“2 times 2 is 4, 4 times 2 is 8, 8 times 2 is 16, 16 times 2 is 32.”

A lady whispers to herself. She has her knotted, wavy hair down and is wearing a dirty, unwashed lab coat over a tie-dye shirt and red pants. Surrounded by tall leafy giants, she sits on an oak log, hunched. Her head rests on one hand while another holds out a book. The book has an unidentifiable author, browning pages, and an ominous title.

“What if there was a bacterium that could grow infinitely? Every single second expanding?”

Her words echo through the eerily silent woods. Springing up from her sitting position she has a new resolve, new ideas, new terrors to create.

With brisk strides through the woods, leaves crunching underneath her feet, she reaches her experimentation hut within mere seconds and vigorously flings the door open with a bang.

Inside the badly lit hut there is a singular wooden table with burnt edges leaning on the side of the stained wall. The left side of the table is full of lab equipment, used beakers stacked on top of each other, test tubes on their sides with mysterious liquids pouring out, and pipettes scattered everywhere. On the other side, scrunched up papers tossed carelessly, and unfinished ideas strewn around. Shattered glass lays on the floor, and the pungent, putrid smell of indescribable chemicals combined with the damp musty smell of rotting wood hangs in the air. A black cat sits under the table peacefully.

Shelves and shelves of unorganized, never-ending materials in containers and bottles of all shapes and sizes, with scrawny handwriting on labels hastily stuck on, occupy the other side of the room. The lady stumbles up to the shelves. After a minute or so of pondering, with deliberate precision she picks out two petri dishes, and a couple of chemicals. 

Striding up to her mess, she dumps her collection of materials onto the table, provoking an indignant “MEOW” from the cat.

“Staphylococcus…,” she mutters to herself.

With an extra petri dish, she puts her first bacteria in. 

“Clostridium perfringens now…”

Small white dots mix hesitantly with black dots, refusing to combine. 

“Oh? They aren’t connecting. Hmm.”

She turns around and flicks through her collection of books frantically, trying to find anything else she could add to the mixture for it to simply work. The sane part of her brain desperately sends out a small voice trying to warn her about the possible danger.

“Oh! That’s what I missed; I need an organic solvent in order to break the cell walls of the bacteria to allow a seamless connection.”

Adding her chosen organic solvent into the mixture, the small dots mix seamlessly, creating larger dots splitting in two every second or so.

“Yay! It worked!”

Furrowing her brows, she stares at her experiment.

“I wonder what’s going to happen? The consequences shouldn’t be too bad as long as the bacteria can stay contained in here unless... no it’s alright we’ll be perfectly fine!”

The lady turns around and grabs a notebook off the desk on the other side, facing her back to her experiment, frantically scribbling down her results with her shaky hands unable to keep up with her unrelenting thoughts.

Test 1

Bacteria 1: Clostridium perfringens -> Extremely quick expansion but low lifespan, normally a food poisoning agent

Bacteria 2: Staphylococcus aureus -> known for killing most people, is extremely bloodthirsty for blood as it requires iron

Hypothesis: Combined well, shouldn’t be much consequences as it will die after a couple of minutes

Maybe, just maybe I can get rid of the short lifespan but keep the expansion?

Stuck in the endless possibilities, she rips out pages and pages of work and writing, muttering to herself, “no, no no no, that’s not it, that can’t be it.”  In a matter of seconds, she’s surrounded by rivers of papers on the floor.

Behind her, the bacteria overflows out of the petri dish.

She gets jolted out of her thoughts as she hears her cat snarling in the background. Dropping her notebook on the table, she turns around seeing red dots forming an unusual shape. She can hear the slight crackling of a fireplace as she watches pieces of flesh get consumed by a lump of black dots which are progressively turning more and more red. She tilts her head looking at the lump of dots curiously.  Black fur drops to the floor, and in the small areas lacking red dots she gets a glimpse of her cat…? Underneath the bacteria, she can see half peeled off flesh, with chunks of black, matting fur still stuck on in some places. As time goes on, the flesh seemingly disintegrates, and the blob of red dots grow. In the middle of the cat, the bacteria has gone so deep that the inside of the stomach is visible, with the dots leaking and pouring into the stomach, hungry for more. The unwanted parts of the cat however, the bones, claws, and teeth are all that’s left. They fall onto the floor with a clatter, joining the black fur. The smell of death reaches her nose.

“Fascinating!” she exclaims. “Oh! It’s still going. 32 times 2 is 64, 64 times 2 is 128, 128 times 2 is 256. Forever repeating. Every single second.”  

With an insatiable hunger for more blood, the red blob of bacteria slowly turns towards the only other lifeform in the room. It lunges towards the lady. The lady stands up straighter, slowly closes her eyes and holds out her arms fully embracing her fate.

A gravelly, sinister voice arises from the bacteria.

“Curiosity killed the cat.”