Spooky Challenge 2024 - Day 1
It’s the first day of my spooky October challenge! It’s hard to believe I’ve been doing this for four years now.
If you’re new to me and my blog, basically the premise is that I write seven stories in seven days leading up to Halloween. The stories get posted to this blog for you to read and we all get some spooky fun.
I also sometimes base my stories on prompts sent to me by readers. There’s still time as well, so if you want to send me a prompt, use this form:
Now onto the first prompt!
“Backwards Biology – a woman finds her bodily functions go backwards. Blood enters her uterus every month. She vomits up food and had to unpass a kidney stone. Fun!” – submitted by Nina Miller
I want to call out the drabble she sent into the Dead Languages Podcast Drabble Contest. If you don’t know, I host a horror writing podcast with Carson Winter. Recently, we held a drabble contest and Nina’s was really fun and in a list format – super unique. Check out the podcast, if you haven’t – it’s a ton of feral fun.
Dr. Nino Tiller’s Simple Proposal For Saving A Starving Planet
Milaras Prime is dying. We’ve drained its resources. Over a decade ago, I proposed a population limit using the sterilization fog I’d created, and had my tenure stripped. Now, we are on the brink of destruction.
I hope now that you will listen to me. That you will finally take me seriously.
Milaras Prime can recover. If we let it. Its fields need time to lay fallow, I estimate a few decades at most – especially if we utilize the old Company terraforming supplies we have left.
No one is coming to save us. We are too far out and there are too many of us to ferry off-world with the little ships we have.
But I can save us.
If you’ll listen.
Do you see this woman beside me? Her name is Antigone. If my proposal is sanctioned, she will be the first.
No, don’t stand up. She’s okay. The vomiting is normal. Watch, just watch what comes out. Yes. See? Food. Perfectly edible food. Enough food to feed four on rations for a few days and she produces it regularly throughout the day as long as she is provided with hydration, which we have plenty, and fuel. That is, of course, something else. See how she trembles and cries? Her body needs to be replenished.
Let me open this trough. From those gasps, I can tell you recognize it. Blood. Go on, Antigone. See, she sits in the trough and her body drinks up the blood, storing it in her evolutionary yonic cradle of life – excuse my purple prose – her uterus.
Now she has more energy stored for food production. She can feed dozens in a day. Ignore the weeping, she’s just overcome with the honour of being our salvation.
When I found Antigone, she was on the brink of death out on the streets of Neo York. I offered her a chance to give her life meaning, to never feel hungry again.
She’s not enough though. We have millions of starving Citizens. We need more volunteers.
Side effects? Well, of course. Good question. This is a new gene alteration treatment I’ve created. Of course there are some side effects. Antigone did have some complications recently where she unpassed a kidney stone, nothing major. Just general pain. I couldn’t give her pain suppressants. I was afraid she would pass it into the food, like a mother to her milk. But she got through it. She’s strong.
Loss of all teeth due to the food creation, of course. However, I don’t see that as a true negative. Antigone doesn’t require food in the traditional sense anymore. Just blood. Real, human blood. I’ve tried synthoblood and it results in inedible waste production instead.
Does Antigone control the type of food she produces? Another good question, General Halloway! I’ve studied her output over the past month and it does seem truly random. Her larynx is ruined and she cannot speak, nor does she seem capable of communicating anymore. I have often wondered if she just thinks of food she likes and produces it. I’ve seen major production of hamburgers, always with ketchup and cheese, and spaghetti. With more volunteers, we can see how wide a range we can get!
So my proposal is this:
We seek out willing volunteers to feed the world until the planet can recover. A conscription draft of Citizens with uteri. A half a million should do to begin with, tied with a population limit.
We will need blood donations from every Citizen. This should be a codified law. Each donation of a pint equals two weeks of rations.
I will require, for my planetary salvation services, permanent tenure, funding for any and all future projects, absolution to the hysterical claims against me of illegal experimentation, and all crimes dropped from my record.
Thank you, Milaras Prime committee members. I look forward to your thoughts. While you discuss, you should eat. It looks like Antigone is ready to provide more sustenance.
What did you think?
Don’t forget to stop in tomorrow for day two of my challenge!
x PLM
