Jessica Cambrook, 11 Sep '12

We were gods. For a time.

Now we are like lambs for the slaughter.

One of our test subjects has gone missing. We counted and recounted but one of them has escaped. We know their behaviour in more detail than we know our own, which is a blessing and a curse. If we reflected too much on our actions we – anyone! - would be revolted.

We called them egocentric for reproducing in their hell-pit, yet we brought our children with us, feeling wholly superior, to watch those Down Under and laugh like they were acting for our amusement.

We who remain alive have armed ourselves with guns but I know it is not enough. He who has escaped knows who we are and he won’t stop until he has revenge.

In desperation, after the first family were found massacred in a nightmarish house of entrails and blood, we stole one of the women from Down Under. My son, the youngest and fittest of all self-proclaimed “scientists”, tied the woman where they could all see and told them he would make her feel the fury of his blade until the escapee was brought to us. An eye for an eye and we could all go back to normal.

It was the first time we had ever made contact with them as equals.

Their disfigured children didn't understand; they wouldn’t have even if they were adults. The elders of Down Under chose defiant silence. My son told them all they were to watch, and if any looked away that they would be shot. I could not watch, but I heard the screams of that woman and from those Down Under and I prayed to a god that no longer listened to me that someone, anyone, would tell my son where the man was.

No one did.

We left the woman on the stake for all to see as a reminder of their insolence. The next morning, she had been removed and another of our families had been defiled and killed.

Now we have a choice.

Do we stay and try to find the escapee, maintaining our reputation as an 'honest' and important town and keep our decades-old experiment going? Or do we flood Down Under and flee, risking someone finding what we have done and paying the consequence?