It started with a virus. Prodded and pulled, manufactured till it was perfect to be released.
        They wanted to study evolution and the virus was the bittersweet answer that would let them look into a world that they had no right looking at. It advanced evolution and bypassed years of natural selection like a master thief at a safe, churning and churning the wheel then it clicked and the basic answer of life was revealed.
        And so the humans once again proved their stupidity and complete incompetence when given a semblance of power they do not know how to handle.

December 25th
INCIDENT REPORT
by: FELIX BOTRE
Description of Incident: VIrus released onto gingerbread cookie within lab. Cookie proceeded to escape after unsuccessful termination and is predicted to be within the city. Issued red alert to townspeople. Potential infection of 89%.

        They had let it escape and now the virus was kicking it its spikes, sticking and melding throughout the cookie like a burr. His stiff legged walk began to break into a graceful loping run, the gumdrops of his eyes sunk into his enlarging head, then reemerged, a single dark dot of a pupil cast over it. ~~~
The townspeople congregated together, flocking like birds, under the instinct of “strength in numbers”, a common priority. Yeah, they’d seen the report, but they needed to know, to see.
The first true encounter of frankenstein and his creation.
        The gingerbread slowed to a stop in front of the crowd. There was a scream, a gasp, and then the simultaneous event of 100 breaths being held.
The gingerbread man stood, his eyes like the center of a fire, charcoal black and crackling with unrestrained loathing. With that, the air pressure returned to normal at the release of breath, and a few people in the crowd promptly burst into giggles.
'This is what we were running from!', they all but crowed, clustering toward the bristling tiny cookie.
'How silly! How foolish! Oh, isn't it just the sweetest thing!'
A few laughed at their own pun (Sweet! Hah! Cookies!), and stalked forward, their appraising hands stretched out to swipe up the small man.
'Where shall we put him' they mused, a collective consciousness of intrigue and humor.
'The zoo? Oh, but surely a monkey would snatch him up without a second thought!' They balked again at their own suggestion, never minding the increasingly agitated cookie.
The virus was continuing to mutate, kicking the cookies sugars and phosphates around like an exciting game of Foosball. The icing that represented the puckered mouth rose up and paused, the moment akin to the second before the final cue at the end of a concert, then liquified, crashing into the rough texture of the gingerbread and immediately absorbing. This, as itself, was not alarming. What would cause quite a titter if the oblivious crowd was not so oblivious, was the imprint that it left behind. The distinctly mouth shaped imprint.
The imprint shifted and wiggled then crested till it was a small bump on the bread. It wormed and squeaked and writhed, until it broke open, and worked two frosting lips open. The gingerbread man took his first, raspy breath. The crowd's collective hand reached out. 'Do you think we can eat him? Would it move as it went down our throats?'
The guttural growl the waggled out of the cookies mouth assaulted and stopped them mid-pick up.
'Oh my God.'
'What was that?!'
Their once glowing faces of humor were suddenly tinted with a hint of wary regard. One cautious hand reached out and the gingerbread man open its mouth again. The air wheezed and skittered through the bread man's lungs like a respirator, and then exhaled with another moan. Growl. Hiss. It was broken, jagged sound, the type of sound that hoods carried clenched in their fists, ready to fight out any opponent, for the death and for the honor, maybe just to blow off some steam, they're not entirely sure and they sure as hell don't care. It was the sound of a cat's scream as the mouse retaliated and stuck off with a flesh of nose, the scratch of nails against blackboard at the teacher who had finally snapped. A shiver of fear, disgust, and wonder murmured through the crowd, the the hand stopped hesitantly.
Every breath was held, except for that of the gingerbread man's, his respirator hissed lungs continued to thrum in and out in and out. It was hypnotizing the crowd found themselves leaning forward. There was a soft pop crackle sound of a twinkie wrapper breaking.
Now.
What the crowd did not know was quite a long list, as their understanding of what it meant to be alive was quite akimbo at the moment and everything that could of have been questioned was suddenly under an interrogation light, a bad rendition of the good cop/bad cop sketch being replayed in an effort to understand, to comprehend, or , at least, find a reasonable thing to blame.
But back to the list.
One: The crowd did not know that this virus was airborne, waterborne, and virtually circulated uncontrollably. They would not be able to stop this with sanitation hankeys and a quick spray of Febreeze.
Two: The crowd could not catch this disease. This was exclusively yeast products since the moment it had touched and bonded with gingerbread man. The virus was smart, it could mutate, was STILL mutating, advancing and jumping forward to grasp onto other things to commandeer, to animate and free.
Three: The virus was catching right then. The forward step of the crowd confirmed the fate.
There murmurings were insistent and dipped in hysteria, the cookie's adorable face contorting into the ugly, hatred ridged grimace of a wolf.
'Oh my God.'
'It's a monster.'
'It's an alien.'
'It was experiments conducted and instructed by the president who is plotting our doom this very moment and has manufactured such a disease that it can create millions of undead armies!'
A moment of silence.
Eyes flicked back and forth, confirming the theory with their neighbor, the mute language of eyeball movement rippling to the very edge of the crowd. Were they buying that story?
A man gaped and sputtered, 'Hey, get back here!' as a daisy yellow rectangle swiftly made a break for it.The middle of the crowd parted like the Red Sea.
The Twinkie stopped next to the ginger bread man, who acknowledged it with a slight incline of head.  The sight was comical, but no one was laughing. Yellow, pupil-less eyes had sunk into the yellow fluff and lumpy appendages extended out like the knotted limbs of a tree. It was like the Twinkie mascot had endured five heavy years of meth addiction, gone through a two year course of rehab and decided that licking Cane toads was the way to go.
That introduction was what tipped with crowd over, and their voices suddenly began to crack and waver, hysteria snaking its way in though every weak defense.
'Kill it.'
'Lets get out of here.'
'Oh my God.'
A foot was raised ready to crush, but the growl raked down their consciousness again. The crowd began to back away with stumbling steps, ready to go home and grab their weapons or get in their car and get the hell out of a weird town that didn't even have a Subway. The growl continued to resonate and then a chorus of echoing growls, gurgles, and grunts rose up. The crowd looked around them, voices spiking like the beat of a heart on a EKG. Pastries lined the window, a small cake stood at a doorway, a synthetic galaxy brownie eyed the crowd with a level of upset only a weird and most certainly completely artificial pastry could master.
~~~~

That town was the first conquest.
The virus’s symptoms rapidly increased in time till a single spiel of it could transform a loaf of bread to living status within 20 minutes.
Nobody could have anticipated the damage. Cookies stopped going down the throat mid swallow, suddenly wanting to live. There were riots. People died.
Grocery stores were filled with prepackaged soldiers, ready to be released by their brethren and breathed life.
The gingerbread man stood above it all. Delegating the capture and subsequent murder of humans, people died by giant figures, forced to migrate to impossible environments, struggling with out their easy staple of bread.
The pastries learned to make their own people and the world was over run.
On November 13th, 2085, the last human died on a lonely exhale, her fingers clutching a yellowed photograph of a small boy eating a cookie, his face lit of like a candle.
Humans couldn’t last forever. Just like the dinosaurs, they are left to be remembered in the museums, as the Pastries took their turn at the world.