By Christopher D. Abbott
‘You think, sir, that unless this document is recovered there will be war?’
‘I think it is very probable.’
‘Then, sir, prepare for war.’
Sherlock Holmes to Lord Bellinger, taken from The Second Stain by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
When it comes to war, I think we can all agree that no matter the reasons why we end up fighting, the business of it is, well… nasty. Like most people born after 1945, I cannot truly understand the horrors of it. Some 85 years have passed since its ending and despite the many terrible situations our world has faced since then, those horrors have diminished. We will remember, we say. But do we honestly recount the specifics of those who lost their lives so horrifically? I don’t think we always do.
When I wrote Progenitor for Crazy8Press, I decided on horror as my theme for the narrative. It made sense, since I set it during that terrible war. Yet the story itself isn’t about the war. It’s about a different kind of struggle under hideous circumstances, with a sci-fi(ish) twist.