The Best Free Internet Games, Free Online Adventure Stories and Free ebooks you'll dig up anywhere.

The ONLY price you'll pay may be in your nightmares.

Free Internet Games

1. The Shadow Being's, 'Punish the Wicked Game Series':

- 'Kill me a Vampire Game'

- 'Cage the Kensington Witch Game' (coming soon)

Free Stories & Ebook Downloads

1. Free Story and Ebook- Devolution

2. Free Story and Ebook- 'Til Death Do Us Part

3. Free Story and Ebook- The Confession

4. Free Story and Ebook- The Suit

Devolution

I knew I was onto something big when I couldn’t kill the frog.

First I tried to pulverise it with a hammer but it just bulged out around the edges like a half inflated balloon and snapped back as though nothing had happened.

Then I tried drilling into it with a surgical drill but all it did was coil up around the bit like thick taffy and sprang back when I cut the power.

It looked up, blinked slowly and croaked.

Over the course of the next few days, I tried dissecting it, drowning it, setting fire to it and dropping it into sulphuric acid without any noticeable effect to its skin or demeanour.

Even subsequent exposure to huge amounts of nuclear radiation didn’t seem to bother the small, African tree frog one bit.

I should say at this point that I’m not normally in the habit of torturing God’s creatures but it’s sometimes a necessary part of the job, coming with the lab coat and pocket slide-rule.

This story really begins 12 years ago though, when I was part of a small team using a new approach to try and neutralise specific forms of malignant cancer.

Put simply, we were trying to chemically convert specific cell types at the genetic level to non-regenerative polymer compounds such as silicone or latex, that can exist in the human body without growing or harming it.

The process was dubbed “New Alchemy” but after some initial positive results, the project failed to deliver any real ‘gold’ and its sponsor’s patience and funding soon ran dry.

Despite a decade of failure, I still thought the principal was solid and continued some testing on a much smaller scale all on my own.

Sarah, my girlfriend, constantly warned me about this, saying that “mad scientists” like me were almost always destroyed by their own creations and at the very least, I’d be sure to get the sack when the University found out I was using their supplies and facilities for my own private research.

My response to her was that, when I was sipping French Champagne on the deck of the 50 foot yacht that I’d buy with the millions I make saving the world’s huddled masses from cancer, I’d be sure to send her a postcard.

Anyway, like our earlier research, my progress was slow until one incredible Friday morning when I awoke from a dream with one of the missing puzzle pieces dancing in my head like proverbial sugar plums.

The specific gene alteration necessary to reconstruct a single cell suddenly seemed so obvious to me that I wondered how it had eluded me before.

Unfortunately, the dream didn’t carry all the answers but it did set me off on a promising new track and, two months and eleven dead frogs later I was ready for the first live trial using a reactive agent that I was sure would be a huge leap forward.

Wiping my brow, I took my little green subject in one hand and a syringe in the other and injected the light blue fluid into its wriggling leg.

It’s hard to describe the intensity with which it squirmed and writhed as I put it down on the tray in front of me but it looked as though every part of its body was searing with pain and I was sure that I’d be upping my mental, dead-frog tally from eleven to twelve in a few short minutes.

I found its immediate adverse reaction to the agent a huge surprise. By my calculations, it should have taken much longer for the gene re-sequencing agent to identify and transform the cancerous cells (if it worked at all) but it was all over in under a minute and the frog simply stopped moving and quivered on the tray like a child’s plate of jelly.

“Damn it!” I yelled aloud.

I’d been so sure I was on the right track this time around that the frog’s response was a huge disappointment.

I angrily snapped off my rubber gloves and called Sarah on my mobile phone for some much-needed sympathy.

“I told you you’ve been wasting your time on that stuff!” she said. “Why don’t you drop it and do something profitable like creating a better anti-wrinkle cream or something? I’m sick to death about hearing about this stupid thing. It’s never going to work!”

“What’s up your bonnet?” I said not expecting her violent response.

It’s true, we’d fought that morning about how many times a week I should be cooking dinner with her starting work at the library, but I’d all but forgotten that when I walked out the door.

I should have remembered that Sarah carried a grudge like nobody’s business and was sure she got good mileage out of every battle.

“Forget I called, okay!”

I pressed the disconnect button sorry I’d ever picked up the mobile and sorrier that no one had invented a mobile that you could slam down hard in anger.

How could she expect me to drop something I’ve been working on for over 10 years like it was nothing?

Bloody women never understand - particularly not Sarah, and for the millionth time, I swore I’d be better off alone on the planet.

It was just then that I turned back toward the bench and saw that the frog was gone. I was so sure it was dead that I looked around the lab to see if Stewart or one of the other lab guys had taken it as a joke, but the place was empty.

Maybe I’d knocked the damned frog on the ground or the blighter wasn’t dead after all and managed to crawl off the edge of the test bench itself?

I started looking around on the floor and stepped back onto something that gave under my weight like a sponge.

“Holy shit”, I thought, sure I’d found the frog the hard way. “Sorry buddy.”

I lifted my heel expecting to see a little green ‘froggy’ mess that I’d have to clean up with a mop and bucket, but there was the frog, none the worse for wear except that he’d turned a pale, semi-translucent shade of green.

I went to pick it up but it still felt slimy so I donned my rubber gloves again and gave it a closer look.

Incredibly, I could now see right through its skin to its internal organs and bones - all different shades of translucent green but definitely still moving and active within its body.

I spent the next hour testing the frog and each series of tests highlighted something new and incredible about it.

“Sarah, you won’t believe it!” I whispered excitedly down the phone. “I got the cell conversion working!”

“What are you talking about?” she said, “I was just in the…”

“The new agent,” I interrupted. “I injected it into a frog and it converted the cell structure to silicone like I said it would! Do you know what this means?”

“What? You can cure cancer?” she asked in disbelief, a tinge of anger still in her voice from our earlier ‘conversation’.

“Well, no… But this is different. Bigger maybe! It’s an incredible start, honey!”

I explained to Sarah that the agent didn’t discriminate between normal and cancerous cells yet so converted all the frog’s tissues over, effectively making it a living, breathing silicone version of its former amphibious self.

I say ‘living and breathing’ but one of my tests proved that it breathed out of habit rather than necessity and now that it was a non-biological entity, whether it was actually ‘living’ or not was a matter for debate.

As incredible as it may be, none of the normal processes required to sustain life – eating, drinking or breathing; seemed necessary to it in its new state and every test I conducted suggested that for all intensive purposes, the little green tree frog was indestructible and probably, immortal.

With silicone based cells, the normal process of cell replication and decay that occurs in all living things was completely arrested so it should never age, fall sick or ‘croak’, if you’ll excuse the pun.

Even after this amazing transformation its brain and motor functions seemed completely unchanged as all its tissue types were closely replicated with differing densities of silicone that allowed the frog’s internal components to continue to fulfil their original functions.

At one extreme, its bones were a dense form of silicone that was strong enough to continue to support its frame while at the other extreme, its blood had been replaced, or more accurately converted, to a silicone based fluid that continued to move about its circulatory system!

“Honey, that’s fantastic!” Sarah cried, “We are going to be rich! I can’t wait to tell everyone!”

“Not yet, honey”. I warned her. “We have to keep this under our hat because I did all this on University time and with University resources. I don’t want them to have any claim on it so we have to keep quiet, okay.”

She promised she would and I could hear that she could barely contain her excitement.

“We have to get a lawyer or a patents clerk or someone.” I continued. “This wasn’t exactly what I was after but it could have phenomenal applications. But we definitely are going to be loaded, baby! You can be sure of that!”

She promised again, she would keep quiet and we blew kisses at each other over the line before hanging up, giddy with the possibilities.

I could see it clearly in my head. World acclaim and riches beyond compare.

I wouldn’t have to get up when the damned alarm clock went off and wouldn’t have to bite my tongue when people like Peter ‘Hitler’ Hinderman or the other senior lab guys put me down or got me cleaning animal cages or running their petty errands.

Maybe I’d offer the University a couple of million dollar donation under the table on the condition that they’d concoct some excuse and lay those guys off. One way or another, I was sure I’d have the last laugh.

I smiled and was on top of the world at that minute but it was also just then that I started to feel sick.

Without rubber gloves, the slimy fluid coating the frog’s skin had gotten on my fingers and, though I had no cuts on my hands, some residue of the agent must have found its way into my bloodstream through the pores on my skin.

I dropped to the floor and writhed in pain just as the frog had done, but this time it was his turn to watch me squirm.

He stared from his glass tank as my skin grew clearer and paler by the second and I’m sure the irony of the situation was not lost on him.

Was that a hint of satisfaction I detected on his ever wide and now translucent smile?

I think I blacked out for short spells but after fifteen minutes, the worst of the burning pain abated leaving me feeling completely and utterly alien.

It felt a little like the rubber gloves I was wearing extended over my whole body running right down my throat, up my nose, colon, ears and urinary tract. The groans I made as I writhed on the floor were not of my voice and I could hear a slight whistle and wheezing as the air ran in and out of my lungs.

I stood up and caught my reflection on the stainless steel splash guard above the sink.

What stared back at me was a hideous monster!

I stumbled back knocking hundreds of dollars of chemicals and glass vials from the test bench behind me and they shattered across the floor.

Scrambling through one supply drawer and then the next with my grotesque semi-translucent hands, I found small mirror and looked clearly into the face of the beast behind the glass.

“My god,” I said, my voice deeper and huskier than it had ever been.

I was too gruesome to behold.

I could now see right through my translucent lips and cheeks to the tongue lolling around behind my teeth. My brain was this disgusting, vein marked and pulsating, pink blob under a mass of silicone tendrils that had once been hair on my head.

Worst of all were my eyes though. Now clear, with a slight yellow tinge, they reminded me of jelly fish washed ashore except for two diamond points of black to replace my pupils.

I could hear people coming towards the lab, probably to investigate the commotion of the smashing glass, and I ran out the rear door hiding my face with my coat.

The University backed onto a small but dense state reserve and I ran deep within the shadowed realm still gagging and reeling with the horror of what had happened.

I prayed it was all a horrid dream and collapsed near the base of an old oak, rocking back and forth, with my hands tight in my arm pits because I could not bear to look at the dreaded, translucent things.

It started to rain but I didn’t feel the cold or the wet. Hours later I did not tire or feel hunger.

In fact, I did not feel anything - except terror and absolute and incredible loneliness.

How could I go to Sarah looking like this? How could I go to anyone?

Worse than this, I knew that I could not even take my own life and end the nightmare because I must be as indestructible as my amphibious counterpart.

My mobile phone rang, startling me and I pulled it from my pocket. It was Sarah.

“Hello... Honey, are you there? Hello...” She said.

I had no idea what to say and couldn’t force myself to speak.

“The line must be bad honey. I’ll try you again in a sec’, okay?”

“Sarah”, I said before she hung up.

“Why didn’t you say anything, hon’?” She asked. “Are you okay? Your voice sounds funny.”

“I…Something happened, Sarah... I’m not coming home”

“What? You better not be messing around with me. Where are you?”

“The woods” I replied.

“The woods?” she said, confusion in her tone. “You’re starting to scare me now. What are you doing in the woods in the dark?”

“The dark…” I said, “The beautiful dark. I…I love you, Sarah.”

She started to say something but I hung up before she finished.

The mobile rang again but I hurled it out into the blackness.

I knew the truth. The truth that I could never again let myself be seen by anyone - least of all Sarah or anyone else I cared about.

I didn’t know it then, but that was going to be far easier than I thought.

I think I was in shock and wandered around the forest for three or maybe four days, slowly reconciling what had happened in my head and wondering if there was any way to reverse the process. I couldn’t think of any.

It was then, when I thought that my world had truly come to an end that a totally unrelated event occurred, and it actually did.

An Al Qaeda terrorist cell marked the anniversary of the 9/11 attack by detonating a crude nuclear bomb just outside the White House.

Automatic defence systems were triggered, releasing a volley of intercontinental missiles at various global targets that responded in kind with their own launches.

In under a week the earth became a pitted, scorched, irradiated and lifeless planet with flattened cities, glowing horizons and distant forests that I doubted would ever stop burning.

It was lifeless - except for me and one small green, African tree frog.

There was not much left of New York and though it was crushing, I knew there was no hope for Sarah or anyone else within a hundred miles.

The shock wave from the nearest blast flung me twenty miles from where I’d started along with a mountain of torn out trees, cars, bodies and anything else that hadn’t been below ground level.

It felt like being in a huge ocean wave - not painful, but scary, and after digging my way out of the ruins, I prayed for a death that I knew would never come.

I still look for the frog from time to time but have all but given up hope. My initial search lasted more than ten years by my calculations, but I saw neither it nor any other conscious living thing in that entire time.

But I’ve come to terms with my loneliness now and have formulated a plan.

If I can just maintain my sanity for another two or three million years, the nuclear winter will end, the earth will heal itself and evolution may create me a dog or something like it to keep me company.

Until then, I think I’ll keep walking around the Statue of Liberty as I’ve done now for more years than I can keep track of. Somehow, there’s some comfort in being near something resembling another human being. If that’s what I still am.

Miss Liberty is lying down now but in her hey day she was one hell of a lady.

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