Arbenina Dialectical Journal

IN THE BEGINNING The year is 3069. Dr. Smith and her husband are both marine biologists studying mutations in rats at their secluded science center, Murinae Labs, located on the distant island, Corsica. However, one tragic day, a hurricane crossed paths with Corsica Island, destroying the research center. Snatched by the storm, all of the 300 experimentation rats housed inside survived. They spun and whirled around, deep-rooted on the walls of the tornado for three days before landing, starving, on an undiscovered island, now called Arbenina Island. Already there was competition between the rats, and they split off into two distinct, evolving groups; one heading for the tidal area and one for the rocky coast. Some rats still moved from

This made them more hydrodynamic and they could swim faster, saving breath. Along with this adaption was another trait, linked genetically. By genetic alteration back in Murinae Labs, some rats had a dormant recessive gene that gave them nose flaps that could seal tight to keep water out. This gene remained dormant until some rats grew shorter whiskers. Since the short whisker gene was so rare, the Smiths had thought nothing of genetically linking it to the new nose gene. With these new adaptations, rats could swim further than ever to reach past sparse areas in the algae and access more food. The rats who could not swim far enough died of starvation, and all rats eventually had this once rare

Well about 200 years after the Corsica disaster, ecologists began to investigate the changing population of rats after a sailor shared his discovery of what he called “Rat Island”. They were very intrigued in the divide and subsequent adaptation to their surroundings by the rats. They studied the rats from afar using highly precise telescope-satellites and ships far from shore. A few were removed from the island carefully, but they died immediately after being removed from their home. Scientists still have not found out why this is, but some have speculated that there could be a difference in the gasses on Arbenina Island that the evolved rats cannot breathe without, but nobody has gone back on the island since. Everything we know is from observations and the few rats’ corpses, which are of no use to us today as the current populations have changed so vastly from the first 200