My Multigenre Mashup Smackdown Entries

Round 3.1 - Dystopian/Horror

A Thing to Chew

Most humans alive today would kill me if they ever saw my face. It's not that I'm hideous, but my eyes give me away. I can see things they can't, and from the few humans I've encountered since my release, I can tell it scares them. So I've stayed hidden, constantly moving, avoiding both factions, fueled primarily by my need for food and fresh water. Both are scarce. The earth is ashen, rusted. Cities are skeletal remains where death comes fast for any survivors who enter. I hunt mainly for rivers and streams, but most have long dried up, choked with debris from a lost era. 

It wasn't always this way. The world used to have many colours. On occasion I recall vague memories as a child, running through green hills and sitting on a floating brown plank flying back and forth into a forever blue sky, or sitting in a tiny white pool with a small yellow rubber duck bobbing up and down in the water, my pink lips submerged, my nose and human eyes held delicately above the surface. Someone was there with me, my mother perhaps, but I don't remember my parents, only their faceless smiles. It seems like a lifetime ago. 

It was during the Mecha Wars I was lost, or abandoned. Either way, I was orphaned and on my own as a young girl. I almost died, starved and cold to the bone, barely a pulse when a Mech pulled me from the mud. I was still carrying my yellow rubber duck. I still carry it today, now dirty, scratched and torn, a memento from another life, with me always, wherever I go. It looks different now though, just like me, battered and worn.

"Can you believe this shit?" I hear a man say from my hunkered position. I'd stumbled upon the outskirts of a smaller city and had carefully made my way closer to take a look at its offerings. A group of humans had ridden into the parking lot of an abandoned Super-Store in an old pick-up truck, a rare sight for my keen eyes. It rumbled and clanked like a relic, nothing like the deep pulsating bass from the hum of a Mech made craft. The truck blends in with the orange metallic dust that has settled over everything in the pockmarked landscape. The group themselves are foraging for supplies.

 "Not even half as much as we got from the last place." Another man agrees, motioning to the load in the truck bed. "But," he holds up his index finger, "it could mean there are more of us out there than we think." These guys definitely weren't military. Probably survivalists, or just plain lucky.

"Doubt it." The woman sitting in the driver's seat pipes up from the window. "Mechs were resource hogs, sure, but the BioMechs are worse, and we're stuck with them."

"Fucking Mech bastards." The first man spits on the road. 

"No way," a third man disagrees as he walks to the back of the truck and throws in another loaded dufflebag. "You think those creatures are smart enough to send out squads? They're wild animals for fuck's sake. Humans are smarter. The Mechs only advantage was their control of our tech. With the Mech gone, we need to stake our ground." He points at her aggressively.  

"You don't get it, do ya, Matt?" The woman retorts sharply, shaking her head. "If the Mechs are leaving, then the world is lost. Who knows what Bios'll assimilate next. We need to get back underground, so hurry the fuck up."

"News flash, the world's been lost the last two decades." Matt replies while raising his arms. "I refuse to believe that a bunch of animals and insects jacked with tech have taken down the Mech. No fucking way." He slams his hand hand down on the hood of the truck. 

"BioMechs are no joke," the first man says, now leaning against the truck. "Any sign of them and we high tail it, got it? Let's go." He motions with a thumb for the two others to get back in the truck as he jumps into the front passenger seat and taps on the hood to signal their ready. As the truck takes off down the street, swerving around other abandoned vehicles and trash, leaving clouds of dust in its wake, I wonder if there is any hope for humanity at all.