Men as monsters

   Inoctium was the name of the compound that they had invented in the lab. It had many properties that a normal human would have deemed incredible and many of those who had been involved in the project thought exactly that. Many had wanted to leave the project before it was finalized but that wasn’t possible, as no one wanted any leaks or stolen information. It was obvious that any foreign power, anyone to be honest, would love to have their hands on such a potentially disastrous little element. So very few knew about its existence and another handful thought it was just an urban legend and that no one would be so stupid to create something so incredibly dangerous, although good in every way too.

  Only a small amount had been created but what had amazed the creators was what that small quantity could do. It was an alchemist’s dream as it had the capacity of transforming anything into platinum, one of the most expensive metals in the world. It could also be used to manipulate magnetic fields so many objects had been created around it to transform the world, as we know it. But of course, all of those objects, like flying devices and many military weapons, had not come out to the world yet. The committee that had approved tests to create the compound, finally decided to cancel the whole thing altogether and ordered the inoctium to be destroyed in the act and not a single thread of evidence to be left around. The reactions were varied but it wasn’t like they could say anything to prevent it.

 Nevertheless, the destruction never took place. And that was simply because the inoctium behave almost as if it was a living creature, a very strong and resilient creature. It couldn’t be destroyed. They tried every single corrosive agent, viruses, alloys, even small bombs but nothing seemed to do anything to it. The only real difference they detected was that the amount of inoctium had somehow grown larger. The committee, after hearing the results of the attempts to kill the thing, decided to keep it away from every single human forever. It was sent to a nuclear waste disposal facility, where the deepest chamber had been redesigned to contain even the largest explosion. The inoctium was placed there, under several locks, security and around several amounts of nuclear waste.

 Its creators never forgot about it. They felt it was their baby, their proudest moment as scientists. But they knew it was dangerous so they never spoke about the inoctium, ever again. The files that had been created around it had all been destroyed and their lab was dismantled. Thirty years passed and no one dared to go back to those dark times. That was until the day Yucca mountain, the place were the inoctium rested, exploded in a massive way. A whole was opened in the desert and some small towns were in the way; the earthquake that was generated wiped them out. It was the biggest disaster involving anything nuclear and scientists couldn’t explain what happened.

But the creators of the inoctium, a group of only six people, knew exactly what had happened. They had warned the government against burying the compound in a place were other chemicals and elements were kept but no one heard then and no heard after the explosion, mainly because only a handful of government officials knew about inoctium and they were all close to retirement. The president didn’t believe a word that he heard, thinking that if such a powerful thing existed, the past governments would have used to finally impose the country on the world. Maybe that was what he would have done but it wasn’t what had happened. The team knew that the explosion had a cause but no one would believe them.

 Two of them, who had married and had children, decided to try and recreate the process that had created the inoctium but they failed horribly, dying in another explosion, less massive but also a tragedy. Only the two of them died, so the other four members of the team knew what had happened. They insisted on talking to the president, they wanted to explain to him how it all worked for him to understand but he just wouldn’t listen. Word had it that he was trying to blame the explosion on some terrorist group or another country, so he could get a hand on their resources. This president was not like the other who hid their intentions; he didn’t care for those who were ashamed of what had to be done, according to him.

  The team reunited with other experts and tried for them to understand what was going on and how they should prevent anyone from mishandling what was left of the compound on the site of the explosion. If the wrong person got there first or if someone mishandled the inoctium, something even more awful could happen. The scientific community was much more receptive than the government, mainly because the four remaining members of the team had time to explain how they had created the compound and what were its properties. By doing so they were going against the law and against every single paper they had to sign the day the inoctium project was shut down. But lives had been lost and they couldn’t afford to allow more to happen.

 Nevertheless, the scientific community was very divided. Some, like the government, thought the four scientists were insane old people that needed to be in a retirement home and not talking to anyone about science. Others believe some parts but the properties of the inoctium were the thing that put them in high doubt. And other believed them, mainly because they had worked on similar projects before that had ended in failure. Despite that, they felt it was possible to do what they had tried to do back then. So the team got some support and tried again to contact the government, with no more success than before. It was announced, a few days after, that the country had concluded the explosion to be a terrorist attack.

  For the members of the team, it was a tragedy when they saw the images of tanks and planes attacking some country on the other side of the world. The government had declared them guilty of harboring terrorists and claimed that they should be brought to justice. What was obvious after a few days though, was the fact that every suspect they found was killed. No one was apprehended. In a few days that nation had fallen and occupation began, like it had happened before elsewhere. Of course, every single company prepared their luggage and landed in the destroyed country to set up business, weather it was security related or minerals related. Anyway, the world had lost another piece and scientists weren’t closer to prove anything.

So they decided to disobey in the most visible way possible: they would get the proper equipment and then travel to Nevada, were the explosion had taken place, to illegally enter the site and see for themselves if the inoctium had been destroyed or not. Many fellow scientists helped them prepare and get the equipment and it took them only a week to be prepared and leave for the desert. They had brought weapons too because this time they weren’t going to be just scientist but also madmen, even if there was a women among them. When they got to Nevada, they started doing vigilance on the site, which was very heavily guarded. Fortunately, they were able to get a military drone from one of its makers and used it.

 The drone discovered that the site was not only a whole on the ground as it had been portrayed in the media. The truth was that they had built several building around the explosion site and the crater created had been covered by a white fabric, which looked like plastic, or something like it. They didn’t get to see or know more as the drone was shot down and by the military, who were the ones guarding the place. The scientists had controlled it remotely so no one knew it had been them watching but they decided to head for Las Vegas, to think about their next step. The news had changed their headlines from “Patriotic war” to “Our heroes triumphed” showing military man “guarding” the streets of a ravaged town.

 The team knew they just couldn’t get into the site as no one would allow them to and another drone would be even more dangerous, because then they would really be in the eye of the storm. They didn’t know what to do, what to think of it all. Because of them, because of what they had done so many years ago, people were dying every day. That fake war and the explosion were a symptoms of a cancer that had to be taken out. And although the government was also another disease, it was preferable to deal with the inoctium first. They planned to seek help from the opposition to the president and to the war and try to get international help from scientists around the world, willing to speak on their behalf.

   But when the war on the other side of the world expanded and spilled onto other countries, the scientists were rendered mute. Because on one morning in august, people around the world got to see the most incredible and most horrible thing in the world: the military had used the inoctium against other. They had seized it and created weaponry with it. Easily, the world started to crumble and people, for the first few seconds, were all without a voice. They couldn’t believe they were seeing the end of their world on their TV and computer screens. And many wouldn’t get to see the real end, further ahead.

The man who wasn't one

   The island was rapidly covered by water. Well, it wasn’t exactly an island, rather a big rock in the middle of the bay, guilty of so many shipwrecks and swimming accidents. But now, it was the resting place of a weapon that should remain there for ages. Hopefully no one would ever again set a foot on that rock, no one would never look beneath the promontory and find the small box made of wood and metal. Never again…

 A man wearing a red mask looked at the rock sinking in the ocean from a nearby cliff. The wind moved he’s coat and the tip of his hat but not him. He stood there, like a statue, just looking at the water as the sun went away and was replaced by a chilly night. Once the island was fully covered in water, he left his post on the cliff. He started walking aimlessly, just following the path that lead to the small town near the bay. People locked themselves during the battle and now they were too afraid to step out.

 Besides, the media was making a circus out of all that had happened just hours before, half a world away. It was strange how people here were also hiding in their homes. Everyone was too scared. Two caped men with incredible powers had been battling brutally and now one of them lay dead in a hospital guarded by military men.

 Every single detail was being revealed on TV. Suddenly, people didn’t care about the time of day anymore. Children and adults watched the winner, a man with green cape in the shape of a diamond, being congratulated by political figures and military men. But that didn’t make any sense. He had just come to this world and now, suddenly, was a savior. His fall from space had obliterated fields that nourished thousands and he had destroyed half a big city destroying his opponent, who had fallen from space just like him but unto water, flooding nearby towns

 The man in the red mask walked towards the town and suddenly realized the lighthouse was not working. Maybe there was a very low of electricity and people could only hear their radios or watch their TV’s. Yes, not even street lamps were working, nor any lights inside stores or homes. In any case, that wasn’t important as no one was working or too far from home. They were all glued to the information, in order to understand at least a small part of what had happened.

 The thing is it had all occurred in a matter of hours. A full day ago, people had no idea aliens existed or super humans of any kind. But now they were here, with them, on planet Earth, and no one really knew what was going to happen. They listened to every word the news broadcasters spoke and even there, in those studios, people were barely handling what was happening. They just recited what little they knew and hoped it was for the best.

Strangely, this event had united everyone. No one was an outsider or a stranger anymore. People had suddenly realized they were all humans; they were all members of one single species and now two other creatures, aliens, had visited them. They had been so proud of their meager strength, so full of themselves for so long, but now these visitors had changed everything. They were clearly stronger and smarter and knew more of the universe than them and, secretly, that made everyone a little nervous, to say the least.

 The one that had won stood exactly were he had defeated his adversary for at least three hours. Many doctors, scientists and politicians got near him but he did nothing. He looked strangely human but he clearly wasn’t. Not only because he didn’t seem to know how to speak, but because of his two antennae on the top of his head. They were small and had the same yellowish color of his skin. People talked to him in various languages but he didn’t seem to want to move or understand what they said. He looked at them but he didn’t seem to be listening or paying attention to anything.

 He seemed robotic, at best. And his enemy wasn’t too different. He looked liked him, except his skin had a reddish tint. Maybe they shared a same species but they came from different parts of the same planet. Anything could be guessed and every single one of those guesses could be a reality. The one that lay dead went cold in a matter of seconds and was now practically frozen, without any need of human practices. But people were really not that interested in him, not as much as in the one that was alive and well, or so it seemed.

 The man took off his mask to let the darkness of the town’s streets cover his face. He stopped for a moment and massaged his temples, trying to breath softly and calm himself down. He had been running for a long time and now this calm was making him feel strange, almost as alien as those two men in the news. He pulled out a lighter from one of his pockets and turned the mask on fire, then left it on the pavement to burn. He looked at the fire for some time and then kept walking, until he was outside of the town, this time from the other side.

 The breeze of the night felt comforting. The cold didn’t matter anymore; it just felt comforting to feel the wind on his skin again, on his face. He had been wearing that mask for too long. He had made a name for himself wearing that thing and now he could finally resettle on Earth and live his final days with the family he had built there. He had a beautiful wife and a couple of children. They were the reason he had done what he had done and he knew he would never be sorry for it.

 The man in diamond cape finally moved but not like people would have expected. He flew, like a bird but with less grace. He flew and flew until he got to the hospital where they were keeping his enemy’s body. He entered, the military being too afraid of shooting him or something. He moved slowly, almost gliding, until he got to the room where he found the body. He immediately took the dead alien’s head between his hands and pressed hard. It looked as if he wanted to squeeze something out of there. The head of the victim suddenly shone with a bright light. The caped man’s face contorted in awful ways until he finally crushed the man’s brain. A TV drone had followed him and broadcasted this to every single home in the planet.

 The alien didn’t appear to care for it. Without even blinking, he walked to the nearest window and flew again. But this time, he disappeared into the night, towards the clouds. Radars and sonars confirmed he had left the planet and now his position was unknown. The body was oozing a strange liquid and it was decided he would be buried in an undisclosed location after some medical examinations were performed for the sake of science.

 When the man in the coat heard all of this, from a farmer’s radio that could be heard across a wheat field, he was able to finally breath. He took off his hat and revealed his face. His skin was also light yellow and he had two small antennae on his head. He had been covering his face but he did not know why. There was no one around and he could be himself if he wanted to.

But that was it: he didn’t want to be himself anymore. He had escaped a crumbling civilization far away into the blackness of space and had arrived to this small and gentle planet to live the life he had always wanted. Of course, he had left so much behind. But the future was brighter and whatever he had to do to make it so, was worth it.

 He had heard of the battle and immediately knew they had come for him. He knew whom the alien that had just left was: he had been looking for him, he wanted to take him back to their world and face his fate. But he apparently hadn’t expected to be followed and that was the reason for the battle. The man that had lay dying in the hospital was none other than the brother of the man in a coat. He had been destroyed; he had sacrificed himself for his brother. The other one had tried to read his mind before killing him, because he thought he knew were his brother was but he didn’t.

 Those two had travelled many years, so many kilometers of empty space, to destroying some buildings and fields and then just die or leave. And the alien in the coat was happy about that. He walked a little bit more and then realized the darkness of the night was all around him. So he decided to do it there. He stopped, stood still and closed his eyes. Concentrating, he was able to make his skin less yellow, his antennae turn into ears in the right places and his vocal chords come in. They, his race, had all this kind of power. But only him had been bothered to know the ways of the humans.

 When arriving on Earth, he looked even stranger that his brother at his death. But he had learned to stay low and to watch the humans, to learn everything there was to learn about them. And then, he was able to join them in society, looking just as they did. That was how his family was created and how he had realized he had made the right choice by staying here and locking the weapon he had stolen from his world just before leave it forever.

 He would never go back but he would never let them annihilate each other. Not when he could stop them.