By: Daniel Kendle

They got him, of course.

“Got him” being a simplified term, (“They” as well, I suppose). It didn’t take long after Mr. Whatshisname first deserted his home in pursuit of the Rocky Mountains when, his destination only a mere hundred miles due East, the poor sap was apprehended by the horde of villains. Villains of articles he’d once written, now alive in a strange fantasy world the author somehow also lived in himself.

But that’s a discussion for a different day. What mattered was that the elusive mink that was Mr. Whatshisname had been caught by the metaphorical serpent of the villain catalogue. Predator and prey had finally convened on one another as the rival factions fought in a brief standoff outside of the Colorado border. The quarrel ended as quickly as it began, the sole high schooler faring little chance against the crew of gods, demons, and bears. 

In a sense, this event marked a lyrical end to Mr. Whatshisname and his articles, depicting the metaphorical point at which articles from him ceased; his creative abilities constricted as a result of his apprehension via the aforementioned evils. News and radio stations dry of any more interesting stories (heck, any stories period) would report on the matter and cement Mr. Whatshisname’s imprisonment as a doorway to his inevitable death, murdered at the hands of foes seeking vengeance for their past mistreatment in his written stories. 

That’s not what happened. Because Mr. Whatshisname lived.

Secured in a strange, artificial pod, his body, injected with a myriad of untested drugs and prescriptions, fell limp to the hands of his new captors. He was kept in the cryogenic chamber in order to remain alive, exposure to the outside world and its horrors being fatal for his frail physique. There, the experiments began.

Serum-8008 was the main point of research throughout the villain’s testing. They’d partnered with a pharmaceutical company prior to the reviewer’s capture, aiming to explore the prescription’s possibilities in the pursuit of lengthening the human lifespan. While a noble effort for a rag-tag team of maniacal marauders, the experiments ultimately ended with an alternative outcome, one that both aided and discarded its aim of extended life.

After his body accepted the serum, strange things began happening to Mr. Whatshisname. Despite his comatose state, recurring uncontrollable bodily functions were exhibited by him: defecation, vomiting of blood, rapid secretion of mucus, the like. These symptoms, however strange and grotesque they may be, were all in mere anticipation of what was to come. 

Serum-8008’s true consequence, revealed: rapid acceleration of evolution. What physical features may have taken humanity millions of years to develop were formed by him in mere weeks. In his chamber, now covered in viscous liquid from top to bottom, his bones, flesh and skin writhed in confused madness, Mr. Whatshisname undergoing levels of pain incomparable to anything else on Earth.

This continued for days, weeks, months…it turned out that the vaccine had extended his life, though to a degree even its researchers had never thought possible. Eventually, 2.2 billion years after his first injection — Mr. Whatshisname’s constant metamorphosis capsized.

Fig. 1: A diagram comparing 2 hypothesized skulls of Subject M. Whatshisname throughout his constant evolution. The leftmost diagram is dated around the time experimentation on him first began.

His form at this point was, as one would expect, completely-foreign to when he’d originally started. Once a sprite young high-school graduate, his being had progressed — or as some would assert, regressed — into an animalistic mass. His gait was now more or less akin to a large, elephantine gazelle, his knuckles and toes transformed into hoof-like appendages. Dubbed a “false ungulate,” his brain had become stunted long ago, his existence now filled with the eating of grass and leaves, as well as evading natural predators on a now alien Earth.

Mr. Whatshisname’s saga ends here along with JOYSTiCK Reviews. His story finishes with not so much a triumphant roar but a whimper. The reviewer had lived long, lived hard, yes — but in the end, was it really so different from death?

. . . . .

I relay all of this information to you for a couple of reasons. Firstly, my thesis paper requires examination of a past historical figure, so that part’s obvious. But there is another purpose for this story.

As I write this sentence, the year is 2,040,497,300 A.D. Humans, a now-extinct species whose descendants have since transformed into others, are an, at best, sparsely-researched topic of historians. My tendrils clutch at the thought of my ancestors’ legacies being forgotten, thus leading me to explore Homo sapiens sapiens for my university final exam.

Every single article written by Mr. Whatshisname — whose real name and surname remain unknown — has been included as sources in this project. Every single one you’ve read has been transcribed by me, reformatted by me, and synthesized onto the website you’re currently using. He is dead. His legacy is now mine to share, of which I have been doing for the last 3.5 years.

But why do I do this? That question I have yet to answer. It’s simple: despite their lack of importance in society today, humans fascinate me. Their societies, their cultures, everything surrounding them and their ancient creations is astounding. I can only imagine the average person looking around at their world with all of their creations, feeling a sense of pride out of how far their species had come.

And yet, they’ve become forgotten. Mere echoes of dynasties long past their prime. That…saddens me. But unfortunately, that’s the reality we live in: time will always outpace, outrun you…and there’s nothing you can do about it.

So that’s why I leave you with this, reader: Live long. Live right. Live a life full of love, happiness, kindness, and beauty. Live a life packed with experiences, with memories, and the friends and family you find along the way.

Whether it be planets, galaxies, or even universes that separate us, know that someone out there cares about you. Your existence, whether spent subjugated to imprisonment or writing about ancient races, matters.

Finally, if any long-dead humans are somehow reading this…

…thanks for everything.

Sincerely,

Banacus Grox of the Wustar Galaxy Alliance Z

University of Vordulla