BARB is a Sci-fi Dystopian Romance Short Story/Novelette My name is Barb, just Barb. They tell me, I’m the last of my kind. My mother was a product of the HGE Program, Human Genetic Engineering, and my father, well, I never met him. They killed him, a human male, before I was born. I’m a hybrid, a genetically altered human, and a lone survivor of the Great Scouring. Scientists wanted to create something perfect, that’s what started the HGE program, but they hadn’t been prepared for the consequences of success. There’s no such thing as perfection, engineered or otherwise. The war, just like all the others before, has left the world bleak. But this too shall pass; their thirst for blood never quenched for long. Now, I spend most of my days at The Cage, my sponsor’s club. The irony of the name isn’t lost on me. It’s my cage and their cage. We’re all in this together, now. Even Jared, the angry man with blue eyes, is with us. Until he’s not. He wants out, and it’s because of me. He wants to take me far away, but there isn’t anywhere to go. The war has touched every land, every man, woman, and child. But there’s a secret, a small hope that may save us, or end us all.