Gill Growth

The Sun carries the Earth through an unnamed nebula in the Milky Way. An unknown substance called "heavy matter" quietly invaded - it distorted the physical laws of liquid water, and sea levels engulfed all land within a month. Twelve thousand years of civilization were wiped out in the breath of the universe. Survivors gather on a floating land mass of plastic waste in the North Pacific. There is no country, no technology, no common language. They ate raw fish, grew seaweed, sharpened their knives with fish bones, and carved memories into plastic rocks. When a scientist cuts open the lungs of the deceased, she discovers the chilling truth - heavy matter is awakening ancient sequences in human genes that have been silenced for hundreds of millions of years. Lungs, re-morphing into gills. A thousand years. Humanity starts over from a floating garbage patch. The body is reshaped by the universe, and civilization divides into two branches, land and ocean, in the sea water. When all memories are lost in time, the only unchanging legacy is engraved deep in the genes—— We are not starting from scratch. We sink to the bottom of the sea with memories of 100 million years and then come up.