THE TRIAL

"At the time I thought it was just a cruel game to them. But now, after cycles of survival in the mud lands, I understand that they could only accept the strongest of us, the ones with the strongest will to live - born survivors. They also needed to find the lucky ones. Luck after all, is essential. Without a good bit of luck, nobody makes it out alive." 

— MKA-814, "Minka", mud lands scavenger

Land-trains loaded with clones, travel from the Prime cloning facilities in Mongolia across the continents, delivering a never-ending stream of workers and soldiers around the world.

The journey is long and arduous. There are so many Prime convoys travelling the world at any given time, that the loss of an individual vehicle barely registers in the grand scheme of things.

Inside the vehicle, dozens, sometimes hundreds of clones face an uncertain future. They have no knowledge where they are being taken and face years of indentured labour to work off the cost of their own manufacture. Afterwards, if they are lucky, the may become free citizens, free to choose their own destiny.

Today will be different. The warriors of a scavenger clan are preparing an ambush, to stop the land-train and abduct the precious cargo of new clones.

The land-train is disabled and the crew killed. Scavengers are not in the habit of sparing the lives of those that serve Prime directly.

After giving the mercy of a quick death to those that got injured in the ambush, the surviving clones are led away to a nearby cave.

One after another, only a few minutes apart, the clones are sent into the cave. Their only instruction - make it through to the other side!

No advice or warning is given to the clones who enter the cave, and so they have no idea of what awaits them.

One by one, the clones enter...

Once inside the cave, the clones are greeted an eerie, bioluminescent light. Crossing a chasm via a system of bridges, it quickly becomes apparent that this is no mere cave, but the ruins of a dead underground city.

In near complete darkness, with only the plants for light, the frightened clones try to find their way forward. Most of them quickly get lost in the labyrinth of flooded caves and bioluminescent underground forests.

The gentle glowing plants bring a spark of hope and comfort to the frightened clones.

When touched however, the plants release a cloud of spores, which, once they come into contact with the skin, bring about rapid change to the unlucky clone...

The victims rapidly turn into a hybrid life form. Fleshy tendrils begin to grow out of their skin. Eyes expand and darken until they resemble bottomless pits. Fingers elongate into razor-sharp talons. 

The final stage of mutation robs them of all recognition of their former selves, leaving only a hybrid creature with a ravenous hunger for fresh meat - that of their clone sisters. 

Elsewhere, some clones have wandered into a muddy cave system that resembles an underground jungle.

One by one, the clones are grabbed by fiercely strong bioluminescent tentacles, half creature, half plant.

The victims are ensnared and pulled to the ground, while being strangled...

Once dead, their bodies are quickly claimed by the jungle and become fertiliser for new plants to grow.

Those clones that survive the strangling vines, soon face the next horror...

Arachnids, mutated to monstrous proportions, lurk in the higher reaches of the forest cavern, their white bodies almost invisible against the pale cave ceiling. 

They hunt not simply to kill but to paralyse, their venom inducing a horrifying state where victims maintain full consciousness while unable to move.

The spiders then wrap their living prey in silken cocoons, implanting eggs that will eventually hatch, giving their young a first meal of resh, living flesh...

With the horror of the caves written in their faces, the few remaining clones push on.

Yet more creatures prey on the clones that have survived this far. Attracted by vibrations alone, blind wormlike creatures burst out of the muddy ground of the underground forest.

With their strong maws, which are filled with tiny, razor sharp teeth, the creatures burrow into the flesh of the clones and eat them alive, while at the same time secreting paralysing venom into their victim's blood, making any escape impossible.

Meanwhile, those clones that have morphed into hybrids from the spore infection, have caught up with their former sisters...

Without any recognition - or mercy - for their former friends and sisters, the hybrids hunt down many of the surviving clones.

The few clones that are still alive begin to run, but they only attract more predators - abhorrent ghoulish mutants, mostly males deformed and mutated by the reaper agent, that have lived in the underground caverns for generations.

These mutants hunt intelligently, surrounding and cutting off lone clones one by one.

Some of the clones are killed to still the mutants creature's insatiable hunger.

While others ar e captures and taken away, for an unspeakable fate far worse than death.

Some of the clones are lucky enough to stumble over weapons. Some of them are barely functioning relics from the world before the Great Collapse. Others are retrieved from the remains of explorers and scavengers that foolishly entered these caves without knowing what would await them!

Armed with rusty guns and blades, some of the last few surviving clones are nearing the far side of the cave system.

Those that have survived this far and have witnessed the horrific ways in which their sisters perished, have no hesitation in using the weapos they've found.

Soon, Mutants and Hybrids alike fall in a hail of bullets from blazing guns!

Killing those that were friends and sisters only hours ago is particular hard, but only those with a survival instinct and a certain ruthlessness will make it out of the caverns alive.

A return of architectural structures like those near the entrance, signifies that the last survivors are nearing the exit.

When the three survivors from this cohort of clones re-emerge on the other side of the cavern system, they are greeted by cheering members of the scavenger clan.

They have survived the trial and will now be taken into the clan as full members.

That night, the survivors burn their old factory garbs and the barcodes that symbolised their status as mere products. They did not choose this path, but they are free now. The life in front of them is full of uncertainty and hardship, but it is also free of an indenture they did not choose either.