Storyline – JiZe Chen

The story opens with hundreds of babies flying off into space on rockets and naming the programme the Wandering New Baby Project. A total of seven rockets send these babies to eleven planets where these babies will survive on their own. Being the first humans to travel to an exoplanet will verify if survival is possible.

Your name is Klein, and as the protagonist, you are the main leader of the project, along with your colleagues. Your student to be exact, this is a project you have been working on for years, his name is Stavan. These babies are not just any babies, they are lab-created neo-humans with an adaptive capacity that far exceeds that of a human being; while on Earth it takes organisms hundreds of millions of years to reach their current most adapted form of survival, the neo-humans are capable of compressing evolution into a lifetime or even a few decades of an average human being’s life. These babies will grow up to be able to evolve into their most adapted local environments, and they will evolve one by one on these seven very different planets, and perhaps they will cease to be human.

You’re excited to be part of the project but your colleague feels sorry for the children, you remind him that these babies are nothing more than experiments, but he always thinks that they will still remember that they are human beings. Your colleague then pushes the button for the ship to take off and you set off on your journey.

You set off at the same time as the babies, but you can’t handle the speed of the colonisation rockets as ordinary humans, so when you reach the first planet, it’s officially ten years after the new babies have survived there. Your task is to observe their survival and help them if necessary.

You and your colleague wake up from your hibernation pods at the same time, as the ship slowly approaches the surface. From the ship; the planet has large areas of yellow land as well as a scattering of huge trees with trunks that reach into the clouds. You grab your gun and carry it with you, your colleague wonders if it is necessary to carry a gun when all we are seeing is a bunch of kids. I explained that in the reports of these planets, it shows that there are native creatures present, just in case. You put on your spacesuits and set foot on the land, there are strange shaped bugs crawling across the ground and animals fleeing in the distance in fear, the place looks like it’s full of life. You walk into the nearest tree, which has a hole in its trunk from which sap slowly flows. Your colleague is amazed that it looks like they actually survived on this planet. You walk along the trunk and soon find a door, outside of which you can hear human voices inside. Your colleague is just about to knock on the door when you immediately stop it; explaining that we can’t appear directly in front of them, that the new humans will do whatever it takes to evolve until they are at the top of the food chain, a process that must bring with it merciless killing, so what they will evolve into is anyone’s guess. But your colleague is still convinced that they will still be human, so you didn’t stop him again.

The door just opened you were stunned in place, because the child is not only not what he imagined, but unusually scary and frightening. Mouth exposed sharp teeth, more than two metres tall, fingers as sharp as spikes. Although you already know the uncertainty of evolution, seeing it for the first time still makes you very nervous. These new humans retain human features but are not human in any way. Your colleague boldly reaches out in a gesture of friendship, but unexpectedly the neo-human extends its sharp claws and slashes at your colleague, and you immediately pull him towards the ship. Immediately dozens of Neo-humans pour out of the hole in the tree behind you, and they keep hissing as your distance is quickly closed. You immediately pulled out your gun and fired several shots into the air, and while the neo-humans froze, you ran back to the airship.

The airship takes off immediately, and you keep it suspended in the air to observe. The new humans’ huge chest cavities rise and fall with them as they breathe, their respiratory systems changed to survive on a planet where oxygen is scarce. The hard, sharp claws not only easily slice through the trunks of trees to gain access to the sap, but also easily kill all native creatures that come near the large trees. The tree is the source of life on this planet, all creatures need to rely on it to survive, and there is no doubt that with the new humans in charge of the tree, they are at the top of the food chain.

You cheered at the sight of this, but your colleagues were not happy; but they turned into complete beasts and forgot that they were human. You explain that this is the only way they can survive, and isn’t that the purpose of our experiment. In terms of the experiment they were more successful than we thought, and you begin to look forward to the next 10 planets, and then the journey to the next one begins.

Planets 2 to 6 did not disappoint, some of the new humans grew legs to travel around the swampy worlds, others grew wings to fly freely over the mountainous planets. They‘ve all evolved to suit their local environments, and they’re all at the top of the food chain. But it‘s even sadder for my colleagues. None of them consider themselves human, and that’s just sad.

You then arrive at Planet 7, a planet that is half green and half white. The hatch opens, and in front of you several giant creatures the size of city walls and shaped like elephants are moving quickly through the grasslands while eating plants. You began to look for the new human figures, expecting it to be as easy as before, but this was the hardest one yet. You even found the wreckage of the colony ship, but a week after that there were still no new humans to be found. You couldn’t help but wonder if they hadn’t survived, but then you found a stone slab with a humanoid design carved into it, the engraving was very fresh. This inspires your confidence, but another week passes and still nothing. You didn’t find any new humans, but you learnt that the planet is half green and half white because of the huge temperature difference, where the sun shines there are green plants, while the dark side of the planet is a lifeless white at 100 degrees below zero. Plants grow quickly in the morning and are crushed by the cold at night. The planet’s creatures can’t withstand the cold temperatures, so they have to constantly run after the sun and stay in sunny places to survive. You wonder how the new humans can outrun the planet’s rotation, but then you look at the tablet and suddenly have a bold idea. You have the ship lift off and scan the behemoths from the inside out, and when the scans come back you see a shocking sight. There are several creeping, writhing figures right in the bowels of the behemoths; the new humans have become parasites. Wide places can bend and stand, narrow places can only rely on wriggling, but even in such a narrow space, you still see spaces such as the canteen and bedrooms. You observed for a week and found that even when the behemoth died, its residual body heat still allowed the new humans to escape the night’s storm and last until the next day when they were replaced by a new behemoth. These behemoths are the masters of the planet, and the new humans are the masters of the behemoths. You are still in awe until the ship leaves the planet.

Then planets 8 and 9, you witnessed once again the possibility of evolution. You and your colleague awoke from the dormant chamber and arrived on Planet 10. It is an extremely dark planet, with clouds in the sky covering everything. The cabin opens up to pure blackness, and the light from the flashlight shines out and is swallowed up. You’ve been there for a week, and you’ve realised that it’s always dark at all times. And you still haven’t seen the new humans, and you begin to figure out how to draw them in. What would the new humans evolve into in a world where total darkness vision is useless. Their sense of hearing is probably well developed, and you have the engines making a constant noise. After a couple of hours there is still nothing, and I’m about to give up when I turn my head and a couple of creepy figures are crawling around outside the ship. There’s no telling how long they’ve been there, and they move without a sound, so much so that you’re just now realising it. They don’t react when you shine a torch at them, but when you stomp your feet they are instantly alerted.

They are thinner than a human, with nothing where their eyes would be, and ears half the size of their face. You have to observe them, so one of you has to go down, but they stay down here and you can’t observe them, so you plan to switch off the engine. You offer to let your colleague stay on board in case you can’t find your way, and your colleague can save you. Switching off the engines, the new humans gradually leave, and since they have completely abandoned their vision, you can safely follow them with your lights on. You follow them to a clearing, which is densely populated with Neo-humans who stand like statues. Suddenly you hear something in the distance, and instantly all the Neo-humans scurry out, followed only by the sound of biting, and in less than a minute the creature is consumed. It was like a dark forest, and the Neo-humans could reproduce so many people that you believed they were at the top of the food chain.

You were ready to head to the ship, you were so nervous having just witnessed that scene with a creature that you didn’t notice stepping on a stone. By the time you turn around the pair of ears have all turned towards you. The neo-humans are running towards you like crazy, you can already smell the stench coming from them. Suddenly your colleague flies overhead in his spaceship, thus attracting their attention and you escape. You ask snidely I thought you thought they were kind and wouldn’t hurt me as one of their own kind. Your colleague says that I’ve given up that illusion, they are like humans and monkeys long since ceased to be a species.

You have finally arrived at the last planet, Planet 11. The ship’s cabin opens up to a dim yellow earth outside, and you are trying to find the New Humans when you are met with an unbelievable sight. The New Humans have come to greet you, and your colleagues are amazed because the New Humans on this planet look exactly like normal humans. The new human extends his hand and says hello, and after seeing so many strange new humans, it suddenly seems bizarre to see such a normal-looking one instead. You hesitate in place for a long time before finally extending your hand. The moment you shake your hand all your doubts disappear, despite growing up in a completely different environment, the familiar touch and warmth makes you sure they are human. Your colleague is thrilled by the scene and we all agree that they are the most important discovery of the experiment.

The new humans turn around and gesture for you to follow, as you walk you ask, are you at the top of the food chain yet. Of course, we already own this. The new humans on the previous 10 planets have evolved to adapt to their environment in order to reach the top of the food chain, but you have evolved in the exact same direction as humans, why is that. The colleague said excitedly; is it on the same path of winning by intelligence and tools as humans. The new human shook his head, not really, it is to hide and lower the enemy’s defence, use this appearance to hide among the enemy, and then kill them by surprise. You are puzzled when the other stops and points to the colony ship in front of you, the one you came from. But immediately after you see the view behind the ship and suddenly shudder. The new human’s smile is as terrifying as an evil spirit in your eyes.

Colleague asks what’s wrong. You shudder as you tell the truth; the launch of Spaceship 11 was a failure, and instead of flying out into the cosmos, it fell back to Earth.