When the asteriod fragment measuring one hundred and thirty meters in diameter touched down. It generated a massive explosion on the ground. This explosion flattened the towns of Sipata A and B. All man-made structures and physical features within a five-kilometer radius were completely destroyed and a large crater of unknown size was created. This was followed by a massive fire engulfing everything within the epicenter of the explosion.
Sipata housed a regional fuel depot, and it stored millions of liters of fuel (petroleum, diesel, kerosene, and aviation fuel). All this was engulfed in the flames. The resultant fire rose hundreds of meters in height with dust swirling in its midst and surroundings.
The explosion and fire were not the end, a massive shockwave made up of hot winds spread outwards from the fiery epicenter in all directions while uprooting and flattening everything within a twenty-kilometer radius. Flats, bridges, trees, hills, billboards, signposts, and anything in their way were uprooted and flung outwards at speeds measuring hundreds of kilometers per hour. What was left behind was a flattened wasteland without any sign of human inhabitation or nature having existed there.
The strong shockwave accompanied by a lot of flying debris reached the lone limousine on the highway, it was more than twenty-two kilometers away from the epicenter. The limousine weighing close to three tonnes was flipped over and carried away by the strong hot winds like it was a weightless object. The limousine tumbled in the sky with all the debris before crashing two kilometers away from its previous location. It was deposited in a swampy area some distance from the highway they were driving on.
Amos Tatu, his grandson Liam Tatu, and the driver of the limousine were knocked out by the strong shockwave which flipped over their car. Fortunately, they were wearing their seatbelts or else they could have been tossed out and flung hundreds or thousands of meters from their current location.
Liam Tatu was the first one to become conscious several minutes after their limousine crushed into the swamp. He looked around and saw that the car was mangled up, windows shattered and debris of all kinds littered the once pristine interior. The driver was still unconscious, he was bleeding from ghastly wounds on his face, chest, arms, and legs. The partition that once separated them was split by the shockwave and accompanying debris.
The driver being at the front, had faced the brunt of the shockwave and accompanying debris once it had broken down the windshield. He was losing a lot of blood.
He then turned his focus to look at his grandfather Amos Tatu, he was in a much worse state than any of them. The broken shards of glass and flying debris had cut every exposed bit of skin on his body. But there was also a piece of rock around ten inches in length that had plunged into his left thigh, blood was oozing out of the sides.
Liam thought he was dead, but he had to confirm. Without bothering to check on his injuries, he unstrapped his seatbelt and crawled over to check on his grandfather.
"Granndfather…grandfather…," he called but there was no response.
He extended his hand and pressed it next to his bloody neck, he felt a weak pulse. This encouraged him that his loving grandfather was still alive for now. He was worried that if he did not do something immediately, he may lose him. His first thought was to stop the blood loss, he thought of extracting the stone lodged in his leg.
However, he remembered the first aid documentaries he had seen on social media sometime back, they said that without something substantial to stem the blood flow, it was not advised to pull out foreign objects that had lodged themselves in an accident victim. This was the scenario his beloved grandfather was in.
Liam Tatu concluded that he was ill-equipped to offer first aid to his grandfather, or the driver. Not once did he think about himself. That is when the thought of calling the emergency services to bring over a helicopter ambulance crossed his mind.
He started looking around for a working smartphone to call the emergency services. His had been destroyed, broken screen with some of the internal components exposed. Straightaway he knew it was done, and it could not serve them. It was now a piece of scrap.
Liam remembered that his grandfather had a vintage feature phone which was normally kept in his coat's breast pocket. He hoped it had survived and was still in working condition. With bloody and trembling hands, he checked in his grandfather's breast pocket, he found the phone. Without wasting time, he picked it up and closely examined it to see If it was not damaged. There was no scratch on it and it looked intact. He pressed the Ok button and the screen lit up.
This was a vintage Nokia 3310 button phone which his grandfather loved for its simplicity, security, and nostalgia. He remembered that before his grandfather was critically ill, Liam often saw him playing the Snakes game which he felt was boring compared to all the interactive games out there. There was only one bar of network signal, it was not what he wanted but was good enough to enable him to make a phone call. He unlocked the phone with his bloody fingers and dialed the Emergency number which connected him to the nearest hospital, it began ringing. It rang several times but it was not picked up. This got him worried, tears started clouding his eyes.
"Grandfather, please don't leave me. Not now." Liam cried as he waited for someone to pick up the phone from the other end.
He called three times before someone picked up the phone. "Hello, this is Mutukula Hospital Emergency Services. How can we be of service?" Liam breathed a sigh of relief when he heard someone on the other side.
"Hello, this is Liam Tatu, my grandfather and I have been swept up…what I mean to say is that we have been involved in a nasty accident on the Mutukula highway. We are injured, please send a helicopter to pick us up…he is in a critical state." He knew a car ambulance could not reach them on time.
"Okay," the voice on the other end said. "It will be hard getting a helicopter in the air at this time but I will see what we can do."
"Thank you," Liam was relieved to know that they were still open to using a helicopter ambulance.
"What is the state of your grandfather?" The voice from the other side asked.
"He…he is unconscious and bleeding badly. He has a piece of rock stuck in his thigh… it looks really bad." Liam explained in a teary voice.
"Please calm down." He was told by the person on the other side. "All will be well."
"Mister, please give me clear directions on where you are." The voice on the said.
"We are about ten miles outside the town, on the Mutukula highway; and our car is in the swamp. The strong wind from the explosion threw us here." He explained.
"What! Are you for real?" Asked the voice on the phone.
"Miss, I cannot joke about something like this. When can I expect your people to pick us up?"
"Hang in there, a helicopter will be there in twenty minutes. Please stay on the line." Liam readily agreed. "And please call me Rebecca," she added.
"Rebecca, I forgot something." It's now that he remembered that there were three in the crashed limousine.
"What is it?" Rebecca asked.
"It is like this. I said we are two but we are three in the car with the driver." He clarified.
"Is the driver conscious?" Rebbeca asked.
"No, but he is alive." He rushed to answer.
Twenty minutes later. The helicopter ambulance picked up the three badly injured persons and they were transported to Mutukula Hospital for emergency treatment.
Unknown to Liam and the First Responders.
The piece of rock stuck in Amos Tatu's thigh was not any normal piece of rock. It was rock from the asteriod which had crashed in the outskirts of Mutukula town. Unlike a normal piece of rock, this one was comprised of an inner layer of alien organic substances. The organic substances had started dissolving the moment they came into contact with Amos Tatu's warm blood.
By the time the hospital staff were able to pull it out and dress the wound. An equivalent of 300 grams of organic alien space rock had dissolved in his blood. The heart did its job and pumped the blood with the liquefied organic substances to all the major organs in Amos Tatu's body.
Strands of alien DNA in their trillions were now uncompressing themselves in his organs while transforming to match their new host.
In the body organs of Amos Tatu, particularly in the liver and bone marrow. His blood and organs had started mutating rapidly to something that could confound even the most learned scientist on the human genome.
Amos Tatu was still a baseline human, but for how long?
------- AUTHOR NOTES ------
Apologies, dear readers, for my vanishing act over the past year.
Rest assured, I didn't drop the story—life just threw a few curveballs that knocked me off track. But hey, I'm back and ready to dive in again.
I'll be updating the story whenever I can, but let's just say I'm keeping it spontaneous for now. Whether the story unfolds at a snail's pace or in a whirlwind, it all depends on when I can sneak in some writing time. Stay tuned!