This tale begins with the old legends of the old human legends about this world meeting its demise on the twelfth day of the twelfth month in a year ending in twelve. Such foolishness was fueled by the time keeping habits of an even more ancient civilization of homo-sapiens. But now over a millennium after that doom-ridden era, we Elders continue to preserve the stories of that ancient human race as a reminder of how greatly they feared their eventual extinction.

Many imagined it would come in the form of nuclear war, natural catastrophe, or through some sort of divine reaping. Our scholars still argue that one such calamity did ultimately force them out of existence, but even this tale likely won’t inspire an opinion one way or the other.

But as fate would have it, it was during the wee hours on the twentieth day of the seventh month fifteen years after the prophesied one that meteors flew over the United Kingdom to rain down on a remote Irish village. Humans young and old were said to have gone out to behold the streaks of burning light lining their skies. Those enormous extraterrestrial stones disintegrated into mere pebbles and dust. All but one, that is.

A single projectile managed to retain significant mass as it pierced through the atmosphere over that northern isle. The impact was felt for miles and miles, but remained undiscovered for over a day. When the locals finally did discover the crash site off the shores of Portacloy Bay, they had the good enough sense to avoid getting too close, yet not enough to warn others against doing so.

Days later, a young Irish couple traveled down from their small farm to come behold the spectacle. The massive space rock had seemingly terraformed the small Portacloy beach in less than a week. The young woman, who was expecting her and her husband’s first child, waded ever so slowly into the shallows of the bay when he was looking elsewhere. As those waters bathed her feet and ankles, the otherworldly mist surrounded her and filled her lungs before her partner pulled her back and away from the questionable haze.

Although the experience was brief, the young mother-to-be felt invigorated and believed the stone would bring her and her baby good fortune. Thus, she trekked to the beach every day for another month to soak her feet in the cool water filling its giant crater.

Like many in the local village, the couple lived a simple farm life away from the humans’ primitive version of technology at that time and what they considered medical advancements. As it were, had it not been for the child’s birth falling an astonishing three months behind schedule, they never would have caught the attention of international scientists.

Doctors tested and scanned the mother and her belated baby, and struggled to accept the mother’s and the local doctors’ insistence that she was indeed overdue since the fetus was healthy but only appeared to be five months old. Her husband disclosed that she had been five-months pregnant when they visited the meteorite, and she confessed to her secret trips to go see the space boulder since.

So much concern was spent on researching the delayed fetus that the subtle changes exhibited by the young mother were almost entirely overlooked by the birthing team during those first few hours. In fact, her husband was the first to inquire after the bizarre way his wife’s hair always seemed to stand on end, that her skin appeared perpetually pale, and that she always seemed to dispel a spark whenever she encountered metal objects.

Had he not disclosed the strange happenings that seemed to follow his wife wherever they went, the researchers would have likely failed to link the peculiar of the illuminators they called “light bulbs” back then in relation to spikes in her brain activity. Even so, their primitive sciences failed to recognize the changes taking place at the cellular level.

Her husband trusted his wife’s exhibition of health and had even snickered at her frizzy hair. He also believed the biting shocks he would receive whenever he touched her skin became increasingly bearable due to his own body simply adjusting over the several months since they first started. However, by her twelfth month of pregnancy her flesh had become ghastly pale to the point of appearing nearly translucent, while he noted his body seemed far more dense than normal and his skin was evidently thicker.

Before the scientists could resolve the curious case of the Portacloy couple, the day of the child’s birth suddenly arrived. As one would expect, there were various complications. Namely, those in the delivery suite could not make physical contact with the woman without being painfully electrocuted.

When I say that humans were a primitive species, I mean that it took not one but two unfortunate souls becoming paralyzed before they understood touching the woman was wholly out of the question. To make matters worse, their technology did not possess the resistance necessary to buffer the sort of electrical output she was expelling. Thus, assessing the health of both mother and child not only proved impossible but harrowing.

Out of fear that he might lose both his wife and their unborn child, the man acted rashly and chanced delivering their child with his own hands. The power of the mother’s screams seemed to amplify the output of her surges so much so that every illuminator and piece of technology for miles burst. But despite the darkness surrounding them, the woman’s body radiated a light that illuminated her young one’s first moments of life.

In the dim corridor, the attendants lit candles as the father withdrew with his newborn son while his wife sighed and huffed until she fainted. They were in absolute awe to behold the baby born under such dangerous circumstances yet looking as healthy as any other infant. The only thing that stood out of the ordinary was that he did not make a sound. In truth, his breathing and heartbeat were so inconsistent that they would have believed the new father had handed them a stillborn had the young one not wriggled or winced now and then.

The man’s ferocious efforts to administer emergency care to his wife also managed to shake the doctors and attendants out of their stupor. They needed to rush the baby boy to another ward of the hospital that had its power restored with a generator in order to monitor the infant’s vitals. However, by the time they secured the child in the neonatal intensive care unit, those same attendants began to notice abnormal and rapid changes to their bodies.

Despite their valiant efforts to quarantine the family and those who had worked closest to them, there were simply too many bystanders who had unwittingly encountered the child in the halls of that hospital. Within a matter of hours, the mutations traveled from the hospital to the surrounding area and then to the entire locale in two days’ time.

As symptoms of the outbreak continued to spread throughout Europe, scientists finally determined they were a byproduct of genetic changes and dubbed the pandemic the “evolutionary glitch.” It took years before the incompetent authorities understood that the newborn had essentially been their so-called “patient zero” due to the accelerated rate of transformation of those who came within breathing distance of him.

The relentless mutations brought on by the supposed disease spread throughout the Eastern hemisphere so rapidly that it was impossible to prevent them from reaching the Americas in as little time. The only thing that seemed to travel faster than the glitch was the panic and rumors surrounding it. Far too many believed it was the first stage in humanity’s impending extinction. In the figurative blink of an eye, the species classified as “homo-sapien” had indeed become endangered and was hurtling toward utter extinction.

Such a fact shook the world so immeasurably that the likelihood of dying due to the absolute disorder and chaos was far greater than any deaths reported as having been directly linked to the outbreak. Between the communities and families that were falling apart, the governing and financial institutions collapsing, and the sheer dread that anyone could fall dead at any moment... there was nothing but certainty that we were in the end times.

It was only thanks to the illustrious king of Old England’s decision to gather the slowly aging patients to form a class of beings meant to preserve mankind’s memory that variants far and wide had regained a sense of purpose and mutual struggle.

Thus, as the original homo-sapiens continued to glitch or die out, the surviving glitch variants turned to we immortals to restore order and assure everyone that we remain connected despite becoming more divided than ever. We of the Elder race serve as the guardians of mankind’s history and truth, even if the truth of that history is that they were utterly hopeless all along.