The child woke up, shivering and wet in a strange white void of a room. It tried to move but the chill that seeped into every inch of its being made its body unresponsive. The child was no stranger to pain and so pushed through the discomfort until, with great effort, it was able to stand.

With a flash something suddenly appeared in front of the child. The child’s blood ran cold as sitting on a chair in front of the child sat a man, the fancy man, staring at it with great intensity.

From this close the child could make out every detail of the fancy man. His hair had been shaven bald save for one long lock of dirty blonde near the middle of the top of his head. Intricate blue tattoos covered his white scalp only ending near a sharp pale face adorned with a long mustache. Cold blue eyes stared at the child with cruel curiosity.

“Hello there child, do you understand what I’m saying?”

The child scrambled back, trying to summon a flash of light or a clone but when the child reached for its power it found nothing. Recalling the rules it had established for jungle survival it stood still, very still. Perhaps the fancy man couldn’t see it if it was standing still.

“Well? Helloooo? Can you understand me but can’t speak? You don’t seem to have a mouth… If you do understand me, nod your head.”

The child stood perfectly still. The fancy man wasn’t attacking so that meant that he wasn’t able to see the child. The reason the fancy man had managed to spot it before was due to it moving to leave. Its tactics were working, it just needed to stand still for long enough until the man left it alone.

“My name is Sviatoslav, do you have a name?”

No response or movement came from the child. Scribbling a strange feather that trailed lines of black into a leather bound book the fancy man spoke to himself.

“Although possessing a form similar to that of a child it appears that Subject 17 is not intelligent. When confronted and spoken to it reacted by standing perfectly still.”

A disappointed sigh escaped the fancy man’s lips before he stood straight and brightened.

“On to test two then!”

With a flourish added to the final words the fancy man moved closer to the child. The child stood still, if it moved it would be detected. It just needed to stay still for a while and like with the evil bugs he would eventually leave.

The fancy man grinned and the child suppressed the urge to bolt. It reminded itself of the power the fancy man possessed and that fighting him would be bad, it just needed to stand still and everything would be fine.

“Sverodo, Derzhat”

An invisible force gripped the child, lifting it into the air and pinning its arms and legs to its sides. The child finally broke its stillness and began squirming in panic however, whatever had taken hold of it didn’t budge.

The child tried again to reach for its power, perhaps enough had regenerated to summon a flash but nothing came out. It didn’t even feel the slightest stirring, it was as if its power wasn’t just empty but that it was never there to begin with. Pushing down the terrifying thought the child focused once more on getting itself out of the really bad situation it was in.

No tricks could be used, with its power gone the child had to fight. It formed its hands and feet into spikes but that quickly proved to be a useless move as they were both pinned in place. Despite using all of its strength it couldn’t dislodge its limbs in the slightest.

What was going on? As far as the child could see nothing was holding its limbs in place it should be able to move. Was the fancy man doing that? How did the fancy man do that? Why did the fancy man have so many powers while the child had none!

“Oh my, it appears subject 17 has the ability to shape shift its body! This on top of its illusory abilities makes it quite a unique specimen, how interesting!”

Terror filled the child as the fancy man approached it, white teeth bared in an upwards crescent. The man intended to eat the child, it needed to do something!

What did it have? Its power? No, for some reason it was gone. Its surroundings? They were unfamiliar so the child didn’t know how to use it. That left the child with only the usage of its body.

Although the child couldn’t see the force holding it could feel it. If it could feel it it could attack it. Taking inspiration from the many creatures it had fought before the child morphed its head into a massive set of mandibles. It chomped down on the invisible force that held him but its jaws simply passed through the space uselessly. It was as if the child was biting on air.

Mind racing the child tried to think of another escape method. What else would work? Ummm uhhhh… Ah yes! The first tendril monster encounter! The child shrunk its whole body and slipped through the grip of whatever held it. It fell to the ground and launched itself to the fancy fan, aiming to skewer him and stop his attacks and then run away from wherever it was and back to the sea and then everything would be perfect!

Its freedom lasted for only a moment as the same crushing invisible grip tightened around it, this time crushing it so hard that small hairline fractures formed on its skin. The child ignored the crushing grip and again shrunk, allowing it to slip–

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The force crushed the child harder, clamping down so hard that the hairline fractures expanded and deep cracks began darkening its whole body. The sudden pain was so great that the child was paralyzed. It couldn’t think, every part of its body was being crushed. The pain was so painful that the child’s vision turned black and everything went black.

—

An ache in the child’s arm stirred its consciousness. It felt like something was… chewing on its arm. The pain gradually increased, until it felt like something was scratching at its arm. Suddenly the pain turned to an unbearable agony. It felt as if an evil bug was biting chunks out of its arm and the child jolted into full consciousness.

Its vision snapped open to see the sight of the fancy man cutting into its arm with a short curved metal fang. The child tried to draw its arm away from the fancy man but the invisible force had yet to dissipate and the child was helpless as the man began sawing off one of its fingers.

Trying to retaliate and save itself from being mutilated the child morphed its hand into a small maw and sent it lunging at the fancy man. The child managed to catch the knife in its morphed jaws and nearly bit one of the fancy man’s fingers off but unfortunately the fancy man drew his hand back before that could happen.

Despite nearly losing one of his appendages, the fancy man simply laughed cheerfully at the attack, as if happy the child had just tried to remove one of his digits.

With a manic glee in his voice the fancy man spoke “How impressive! In just three minutes, subject seventeen went from near death unconsciousness to coherent enough to launch an attack at me!”

He scribbled madly into his notebook as he continued muttering observations.

“Immediately after sawing into Seventeen’s finger Seventeen gained full consciousness despite being rendered near dead just minutes earlier. In response to the perceived attack on its form it morphed its hand into a pair of insect mandibles that bit with enough force to–”

The fancy man stopped his scribbling and snatched the knife from the child’s hand mandibles, observing it carefully.

“Hmm, the force of the bite seems unremarkable. Retrieving the knife from seventeen’s hand after being morphed into mandibles was easy and no damage to the knife can be observed. Nonetheless, seventeen demonstrates a remarkable ability to alter its shape, earlier shrinking in size and morphing its hands and feet into spikes.”

With a smooth motion the fancy man swung the retrieved dagger and severed the child’s hand. The child screamed in agony and horror as the fancy man snatched hand. It could do nothing but stare at its now separated hand being played with by the fancy man.

“It appears that subject seventeen can produce a human-like voice.”

The man turned his attention to the severed hand mandible and continued monologuing.

“Subject seventeen’s flesh has the consistency akin to that of stone and does not shed blood nor show signs of any internal structures. No muscles, no bones, no blood vessels, everything is seemingly composed of a uniform white stone.”

The child’s mandible hand began morphing back into just a regular hand. The fancy man stared at it appraisingly.

“Additionally, after being removed the limb returned to its original hand form, mandibles disappearing. It appears that knocking seventeen unconscious or severing a limb causes it to return back to its original form.”

With a flash the fancy man swung the dagger again, cutting a massive line from the child’s navel to its neck. The child screeched but the man continued cheerfully, prying the cut wider and staring at what was inside.

“Incision from stomach to neck made. No internal organs in the chest cavity were observed, not even a core. Another unique observation is that the injury seems at most superficial, with subject seventeen not demonstrating the slightest signs of dying or weakening. Further testing on Seventeen's regenerative capabilities will need to be made in the future.”

More scribbling as the man ignored the screaming child and he began speaking with great elation.

“In conclusion, subject seventeen possesses a number of anomalous traits that distinguish it from any of our native creatures. Such anomalous traits have only been observed coming from Zelenyad, realm of the demons. From this discovery, the fact that opening a portal to a random location has been observed to on occasion open up to Zelenyad, and that Novayazem’s landscape bears a striking resemblance to Zelenyad I conclude that Novayazem and Zelenyad are one in the same. Zelenyad is not above us, underneath us, or in some other unreachable plane of existence; instead Zelenyad is simply an ocean away.”

The fancy man slammed his book shut, a look of satisfaction on his face. He turned his attention to beam at the squirming child.

“Seventeen I want you to know that you’ve been a marvelous test subject. Thanks to you my theory will be proven correct and we’ll finally have a weapon to match that filthy scourge of god Kasmir. Tsarina Constantina will be delighted!”

With a puff the fancy man disappeared from the room and with him the force that held the child still. The child plonked to the ground, cradling its missing hand and nursing the cracks that zigzagged its body. The formless white room darkened until everything turned into a seemingly black void.

The child attempted to conjure a light to see with but still nothing came forth. Despite the time passed, not a single sliver of its power returned. A terrible feeling crept into the child. Not only was it trapped with the fancy man seemingly able to come and go at random it had also lost its power.

Things had been going so well. Why was it that whenever things were going well something terrible would happen. It was a never ending cycle of brief happiness followed by prolonged suffering. The child hated it. It wanted to do something about it. No, it would do something about it. Just because it had lost its power didn’t mean everything was lost. It had itself and its mind. Although now things were bad with it trapped with the terrifying fancy man that just meant it needed to escape.

The child stood back up. It had been hurt before, heck it had even been hurt worse before. When it had first tried to climb to the sun it had lost one of its hands and had broken its body when it fell down from the tree it was climbing. Compared to then, the current pain was nothing. Besides, even if its body was broken beyond repair it still had its clever, brilliant, ingenious mind.

The fancy man might’ve been stronger than the child but the child was smarter, it was the smartest thing ever. The fancy man was stupid for giving the child time to think.

No cage could keep the child trapped for long. When it had been faced with an army of evil bugs it had tricked them all, when it was forced to survive in the jungle alone it did so magnificently, and when it had been chased by the black bird the child had tricked it into killing itself. The fancy man was truly stupid to not have killed it when he had the opportunity.