The Lord of Wings

 The shell cracked in spurts. Maybe, it, too, was afraid of the sinister activity inside. But why should it be afraid? It had held not one but many lives hostile in its calcareous bondage. Fear to it was as novel as Saturn is to sunlight. Yet, the egg shell quivered with the possibility of them cramming it under their swarthy, ponderous shadows. Their shadows were enough to kill any life. Whatever their shadows fell on was dead forever. Dead forever? 

Yes, this is the story of 3050 when laboratories had transformed into temples and scientists were on pedestal. Man excelled God. For God, too, could never bring a dead to life in the same lifetime but man with white robes and gummy liquids in flasks had stirred and flipped the whole equation. Death was saved as an option for those who defamed the Law of Laboratory. According to the Law, breath can neither be created nor destroyed. It can be transferred from one form to another. The total sum of breaths in the universe always remains constant. More recently the Law was amended with 'An offensive breath will always have an equal and opposite blow'. One who would offend the laboratories, and their Gods would be blown away into parallel universes where death was alien, but life suspended like bats hanging in dark caves.

Dr. Darewood was the mastermind of this apocalyptic era. His ambition to create volumes of liquid oxygen had set the stone rolling for further ambitions to bring out their ugly heads. With litres of liquid oxygen made easily available, Dr. Darewood and his team dared to begin life on Mars. It was here that the red soil and its iron contents reduced their chances of extinction and they became younger by the day. Only the night saw their gray hair and croaked joints but again at dawn the atmosphere pumped them with new life. The first breath of motionless air was vital to their living. The first gulp of oxygen crucial to their lungs.

Dr. Darewood and his lovely lady companion, Dr. Luba produced test tube babies like xerox copies. One was planted four were begeted. Their tribe increased and flourished like a rain-forest blooming on barren land. The Bible was rewritten, and the testaments followed the test tube verdict. Dr. Darewood was the new Christ and Dr. Luba the Virgin Mary but her relationship with Darewood would accuse her of incest if she be made his mother. From their telescopes and satellites, they wickedly watched the inhabitants of earth die a slow death.

Global warming had consumed the earth of all its life. Add to it Dr. Darewood's experiments, oxygen was trapped in his cylinders and now floated in his laboratories on Mars. He had smuggled oxygen, a traitor who had offended his own land. Here, he enjoyed the throne of supremacy and basked in his greedy glory. Time passed like ages, and there was no count of how long he and his progeny were alive on this planet. 

One day, "Darling, my lousy day calls for some excitement. It is bored of the monotonous luxury. I crave for some thrill and fun." Luba rolled her vision and fixed it on Darewood's gaze. He would never be tired of watching her youthful oomphs, ogling from every pore of her supple skin.

'What excitement does my caramel custard demand?' His lascivious lens gyrated in carnal excitement. 

"Oh, you dirty dog! I want to play a game. A game where we create and then we destroy. We create and push the creatures on a edge. Fight with them like real heroes, and then when they try to overpower us, kick them off that edge."

Her demand was no big task for the Darewood devil. To please his ladylove, he immediately got to work. Into her blighted ova, he injected his hair cells and then exposed them to UV radiations that reached a part of Mars. This deadly combination gave birth to small hairy reptiles not bigger than a pointed index finger. The reptiles had wings with serrated edges. Their small feet produced impressions like that of full stops. Little nails but sharp enough to dig out the red soil if placed on ground. Eyes were abnormally larger in proportion to their body. As if all that their creator had cared was to produce eyes with vision to foresee the future. A forked tongue adorned the dry mouth. But they spat a viscous blue liquid when in defense. 

"Voila! Juicy, you have done it!" Danced Luba when she saw the reptiles fidgeting in insecurity when kept dangling in air. She enjoyed their spit being thrown on her amused face. Like a spray of moisture, their spit refreshed her mundane living. 

Everyday, the duo played dirty games of suffocating, trapping and submerging the reptiles in liquid oxygen. New produced everyday and new killed every night. To the stinking bones, these toys were an instant adrenaline rush, pleasure of playing whacky video games but in real life.

What the scientist was not aware was what the night inflicted on him, the reverse was blessed on the reptiles. What looked easy on earth was equally arduous on this foreign planet. Yet, in ignorance he took care to destroy every single of this sadistic pleasure at the end of the day. At night like a diligent mother soaks almonds for her playful child, Darewood would soak these eggs in liquid oxygen so that till dawn they would sprout life.

After days of enjoyment, the duo were slipping into fatigue of monotony. Yet, to avoid the boredom that came from austere living, they kept it going. A night dawned when a little rebellious reptile escaped it's death. Far from the tired eyes of the scientist it ventured out of the laboratory to create a world of its own. The law of Laboratory continued its breaths until one fateful day a meteorite struck. A deep rumble echoed in the motionless air.

The shell gave away completely and out they emerged like quadruplets from one womb. Magnanimous reptiles with wingspan stretching for kilometers. Footprints that created craters, barged on to the red soil. Tongue as long as the Nile radiated fires. As if these advantageous appendages were not enough their mere shadows could take away the breaths that Darewood had infused in his community. With the advent, of this apocalyptic era the tribe rushed to their saviors-the Godly scientists.

"We need to go back to earth. This creature is beyond my control!"  A petrified Darewood had announced. But there was only one spaceship and hundred contenders to land back on earth. Besides, the spaceship had to carry the litres of liquid oxygen so that life on earth was possible. With fake assurances to his tribe, Darewood planned to escape the planet with Luba. What the scientist forgot was his manipulative genes. One of them traded the duo with the reptiles in turn of their safety. 

The winged reptiles had brains of Luba, developed from her blighted ova, slytherian brains. The survival of the fittest was the only Law of the universe. The winged lords ruled Mars and Darewood's progeny without fail paid obeisance to him on his death anniversary. 

Ethics was after all an earthly trait which tribes of Mars too followed.