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I don’t think that we were born. I don’t remember it anyway. Some say that they can remember it, those who were half born, half created. They are not natural, the ones who have had their DNA spun and twisted, forced into place. Somewhere there must be a kink in the chain because these babies who come out, come out talking. They come out with no child hood, all ready for the world. I have seen the headlines the day they made the first one, when it uttered its first word exactly 3.7 seconds after birth. Its first sentence tumbled out of its mouth not long after. At first they were appalled at what they had created. The primeval instincts took over and they were all set to burn it when a voice said that it was perfect. Nobody questioned the voice when it said that this is the future, that this is the beginning, the road away from savagery. Maybe they were all busy listening to the voice and did not notice what the baby said. It had not yet gained control of all its speaking facilities, but what it said was unmistakable. ‘Welcome to the end’.

There were protests. Massive ones that stretched over entire cities. But they stopped when the government came to power. We were cut off from the world whilst they shackled us with laws to protect us. The protests were made to stop, and silence ran like a cold and bitter wind through the empty streets. And in the tiny glowing houses that they retreated to, paranoia grew. And under the delusion of this paranoia, they let it happen. They let the chain of laws and regulations continue. The same chain that then wound its way though freedom. The government renounced the Queen after the first month for speaking against them, and being a part of the corrupt Great Britain. And so we became a ‘People’s Republic’. And the people still lived in fear- not of the terrorists, but of their own government.

The government knew what was happening. The men in the towering skyscrapers saw the growing noise of illicit underground traffic. More and more buzzwords were intercepted on the internet, until even that was closed down. People had stopped living in plastic lives, shielded from their true nature. The rebellions started. People began to question why there were even more attacks. The government lost face and the conspiracy theories emerged- that Islamic Jihad had long since stopped and the government itself had been responsible for the attacks. This is where it should have ended. It had happened like that in the past- governments had crumbled, dictators had fallen. In the past, the people had always won. There had, however, not been one single person responsible for this world that humanity now finds itself in. There was no scheming mastermind, no grand plan. There was only time. Human nature had pushed us here, our constant, overwhelming desire to back pedal from savagery, every closer into the embrace of civilisation. It was the same force that had pushed the colonials, and now this drive had collided with our love affair with technology.

So the government thought that they were in the right to set the army on the people, after all- what was the world without order? And although it started with good intentions- to unite people of all nationalities, races and religions under one banner, there is always a base level of humanity ready and willing to pull down whatever is on top of it. Science had progressed much further that nature, but no amount of tweaking with genetics could eradicate a human’s most basic instinct- to look after itself. In that respect, it is no different from a cockroach. And so I was made- we were made. The ultimate weapon, a weapon so perfect that it achieved what no amount of science had been able to do- recreate nature flawlessly.

The lycanthrope were created to control the people, to instil fear in them so they would not rebel. To make them go back to their plastic lives because we made reality to horrible to live in. We are the modern bogey man, a tool for the government to use as propaganda and to enforce curfews. Every night they let my kind loose among the streets, letting them feast on whoever they find. Every night they drag back some unfortunate soul back to their lairs, and every day they change. The change is the curse that binds my entire creed. It is the thing that defines our existence; it is why we were created.

A lycanthrope’s body it composed of a complex chemistry of matter, each atom, every particle of us neither human not wolf. We languish in a state in between. We are werewolf. The change, however, is not affected by the moon as told in the ancient stories, but by the minds of the lycanthrope. We control when we change. That makes us the perfect weapon, science made a human blessed with supernatural abilities far beyond both wolf and man. A weapon able to control whole populations. A weapon created from the dregs of the old world, when superstitions ruled. The weapon that was born, lived and breathed from a scientist’s mind.