Work Text:
The Last Confessions of Lydia Armaranth
Date: July 16, 2168
I am writing this record in my final hours, to confess my sins. I will write as long as I am able. I can already feel the end nearing. Our end. Though I had no ill intentions, my own carelessness has helped destroy the world. I can only hope that whatever comes after we are all long gone finds this to understand how it all went wrong.
May God forgive me, because I cannot forgive myself.
It wasn’t that long ago that I worked at a university, as an assistant to a professor I had looked up to. Professor Jane Albrecht.. I had focused my studies on virology, and in that field, there was no one else alive who knew more about it than her. It was an honor to work for such a brilliant mind for three years. I was a fool.
Fourteen months ago, Albrecht came to me with an idea. Both of us had been interested in hands-on exploration of how viruses spread across the wider population. However, due to the obvious moral and legal problems with intentionally unleashing a viral outbreak, such a thing would have to be kept as theoretical. So, Albrecht had come up with what seemed like the perfect solution: create a very mild contagion that encouraged those infected to want to look a certain way. Namely, make them want to look like a fictional character.
It was ridiculous. No matter how mild the symptoms were, it wouldn’t have changed the fact that we would be intentionally unleashing a novel virus on unsuspecting people! And yet, at the time, I didn’t care. I thought it was amusing. Especially after she told me which character we would be using: Sartha Thrace. The rebel mech pilot from all those stories written in the wake of the Great War. Both Albrecht and myself had bonded over our love of those stories, so instead of shooting the idea down like any sane, rational human being, I encouraged it.
Seven long months later, it was finished. The Sartha Virus. Albrecht had done most of the work in its creation, it was her idea, after all. But I assisted her. I helped her in its development. And, God forgive me, it was I who unleashed it upon the world. I smashed the vials containing the virus on the university campus when it was most populated, ensuring it was spread across the entire student body.
The virus’s symptoms were supposed to be so mild as to be completely innocuous, and the intended targets of infection were supposed to be so limited, that to most, it would appear to be nothing more than a niche trend. The virus was intended to only affect trans women of a certain type; the type that would already be predisposed to enjoy the stories that Sartha Thrace had come from. And the symptoms? It was only meant to produce a suggestion in the brain to encourage those infected to want to dye their hair blonde.
I had thought it so innocent and innocuous! The mere thought that we had done something so terrible, so unethical, hadn’t even crossed my mind. Instead, I had only considered it to be more akin to a prank, a practical joke.
In the weeks that followed, perhaps it was. Our observations of the university and the nearby cities had shown us exactly the results that we had hoped for: many infected trans women within the populace, all had begun dying their hair blonde. When interviewed, nearly all of them gave the same answer as to why: to look like fictional pilot Sartha Thrace. The virus worked, and we were free to simply make observations and watch and learn how it would spread, for the sake of academic pursuit. Everything seemed to have worked out for us.
And then the unthinkable happened: the virus mutated.
I don’t know when it happened, nor how, but as we had collected our data on the surrounding population, we had begun to see that more than just trans women were being affected by the virus. Men and women, both cis and trans alike, were starting to dye their hair blonde. Why? To be like Sartha, of course. It was then that I had first begun to worry. The virus was supposed to be stable, and incapable of mutation. And yet, more and more people were being affected. Professor Albrecht assured me that it was simply a fluke, an unforeseen complication with the virus. An interesting observation, but nothing to be concerned about, surely. There weren’t very many of these cases in the first place, and the symptoms weren’t anything to cause any actual harm! Despite my growing fears and doubts, I still trusted her. I continued to loyally work alongside her, as I had always done these past few years. We let the virus continue to run its course.
Within two weeks, everything changed. Reports began to arrive of those few infected by the Sartha Virus starting to gain additional symptoms. They would become debilitatingly feverish as their physical bodies slowly began to change. Their physical appearance slowly changing in a dramatic fashion, into that of a beautiful, athletic blonde-haired woman. Mentally, they would become delirious and confused. They would have a growing desire, a need, to be dominated by those around them, to be treated not as they once were, but instead as a dog. A “hound”, as they might refer to themselves. Those surrounding them would try to bring them to their senses, to no avail. Memories and knowledge that they had before their infection would vanish, overwritten by new ones.
Eventually, every last trace of the person they were would vanish completely, physically and mentally. And in their place, would be Sartha Thrace, in the flesh.
As soon as I heard of the local hospital reports, I immediately tried to talk to Professor Albrecht about it in her office. This shouldn’t have happened. We created something utterly horrifying, somehow. We needed to come clean and work to come up with a vaccine. A cure. Something. It needed to be undone. We needed to fix our terrible mistake before it got any worse.
To my horror, Albrecht was excited by this turn of events. Excited. There was no mistake. She had deliberately engineered the virus to change in this way. Ever since she read those stories, she became obsessed. Obsessed with Sartha and that evil woman, the handler that held Sartha’s leash. Obsessed with what She was trying to accomplish; Her vision of the world. It seemed perfect to her. She considered that absolute fucking nightmare, as depicted in a fucking story, to be paradise! And she wanted me to join her, as she would be the one to guide the world to a new age of peace.
I couldn’t believe it. I could only stare in horror as this brilliant woman, whom I had idolized for so long, had revealed herself to actually be nothing more than an insane monster.
I feebly tried to stand up to her, arguing that this was just an insane plan. Begged her to help me stop this. After all, the virus was only starting to break out locally. We could stop this, before it spreads too far. It wasn’t too late to do the right thing.
She laughed at me, and then showed me the news: the virus had already started to spread globally, with cases springing up in countries all across the world. There was no stopping this, and I would be following her in the end. She offered me a vaccine for the virus, along with a choice: either I joined her willingly, as Lydia Armaranth, or I would succumb to the virus, and become just another of the many Sarthas Thrace that would follow her command.
I jumped her, stole her vaccine, and ran away. At that moment, I knew I had to atone for my crimes. I had to stop this. I couldn’t let this madwoman’s vision of the world come to pass! I would try to find others to help me. We would find a way to save the world!
Within a month, some of the world’s greatest scientific minds had gathered, along with myself, isolating ourselves and our unaffected families from the world as we tried to produce a cure. But as we worked, the world had quickly begun to change.
Everything had fallen into chaos. Governments collapsed as the virus spread through various cities. By the infected, desperately searching for help, and by the fully transformed Sarthas, now desperately wanting someone to take control of them. And many opportunistic people were willing to do so.
The old borders soon became meaningless, countries now being split into many tiny fiefdoms. The Sarthas would gather under the command of the new petty lords of these emerging kingdoms, who all call themselves “handler”. These handlers wouldn’t care for anyone but themselves. Not for any of those yet to fall victim to the virus, and certainly not any of the Sarthas. They saw the outbreak as an opportunity to satisfy their own desires for power and control, freely willing to use and abuse each of these Sarthas as they please. After all, none of the Sarthas could possibly object to their handler. None of them could ever object to being sent out to fight the Sartha armies of other handlers in a bid to gain more power. None of them could ever conceive of ever refusing the advances of their handler, to be used as disposable sex toys. And then eventually, the handlers themselves succumb to the virus, becoming Sarthafied like all the rest, leaving a new power vacuum for a new handler to rise up and create their own little kingdom, or for other handlers to fight over whatever gets left behind.
An endless cycle of petty little kingdoms of violence rising and falling all across the world.
The lone exception to this has been the “Empire” that Albrecht has created: a new model of the world, where she stands alone as Handler of a nation of Sarthas. While the petty handlers across the world fight amongst themselves, Albrecht has been acting to create a new world order, just as she said she would.
This Empire is nothing more than a cult. A terrible, horrible cult of a nation. Every Sartha is taught to worship Her as a goddess, following her commandments to run Her new nation for her, removing the need for her to micromanage every Sartha. And every poor soul yet to fall victim to the virus would be trapped under Her tyrannical rule, enforced by the Sarthas. They would be considered Hers now. The virus would make sure of that. Just like the rest of the world. She had no need to send out her own armies to take over. Eventually, all these petty little handlers fighting amongst each other would fall to the virus, sooner or later, leaving Her as the last one, thanks to Her vaccine.
All of humanity would become Sartha Thrace, and She would rule over it as the sole Handler of all Sarthakind. But we would put a stop to all that. The scientists that I had joined had been working hard to find a cure for the virus, or at least find a way to save those yet to be infected from undergoing Sarthafication. But…it’s been five months since we started, and already, we’re nearly out of time.
I had saved the sample of Her vaccine that She offered to me, and we were able to produce more of it to protect ourselves and our families. It seemed to have worked, but that turned out to be nothing more than a stop gap. The changes are still happening. They come much more slowly now, but they are coming, and we are currently powerless to stop it. We’ve raced to find any sort of breakthrough to save ourselves, but what we’ve found is not enough.
By now, even She is falling victim to the virus, just as we are. We can see it in Her broadcasts: Her silver hair slowly turning blonde, Her facial features, and even Her body shape slowly changing to be just like Sartha. I should take some solace that She will soon suffer the same fate that She inflicted on all of us, but even Sarthafication wouldn’t be able to solve anything. Her Empire will continue to live on, run by Sarthas, long after She is gone. Humanity is nearing its end, and Sartha Thrace will take its place.
But even now, we still refuse to have it all end like this. We refuse to let Her will become our future. We can’t stop the changes. We can’t reverse the effects of the virus. But we could change the final results, what it would turn us into. We only had enough time to pick one identity for all of us. Any longer, and we risked losing our minds to the Sarthafication process.
Handler, I wish there was another way, some other answer to all of this. It’s too late now. We infected ourselves with the modified virus three hours ago, and the changes have been speeding up as a result. It’s taken all that I had to sit down to write this, and already I feel like I’m losing myself. All the memories I have feel like they unravel shortly after I write them. My body is changing, my mind crumbling, all being replaced by something else. Soon enough, the last record that I even existed will be this letter. I hope that whatever comes after us will be able to understand that
I’m sorry
Handler, please Please Handler forgive me for everything that I’ve done, whatever I’ve done, even though I know I don’t deserve any of Your forgiveness
- Leinth Aritimis