The amorphous blobs moaned softly as they heaved themselves over the wastelands. Grimacing in pain, their jelly bodies distorted like soggy washing twisting helplessly in a relentless cycle. The effort required, as they tried to cross the hellish surface, to reach the floaters, was enormous. They had limited time before the nutrient rich red fruit would sink again, beneath the wasted poisoned surface. The next flowering was too far off, they had to reach them.

The beacon, set up aeons ago, still pulsed out its call, searching the heavens for help. Global warming indeed. They had laughed at the notion. Scientists scoffed and politicians were mandated to keep the “train” rolling along. They partied on until… too little, too late and system collapse. The delicate biosphere could not sustain life, in the way it had for millennia, and only the luckiest sentient beings had managed, with a little genetic tinkering, to preserve life. People and jellyfish. Who would have thought it possible? Death would have been preferable, thought Gelatinous, the leader of their little band, as even now he sensed that the floaters had reached their zenith…

Wasteland Walkers