Variants

My heart pumps furiously in my chest as I run, dodging bullets with either instinct or luck; right now I do not care which. Beside me Lucas yells something, but another explosion shakes the ground and I can hear nothing except a dull ringing in my ears. Ahead of me is the ramp to a light blue flighter, and we are close, so close, but from the corner of my eye I see Lucas stumble and fall.

    Shit, shit, shit.

    I hault, changing course to run back to where Lucas is scrambling to get up, my hands already going for the gun at my waist. Faster than they can take aim, I shoot with perfect accuracy, taking down one variant at a time. 

    “Lucas!” I shout, realizing that he must have been shot or hurt as he struggles to regain his balance.

    With three variants dead and more close behind, I grip his hand tightly in my own and damn near drag him behind me, running wildly again, my sight set on the ramp. 

    Please, I beg no one in particular, please don’t let it end like this when we are so close.

    A bullet sinks into the taught muscle of my right shoulder, just as I swing Lucas ahead of me into the flighter. He falls again, crawling frantically on his hands and knees up the ramp, already beginning to retract, and with a scream of effort I hurl myself onto it, the ear splitting sounds of war becoming muted as the hatch closes. 

    I give myself five seconds, counting each of them, to close my eyes and feel that fear of running for my life as it courses through me. It was not the first time, but it was the only one so far where I really considered that I might die there, in that field surrounded by enemies, my friend fallen beside me. The feeling is lead on my shoulders, sagging my body as I contemplate defeat. After the five seconds I open my eyes, groaning as I lean forward, my shoulder throbbing in pain from the embedded bullet. I want to dig into my skin and yank it out, but know it is unwise, leaving it instead for the medics on base. 

    “Lucas,” I nearly whisper, breathless. 

    He moans, lying there on his back, his face pale with pain, and he turns just enough to retch onto the floor. My eyes scan him for possible injuries and I stop at the sight of his twisted ankle, already swollen and purple. A bad break, a severe one, that he then ran on to escape. But we had escaped, and now the pilot takes us from the mayhem of the battlefront, over the vast forest that stretches for miles, toward the base of our operations nestled in a nearby mountain range. The small aircraft is nimble, the color of it a camouflage for the open sky. The pilot speaks up now that we are safely in the air. 

    “How is he?” Henry’s voice is gruff, angry. In his many years fighting in the Endless War, he has seen the variants become stronger, their numbers ever growing, twisted experiments of human arrogance manifested into beasts.

    “One busted ankle for sure, pallid and vomiting,” as if on cue, Lucas coughs up more of his meager breakfast, spit and bile hanging in strings from his parted lips, “internal injuries yet to be determined, no bullet wounds that I can see.”

    “And you?” Henry asks.

    “Adrenaline is waning and the bullet in my shoulder is really starting to fucking hurt,” I spit. 

    He almost laughs, but swears instead. “Those monsters aren’t getting any smarter, but they sure multiply fast as rabbits. In sheer numbers, we are falling behind.”

    The variants reproduce quickly, their gestational period less than half that of a human, their offspring emerging from the womb in litters as large as five, developed and ready to run, to fight. They were fabricated from the minds of capable scientists nationwide toeing the line of morality in a field of study that had yet to be restricted by law. Crossbreeding and genetic mutation gave life to what they hoped might be a species resistant to climate crises, famine, prejudice. The results were bipedal humanoid creatures of great strength and stamina hell bent on eradicating their creators. The variants speak to each other in a language incomprehensible to humans, leaving their reasoning unknown, though it is certain that they will stop at nothing to fight us to extinction. When the first group of them went rogue, slaying all in the lab at the time, they escaped into the wilderness nearby and did not emerge again until years later when there was an army of them harboring a stockpile of stolen weapons from who knows where, massacring entire towns, eventually leading to all out war.

    “ETA?” I ask.

    “Roughly seven minutes until touchdown.” I know from previous flights that right now the mountains are looming before us, thick with trees until the point where oxygen runs thin, the peaks jagged and barren. 

    I crawl to kneel near Lucas’s head, his eyelids fluttering, his face twisted in pain. I take his clammy hand in both of mine, and his eyes flicker open, seeking me. I do my best to smile down at him, but fall short. 

    “You came back for me. Stupid. Could have been shot.” He mumbles.

    “I was shot. I couldn’t leave you behind, fodder for those sick mutants. The wound will heal.”

    His eyes well with tears and I stroke his cheek.

    “We’re alive,” I tell him, “and that’s what matters now.” 

    “It was too close this time. And there were so many of them. The bombs we drop on them aren’t enough, production is slow, our armies are tired.”

    “I know, but we can’t give up. Our entire future is at risk.” 

    He grimaces, his breathing quick and shallow. I draw small soothing circles on his hand, his face, counting the seconds until we land. When we finally reach the base, the hatch opens to a team of medics. They rush in, strapping Lucas to a stretcher and hauling him out, two staying behind to assess me. They take my vitals and I insist that I’m fine and capable of walking on my own. I am being escorted to the medical bay when an alarm sounds. I freeze, fear cold in my bones.

    No. Not possible.

    The base erupts into a scene of chaos before me, soldiers running and shouting, screams of terror rippling through the amassing crowd as the reality sinks in. They are here. The medics holding onto me scream to keep going, pulling at me, and I hear the first shot. The alarm continues blaring, loud and insistent, and I wonder what Lucas is thinking as he sits helpless in a hospital bed. The medics, each holding me under my arms now, carry me with them as they begin to run. I am dead weight, helpless, watching in horror as variants swarm the base, the cacophony of battle shattering the tranquility of our safe haven. There is already blood everywhere, people and variants alike falling in piles. I close my eyes, willing it away, wishing it would stop, and that dammed alarm, like it’s getting louder and louder-

    My eyes crack open, my hand fumbling for the snooze button on my alarm, my heart racing with panic. I stare at a white ceiling fan spinning lazily, a gentle click sounding with each rotation, the sudden quiet unnerving after such vivid violence. My breathing slows, and I blink a few times, sitting up from my tangled sheets. I am not on a military base. There is no bullet in my shoulder. There are no variants hunting me and my comrades. I am home in my bed, and it was all a dream. I reach for my phone, typing out a text to the first person in my messages, fingers moving quickly as the images already begin to fade from my mind.

    To: Lucas

    You will not believe this.