The sands of the desert are sweet, for veins of dark sugar twist through its dunes. Down below, metamorphic layers of thick molasses crawl through cracks in ancient bedrock, condensed to ooze by the weight of the world above. In these porous spaces ruled by dust and germ, pools of primordial rum have formed under extreme pressure. It is a liquor that men and machines alike can drink, and it produces similar results in both.
Mere minutes after the virus took their lives, the victims began to grow their first feathers. Each plume was golden and translucent, centered by accents of violet and clover. The metamorphosis took place in moments thereafter; their pupils spiraled outward until abyssal whorls, their locks erupted into leonine manes, and all color faded from their blood until it was as clear as rainwater.
For a handful of Canadian hunters, it was not enough to craft trophies from the bodies of their prey. A particular sporting lodge in Newfoundland developed a technique of stuffing animal skins with wooden bones and glass organs, allowing them to return to the wild. The primary agent of reanimation was an artificial blood formulated from, among other things, blackberry syrup, gunpowder, and crushed fireflies.
Strange rivers of geothermal activity run beneath Hyperborea’s blue forests. The tender earth liquefies just below human body temperature, and becomes a warm, fluid stone that flows easily through the hands. The local terminology for this substance translates roughly to “world jelly.”
If it’s still the past while you’re reading this, you may wish to take notes. It wasn’t asteroids, or bombs, or angels with trumpets. During the last decade of our lives, there was a common sense of dread that we were living out the final act. Novelty was running low. Each and every one of us had been carrying the scripts for our own lives, but never noticed until the remaining pages were too thin to thumb through easily.
Wherever he goes, he carries a pack of American Spirits in his left hand. He never actually smokes them; each one attempts to wriggle from his grip as he draws it from the carton, but to no avail. He devours all of them like popcorn, grinding raw tobacco and ash between his gnarled teeth. His skin has faded to the tone of pewter during the course of his term, likely due to this exact habit.
Android bodies also decompose upon death, leaving behind transparent bones. Although most of their kind choose to live on as holograms afterward, some prefer the streamlined feeling of simply being a skeleton, or even just a skull. While it is not difficult for a human to stop thinking, it is impossible for an android to do so until their batteries are removed by the coroner. As such, the peace this offers them is welcome.
While you’re busy drinking a cocktail of anteater blood and vermouth, a well-dressed businessman next to you shoves three curled, nacreous tokens towards the bartender. You recognize them from an illegal magazine that you stumbled across three months ago; these are mermaid fingernails, the official currency of the Illuminati.