Five Hundred – Part II: Alone in the Current
I was the only one left.
At first, it felt like victory. A strange, impossible victory. Five hundred of us had begun the race. Only I had reached the final destination. My body pulsed with energy I didn't understand, a mix of relief and disbelief.
But being the last survivor brought something unexpected: silence.
I was alone.
The world around me, once crowded with my brothers and sisters, was now empty. I drifted through warmth and darkness, moving forward, searching for something, though I didn't know what. I had survived the currents, the obstacles, the chaos—but now the challenge was different.
I didn't need speed anymore. I needed direction.
The currents changed.
Without competition, the environment no longer pushed me. The path widened, the waters slowed. For the first time, I could pause and think. I wondered: Why me? Why am I the only one who made it?
I felt something strange: guilt.
Every lost brother, every vanished spark of possibility, weighed on me. I remembered their faces—imagined or real, I didn't know. I wished I could have carried them with me, even a little.
But survival is selfish. I couldn't go back.
Time stretched.
I floated alone for what felt like eons, feeling the strange rhythm of the world around me. There were pulses beneath the currents, signals I had never noticed when I was surrounded by others. I began to sense the environment in ways I hadn't before. The warmth, the pressure, the subtle vibrations—they guided me.
I was learning that survival isn't just movement.
It's attention. Observation. Patience.
Then something shifted.
At the edge of the path, I saw it: a glow.
Not bright. Not overwhelming. Just a faint warmth, steady and calm. It was a place of stillness, almost like a promise.
I swam toward it, my body trembling with exhaustion and fear. But as I approached, I realized the glow wasn't an end—it was a beginning.
I didn't know what awaited me on the other side. But I knew one thing: I had survived against impossible odds. And now, I would survive what came next.
Because being the only one left wasn't just a curse. It was an opportunity.
A chance to carry everything forward.
A chance to become more than I had imagined.
I swam onward.
If you want, I can continue with Part III, where the story explores what happens after the glow—how the last sperm adapts, grows, and transforms into the first cell of something entirely new.
Do you want me to write that next?