiction no longer!” he proclaimed to his applauding staff.
Unseen, one of the insects escaped the tank and flew into an air duct.
Drake lay on the floor of his lab, listening to the silence of a world populated by seven billion corpses. How did the dinosaurs really die out? he wondered as his last breath rattled through his lungs. A meteorite, or the bite of a simple insect?
This is my worst nightmare. You nailed it.
LikeLike
One of mine too. Thanks!
LikeLike
Eek! Creepy picture and the story definitely goes along with it.
LikeLike
Very creepy picture, I thought it deserved a creepy story!
LikeLike
Oh, that was good!
LikeLike
Glad you liked it 🙂
LikeLike
Wowsa! This is like the alternate ending to “The Thing”, you never know when or if it will end.
LikeLike
I’m sure I’ve seen The Thing, though I can’t remember the ending. Scary stuff all the same.
LikeLike
Ali, Wow! Let’s hope that never happens. Let’s hope a few people are immune. Well written and scary as heck. 🙂 — Susan
LikeLike
It’s pretty frightening to think about this happening. Fingers crossed it doesn’t! Maybe there will be a few survivors to rebuild the human race.
LikeLike
yikes, frighteningly realistic! I can’t believe Drake’s the last survivor of the plague he caused though – fate is a mysterious thing.
LikeLike
Yes, he got to see everything he’d (inadvertently) caused before succumbing himself. As if he didn’t feel bad enough about it already 🙂
LikeLike
Memories of The Stand.
DJ
LikeLike
Yep (I looked it up on Wikipedia!).
LikeLike
YIKES…I think we’re taking over by insecs..the fleas are all over me 😀 Pawkisses 🙂 ❤
LikeLike
Ooh noo – get some flea spray and get rid of those pesky things 😦
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t EVEN want to know what comes next. To me, cloning is a very, very bad idea.
LikeLike
I certainly don’t see anything good coming out of cloning entire animals.
LikeLike
Bloody scientist! Who knows what they’re up to behind closed doors. Gonna have nightmares tonight. Great story, D-man 🙂
LikeLike
For all we know, this could be happening somewhere right now 😦
Glad you liked it!
LikeLike
LOL! Ewww! Love it! 😀
LikeLike
Thanks 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s what you get for messing with nature. Well done.
LikeLike
Yes, leave well enough alone would be my motto.
LikeLike
Dear Ali,
That was the big EEW. Creepy and very well written.
Shalom,
Rochelle
LikeLike
Dear Rochelle,
A creepy story for a creepy picture 🙂
Thanks!
Ali
LikeLike
Dear Draliman,
Perfectly conceived, brilliantly written and executed. This was a a great tale that could easily be a novel. Well done.
Aloha,
Doug
LikeLike
Dear Doug,
Thank you! I had a few other ideas through the day but when this one occurred to me it pretty much wrote itself.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it (and thanks for the inspirational picture).
Ali
LikeLike
This is why genetic researchers need to stick to glowing potatoes… at least it would be totally cool if we got wiped off the face of the earth by an army of glowing tubers!
LikeLike
I’ll store that idea for a future story! In Kim Harrison’s “Hollows” series the world is nearly wiped out by a genetically modified tomato…
LikeLike
nice touch,,, I do expect will backfire?
LikeLike
I think it already has 🙂
LikeLike
darn, murphy’s law strikes again!
LikeLike
Damn that Murphy and his Law.
LikeLike
This wasn’t one of my nightmares, until today… when I read that one of hte insects escaped I knew something was going wrong, even if still hundreds were locked!
LikeLike
It’s that “uh-oh” moment. It only takes one!
It’s been a few weeks since I last wiped out the entire population so it was past due 🙂
LikeLike
Perplexing question and a great story this week! I always think we’re going to do it to ourselves, and it will be unintended. Well done.
LikeLike
I also reckon it will be an accidental “mishap” if it happens. Glad you liked it!
LikeLike
Oh .. this was something that nightmares are made of.. and yes it might not have been a meteorite.
LikeLike
I’m always worried that someone’s new pathogen will get loose, and I believe just recently they found a virus millions of years old frozen in the ice. Yeeks!
LikeLike
Creepy crawlies! Putting air ducts on my list of things to worry about one night when I can’t get to sleep.
This wasn great, doc!
Ellespeth
LikeLike
Time to tape up those air ducts and get loads of tinned food and bottled water in!
LikeLike
What a frightening thought you’ve conjured. Taps into our fears that we really are a fragile species on a fragile planet. Any small thing could tip the balance.
LikeLike
It is a very delicate balance we have here on Earth.
LikeLike
Perfect draliman! IMO You could’ve ended with the one flying into the air duct. That was a great provoking visual. Until next week…
LikeLike
Glad you liked it!
Very true, that would have been quite a teaser ending.
LikeLike
That is scary. I can imagine the swarm coming to get us.
LikeLike
It’s a frightening thought. And they’re small enough to get in almost anywhere…
LikeLike
A very thought provoking, very scary tale ~ Thanks for the inspirational pleasure ~
LikeLike
I sometimes wonder if there are groups of scientists doing this very thing in hidden labs. Glad you enjoyed it!
LikeLike
I am sure there are my friend one slip as you have so eloquently descibed is all it takes. Thanks again ~
LikeLiked by 1 person