Piscanthropus profundus (Man After Man) By bicyclefrog Watch

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Five million years into the future, the Travelers of the Stars come back to their home planet. However, they do not know it is their birthplace and destroy it without remorse. Warped and distorted beyond recognition, they cannot step out onto Earth, for they have modified themselves so much to adapt to conditions on other planets in the deepest reaches of the galaxy. Arguably, they are less human than the creatures that their ancestors genetically engineered and set loose to populate the once barren Earth. The Travelers modified their closest relatives in the galaxy to slave for them, and then they left. The Earth was in the worst conditions it has ever been since man evolved. All of the engineered human descendants were brought to extinction. All except one.

At the bottom of the ocean near clusters of hydro thermal vents, the last surviving humans still hang onto their lives. They are the Deepwater Aquatics (Piscanthropus profundus), descendants of the aquatics who traversed the surface before going extinct due to the meddling of the Travelers. In the deep depths of the ocean they had to acquire new features and lose some old ones. In complete darkness they cannot rely on sight, and so their eyes have atrophied, being covered by a thin layer of skin. Instead they evolved hundreds of pores along their face and body to detect heat and see infrared just like the snakes of the past. However in order to see infrared they had to give up their body heat, and so are now cold blooded, relying on heat expelled from vents to keep their sluggish metabolism going. Their heart rate rarely ever passes twenty beats per minute, the same as a hibernating bear. Their arms and fingers have elongated in order to snatch crabs, tube worms, and other morsels from around vents. Their teeth have become large and blunt in order to crush the hard shells of their prey. They can still filter feed and do so when there is the occasional zooplankton boom around the vents.

They do not know it, but they are the last surviving humans on Earth. They could one day rise to the surface, but only time could tell when that will occur. For now the Aquatics are content with lazily swimming around, grabbing plentiful crustaceans and crushing them with their molars. They have no knowledge of what has happened on the surface, with their space faring relatives coming and eradicating their fellow man, including their epipelagic cousins. They do however notice there has been an increase of marine snow in recent times. It is up to them when they will investigate why.

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Concept inspired by the last chapter of Man After Man by Dougal Dixon

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Published : Dec 31, 2019