In the mid-20th century, a peculiar discovery was made near the arctic. An odd shockwave was detected with many nations thinking or fearing a military act of some kind. Whatever had happened it was decided that an investigation was required. Captain Sulavan, captain of the British vessel ‘The Kestrel’ had got there first. Excerpts of his log made for intriguing reading and would be read for the centuries to come…
Captains Log: ‘The Kestrel has made her way to the site… no sign of any other ships. I am starting to think there had been some kind of instrument failure. There is nothing here. Will continue to explore on course. The crew are fighting fit and ready for combat if needed.’
The logs continued to show normal reports… until the next vital entry by the captain.
‘It has been now seven days and we have found something. A curious slick of oil. We are circling it now to get an idea of how big it is. Possibly a ship gone under. It must have been quite a large one. Poor souls must have been taken to the sea. Something troubles me though. It is not an oil slick I have ever seen before. It almost looks like ‘liquid light’… and while I am used to the smell of it, I sense nothing of the aroma. Also, the fish have not abandoned the area… I am at a loss to explain. A boat will be sent to get a sample.’
What happened next would change the course of human history forever…
“The boat is cast at 11:03. Weather is temperate for this region, but I am hopeful when it rains the slick will be dispersed. Looking forward to my return to England, and hopefully the Kestrel can be put to more important duties.”
“A disaster of the likes I had never seen. The boat has been overturned. I am unsure of what has happened. Did the slick cause that much of a problem? I am sending another boat to assist. I pray nobody is hurt.”
“Well… this is a very unusual log entry. I dare say I could be drunk or perhaps seeing something yet my eyes tell me it is the truth and I have just seen the impossible. My first mate, is… sill in the water, and likely will be so for some time for he had turned into a merman. Where his legs would normally be, he had grown large fins akin to a marine animal… like something out of legend. What am I even writing, I swear I am of sound mind by the Grace of God.”
The poor captain continued to write his logs.
“The scientist that was with him, Mr Gars appears to have become some form of cat-like creature. He seems quite disturbed as the rest of us. I am letting him stay in my cabin for now until he gets his wits back… if he ever does. Finally, the skipper John Maye had turned into a female draconic-like creature. Yes… female. This slick of oily water is ‘supernatural’ in nature and my crew are very close to mutiny for I have ordered the changed to be allowed entry to the ship. Many are superstitious even in this day and age, and that I will doom them but they are still members of my crew… and I will not have harm come to them, neither will I abandon them We have taken more samples and avoided touching it… we will take this back for careful analysis… God Help us all, I think we have found the edge of the world.”
Thus mankind has found something new… a strange fluid that causes transformations! The water was taken back for testing.., and several accidents/intentional tests later many new species were made on Earth!
It was certainly a very strange year for Humanity…
At the start of the 21st century, people still had little to no idea what this fluid was. No nation admitted to making it, but most did agree it formed after some kind of earthquake. Perhaps it came out of the Earth itself, or a meteorite impact? Whatever the origin it was now on Earth and humans had to deal with it.
A lot of work was done in trying to understand its effects and even control them. At first the only source of this liquid was near the arctic discovered by that ship almost a hundred years ago. It was quickly found that it was possible to make more, with just a single drop of the material. When placed in pure water then given as much light as possible, the liquid appeared to turn the water into more of itself, into this strange glowing multicoloured liquid light. How long it took to convert depended on the intensity of the light, the wavelength, and if it was real sunlight or even moonlight. The presence of any salt prevented this change, which was a very welcoming set of news otherwise Earth might have become totally contaminated by this fluid. The other problem was that the material sometimes ‘gained mass’… which could vary by as much as becoming twice as big to ten times. Nobody really knew how the fluid did that but it made containing it somewhat difficult when growing more.
The world gave this material many names. Circe’s Eyes, Hand of God, Devil’s Blood, Angels dream, Daffy Soap (on account of a notorious duck transformation in the past) but most scientist called it ‘Photonic Matrix Quantised Water solution.’ … a boring way of saying they had no idea what it was but it did stuff with light, appeared to be water and did ‘quantum stuff’.
When placed in an analyser the solution tended to exude the same properties of water. Annoyingly none of its properties were ‘set’. Its density tended to very between 0.5 to about 3x the density of normal water. The way it shifted and changed in colour was also peculiar and defied the normal laws of physics. It gave off a non-radioactive glow that seemed invisible to technology that detected photons. Yet the human eye perceived those colours. It sometimes acted as a perfect fluid, moving almost like a rainbow on the surface of anything it rested on.
As for its uses, scientists found it could be used with ‘some risk’ to heal. Very tiny amount could be used to initiate a rapid regeneration of limbs or organs, so a supply of it was kept in hospitals. However, if the calculation was even slightly off (which was easy to do given how variable the solution was) it would transmogrify the entire person into another species.
So far, the material in its raw state didn’t appear to affect any other animals except humans… though nations were experimenting and some rumours suggest success in mutating animals in some form… some of the rich people now had peculiar pets that acted as servants.
The material was quickly treated as off limits to most people, but it wasn’t ‘too hard’ to get ones hands on illegally. It was impossible to stop people making use of distilled water though as I wasn’t that hard to make. There had been instances where people put the fluid in ‘water guns’ and went on a rampage causing transformations… and were swiftly given very harsh sentences.
People were often trying to find a way to reverse the changes had yet to find a way… there was also discussion on ‘why’ certain changes happened but it all appeared to be random. Nobody knew how or why some people changed but it was easy enough to avoid, and water-guns were mostly banned.
