Steph Steer

The smell of freshly made coffee wafted through the house and into her room, filling it with a bittersweet aroma. A gentle ray of early morning sunlight came streaming in through the gap in her window, streaking across her eyelids and stirring her from her sleep.

She pulled the covers over her head to block out the sun, not wanting to leave the warmth and comfort of her bed. She lay there for a few moments, relishing in the makeshift cocoon she created with her blankets, feeling the silky sheets envelop her flesh and begging her not to leave. If this was a perfect world; she thought, I would stay in bed all day.

As if on command, her mother came in to wake her up. She burst through the door with her usual bright demeanor, carrying a tray with a fresh pot of coffee and two slices of toast, perfectly toasted. She set it down on her bedside table and drew the curtains, bathing the room in sunlight.

‘It’s time to wake up darling!’ her mother chirped.

She responded with an annoyed grunt and waited until her mother left the room to get out of bed. She poured herself a cup of coffee and bit into the toast. Out on her balcony she stood watching as the village at the bottom of the hill came to life. She watched as the villagers began to set up stalls, bathe young ones and make trips to and from various houses. I think I’ll make a trip into town today, things seem lively for once.

When she had finished her breakfast she came back inside and got dressed, choosing a white summer dress that hung down to her knees but was brought in at the waist so that her figure was more pronounced. Her vanity was filled with various perfumes, hairbrushes and creams, the majority of which she never used with having a preference for a silver engraved round brush with soft, fine bristles. The blonde in her hair seemed to blend in with the bristles, sometimes making it impossible for her to differentiate between what was what.

After brushing her hair she tied it up into a neat ponytail, gave herself a quick spray with a flower scented perfume and made her way downstairs. Her mother was in the kitchen humming a hopeful tune as she prepared breakfast for her brother and father, who sat in the living room discussing the most recent hunting techniques they had each created.

‘I’ve never understood the appeal in hunting, for survival I understand but doing it as a sport is just cruel’ she thought.

Of course she never told them that, for she knew she would be unable to escape the ridicule that would follow. Her presence in the room she noticed went unnoticed by her family and she compared her standing there like that of a trophy, visible but not acknowledged.

As she cleared her throat to announce that she was heading into town she saw her brother jump slightly out of his seat, indicating that she must have startled him even though she must have been in the room for at least a few minutes before she spoke. Her father glanced at her and gave a slight nod before returning to his conversation with her brother, who started at her for a moment before he too engaged in idle conversation with his father.

‘Make sure you keep your dress clean darling, filth is so hard to erase on such a delicate material’ Her mother called out from the kitchen.

She grabbed a white hat to match her dress, said her farewells and made her way into town.

The walk itself was quite nice, with the hill she lived on being covered in an assortment of white wildflowers that gave it the illusion of a fresh layer of snow permanently covering the grass. When she got to the bottom of the hill she looked up at her house, a beautiful two-storey Victorian mansion with large, arched windows and even from far away she could see the balcony that extended from her room on which she was looking out from earlier this morning. Turning around she saw the entrance of the village and the muddy track that led up to it. The ground underneath her feet slightly shifted each time she took a step, coating the soles and sides of her shoes in brown muck. The village was no more than a dozen houses, with decaying wood walls and roof tiles missing that were patched up with whatever scrap material they could find. A single road ran through the middle of it that continued into a dense forest which no one ever came in or out of. Just as she reached the entrance of the town a feeling of unease washed over her, as the villagers stopped what they were doing to stare at her before hurrying inside and ushering children with them. As she started to walk further she considered the fact that she is most definitely out of place. All the villagers had the same brown eyes and brown hair making it impossible to tell who was who from a distance and even up close it was hard, for there was always a layer of dirt that seemed to fall on the village and its inhabitants. In a matter of seconds everyone was inside, with some peering from the curtains as if some fearsome creature had just come upon them. Feeling disheartened he started to make her way back home.

‘This happens everytime’ she thought with a sinking feeling in her stomach. ‘I’ve never talked to anyone in the village yet alone do something so bad that they hide from me.’

The walk back seemed longer than on the way down, with the hill seeming like it grew two times the size since her walk down not too long ago. When she reached the steps of the house, she noticed that the door was slightly ajar, and she cautiously pushed the door open and stepped inside. First thing she noticed was the smell, a foul metallic stench that made her gag and cough. She called out to her family but heard no response. That's when she saw the red liquid oozing out from the living room. The smell grew stronger as she made her way into the room to find her family, dead. Their bodies had been mutilated, having their limbs half cut off or sawn off completely and left at their sides like some kind of display. Without eyes it gave them the appearance of never having a soul in the first place, as if this was simply how they were made to be. They had been scalped and had their brains removed leaving a hollow head and expressions on their faces that showed that they died screaming. After analysing the crime scene she ran outside to throw up and continued to do so until any remnants of food that had remained in her stomach since that morning were well and truly gone. Without looking back she ran. Rocks and flowers tore up her shoes and dress as she flew down the hill with tears streaming from her face and vomit stained on her dress. She didn’t acknowledge any of the villagers as she came screaming through the little town and into the forest. It soon became dark, and that’s when she stopped. Out of breath and still in shock, she stumbled through the forest until she came upon a clearing where she discovered a door to a bunker that led underground. There was nothing else around except her and the metal square on the ground. ‘Well, it's not like I have anything to lose’ she thought as she slowly opened the door and went inside.

A winding staircase kept leading her deeper and deeper and she was almost convinced that she had opened a portal into the centre of the world, before reaching the end of the staircase and she found herself standing before a long, dimly lit halfway. Her breathing was unsteady and rapid but she found herself pressing onward, her curiosity too strong to ignore what she might find. At first she didn't notice the strange strange symbols scrawled all over the walls, but soon recognised them as the swastikas that had been commonplace in her home. On tablecloths, bedsheets, plates, they were everywhere now that she thought about it. Scattered amongst the symbols were posters. Some old, some new but all with pretty much the same premise. They all depicted the creation of a ‘perfect being’ that would ‘rid the world of filth and impurities and cleanse this forsaken world’.

A pair of metal doors appeared at the end of the hallway, and without a second thought she swung them open. What she saw made the carnage she had seen back at her house. In front of her there were at least a dozen people, all in large tanks in a suspended state of consciousness. On one side were females, all with different features and the same went for the males on the opposite side. Just like her family they had been mutilated, but not in the crude, brutal manner that they were but in a precise, surgical manner. Certain features had been taken, a nose missing from that one, an eye and a limb from another, they looked as if they were being strategically deconstructed, ‘But for what?’ she thought. Then she saw them. An adult female and male that had been spliced from all the different missing parts from the people in the tanks. They were hung up from their wrists and the female had dried blood that clung to the inside of her thighs Slowly she made her way closer and as she did she noticed a table that had a file resting on top. The file contained a single piece of paper which revealed what was going on. It read;

OPERATION TRANSCENDENCE

Attention confidants. As you are aware this world is plagued with impurities. The poor, the religious, the independent thinker. In order to save this world from itself we need to create the ideal human. Adolf Hitler founded the ideas for perfection but his execution was flawed in more ways than one. We are counting on you confidant. You will have received a briefcase along with this letter containing tools that will aid you in this mission. Throughout Europe we have divided you into small settlements. You and your family are to stay in these settlements separate from the rest who will be living in a small town a short distance away. You are to abduct anyone who has outstanding features that might unlock the key to perfection, and harvest those features to create a new being. However, perfection is determined the moment you are born. You are to create one almost perfect female and male and the child that will result from them will create the perfect being. Once the child has been born, contact Administration and await further instructions.

THIS INFORMATION IS CONFIDENTIAL

As her eyes scanned over the paper she realized what that meant. That was her mother, her real mother that was hung up on the wall. She was the perfect human. It all made sense now, why the villagers feared her, why she always got what she asked for, why her wardrobe consisted of nothing but white. With a surge of emotions coursing through her veins she picked up the small table and threw it against one of the tanks, smashing it and watched as the liquid spilled out and a male body with arms, ears and lips missing tumbled out with it. It was too much. “So much pain has been caused by my creation, and for what? Who is this damn Administration!?” she cried out in frustration. A shard of glass reflected in the light and without a second thought, she slit her throat, and died.

Creative Response Rationale

For this story I aimed to try and create a story that incorporated both dystopian and mystery. I chose these genres as I am a big fan of dystopian societies which are very interesting, and a lot of the dystopian media that I have seen has roots with the real world in the sense that dystopian societies are speculative works. I find it interesting when I can entertain the thought of ‘What might modern day life be like if X Y or Z event had a different outcome or didn’t happen at all? I chose mystery as it seemed like a genre that would compliment it nicely and I feel there is already a lot of mystery that goes into the dystopian genre, but I wanted to expand on that. I wanted to include the no individuality part that comes from the dystopian genre, as I thought that could be an interesting source of mystery. I tried to keep it as cryptic as I possibly could to add mystery because I wanted to build suspense into why her life is the way it is. I chose to keep the protagonist nameless as since she is a ‘perfect’ human no earthly name would be fitting for such a being so her family could not call her by one and bring her down to their level.

I got the idea for my story by thinking about all the cases that I’ve seen of movies or books that focused on the idea of ‘perfection’, and got the inspiration of splicing body parts from a manga that I saw online ages ago that somehow has managed to stay in my memory. While I quite enjoyed this task, I found that I struggled to get out what I wanted to in under the word limit. I had thought of a whole backstory and more deeper goings on that I just couldn’t fit it all in. If I had a higher word count I would’ve expanded on the villagers reaction to the protagonist and the village itself. What I have learnt from this task is that I understand how authors are able to write as much as they do, because I found when I got into a flow of writing I didnt even realise I had written a couple hundred words. I also found that I was able to create the world up as I go, with adding minor details that I didn’t otherwise think about until I wrote something the line before that I knew I could add to.