The Invictae

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It’s funny the things that pop into your mind when you’re about to die horribly—the buttery texture of full-blood wagyu beef; the wave of berry flavor from an ensuing swig of Bordeaux; the primal smoke of the Cuban after that.

I haven’t enjoyed any such pleasure for six months, twelve days, and twenty-one hours. It may seem like a trivial thing to whoever reads this. If anyone. It doesn’t seem particularly trivial when I’m choking down the flesh of whatever slimy creature happens under my pile-house in the swamp. I wasn’t born here. I don’t feel nostalgic for a childhood brimming with Huck-Finn-style adventures. Most nights I sit up listening for intruders while desperately trying to recall the saltiness of Berkshire bacon.

But that’s all about to end.

We were a great species once, but arrogant, belligerent, and beset by hubris with it. When nature had had enough and tried to snuff us out with plagues of Biblical proportion, we just grinned and changed the equation.

To this day, no one can agree whether the medical marvels began in Asia or Europe. Either way, one thing I recall with vivid precision is the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I saw my first Invicta. I was late for a doctor’s appointment, so I bolted down the lane adjacent to the clinic. I then collided with something that barely registered my existence let alone my momentum.

At first, I was unsure what exactly it was I was looking at. It was tall, maybe seven-foot, with long raven hair and eyes that glowed with all the heat of Promethean fire. It nodded before ascending into the shadows—bouncing from wall to wall with all the ease of a cat leaping up onto a coffee table. I miss cats. If you’re unfamiliar, you should look them up on Share-Con, if that’s still a thing.

Turns out they were the New Coke of humanity (look that up too). The Invictae were us, so we were told, but with all the weakness plucked out by the scientific elite. Immune to the lusts, addictions, and diseases that make us what we are. They boasted greater intelligence, physical dexterity, and on paper at least, it appeared that they would live forever. They told us it was an exciting new epoch for the world at large. But things are never that simple, are they?

The first human family to be brutally slaughtered by their Invictae neighbors came as a shock to most. Not to me, however, as I’ve always been a cynical son-of-a-bitch. It seems that in our haste to immigrate to the heavens we’d created a whole new level of hell. Our bastard children, dissatisfied with the idea of coexisting among such genetic inferiority, had marked us for elimination.

The creatures shared none of our shortfalls—they also lacked the things that make humans halfway decent. Creativity. Curiosity. Empathy. Compassion. Mother Nature could take the day off: as per usual we’d designed our own apocalypse. And we’d done it right this time.

I don’t know how many survivors are out there; there’s precious little functioning technology left. Yesterday at sundown, with the aid of my telescope, I spotted the horde moving steadily south, annihilating anything and anyone in its path. Figured I had maybe twenty-four hours until they noticed the lonesome shack just barely illuminated by frantic swarms of torch bugs. They gave me twenty-three.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to face off against a league of murderous monsters with nothing more than a pointed stick.

You better believe I’m going down swinging.

Victor Harker

January 25th, 2042

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