Apocalypse

Apocalypse
Inspired by the Mutant Portrait of Jake Smithana
Written by Jake Smithana

I stood beneath the Great Mount with its constant spewing of toxic dust clouds, static creating lethal bolts of lightning within. The foreboding rock-tower had been doing this for several months now. When it first began, the only effects anyone had noticed were the most immediate and destructive; the sky became tainted so the sun could not shine, the ground trembled violently and small buildings crumbled, thousands of birds fell from the heavens dead, and finally the dreaded Zeus-bolts began to destroy anything that still stood.
All these things began after the first week of the expulsion of the evil within the ground, and those yet above it managed to live on, just barely, by scavenging for what food the could find, and occasionally by resorting to cannibalism. Then one day the Change began. No one saw any reason to panic just yet; the most extreme case the public knew of was an old woman who grew an extra toe overnight.
Since then however much worse additions, or subtractions, arose in the bodies of the living. Most common is for the lungs to stop accepting what little oxygen is left in the air, forcing a slow, suffocating death. Another common hell-gift most seen in children is for the skull and brain to meld together, causing a massive and fatal electrical failure in the cerebrum.
For a while the Changed were shunned and feared, until all were changed. Some retained all but the most minor bits of normalcy, such as six toes, while others could no longer be considered human. For various reasons, the Lucky few became leaders, trying to make the best of their peoples’ lives. I was one of the Giftless leaders, because I had one of the least noticeable curses, that being a single nostril that didn’t match. Those few like me, I know of only one, are now regarded almost as holy, and I must say I quite enjoy it.