Jean awoke to the sound of the rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor. Dazed, he found himself lying in a hospital bed hooked up to multiple different tubes and machinery. Jean inspected the room itself and despite his blurred vision, he knew that this was no ordinary hospital. The room didn’t have the same bleached white color typical hospitals had nor the did it have the blinding white lights installed in the ceiling. Instead, the room was elegantly built with dim white lights emanating from hanging lamps. There were no windows or any semblance of ways into the outside world.

Jean sat himself up to see that despite the unfamiliar setting, the bed and the machines he was hooked up to were familiar. As he adjusted himself, the only door into the room slid open with a hiss. A tall lady with long dark hair, tied up in a pony tail, entered the room.

“Glad to see you’re up,”

She placed a clipboard down on a wooden table beside the bed as she leaned over slightly to write something down.

Her voice seemingly matched her appearance. Independent and authoritative yet elegant in its own right. Her clothing mirrored that of a stereotypical medical practioner found in TV shows or movies. Long white coat, turtleneck, and a pencil skirt. However, rather than the unrealistic high-heels that entertainment had a tendency to use, she wore white sneakers.

“Yeah…um, how long was I asleep for?” Jean asked awkwardly.

The woman put the pen down and positioned herself next to Jean’s bed.

“About two hours,” she responded.

In her straightforward answer, she leaned took Jean’s arms and began extracting the multitude of tubes that were resting inside his forearm.

“To be honest with you, I expected you to wake up on the ride here. You got quite a bit of time to relax considering the trouble you managed to cause today,”

Jean didn’t say a word. He simply sat still and watched as the last needle slid out from under his skin.

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what happened earlier this afternoon,”

Jean looked up to meet the woman’s eyes.

“I... I-”

His voice was wry and was filled with anxiousness. As Jean unconsciously held his breath, hoping for the doctor to drop the question, the door slid open once more. Klaus walked into the room wearing his usual attire. With a low and soft voice, he asked;

“Belle, would you mind leaving me with Jean for a moment?”

The lady, named Belle, took all the tubes and needles and threw them away as she answered Klaus.

“Sure,” she replied.

Her answer was short and to the point. Grabbing the clipboard, she made her way towards the door. She stopped at the door before leaving to say;

“I’ll be back after analyzing the data recovered from the incident.”

Without saying another word, she closed the door behind her as the sound of her footsteps began faded away. Klaus turned his head back towards Jean as he pulled up a chair and took a seat. He let out a brief sight through his nose and patted Jean’s legs.

“How’re you feeling?”

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“I’m…fine?”

Klaus could sense Jean’s confusion and uncertainty. He pulled his chair closer to the bed before attempting to say anything. Klaus took a few moments to organize his words, which was clear to Jean by his halted sighs.

“Jean, I didn’t want you to have to find out the way you did. As a matter of fact, I was hoping that I would never have to tell you this.”

Klaus’ eye’s locked with Jean’s and he could see the terror growing within him. Klaus staggered his sigh once more.

“You’re different Jean. Far more than you can comprehend and there’s no easy way to tell you this,”

Klaus paused before continuing.

“All this, everything that you’ve been surrounded by is a lie…”

As if there was something lurking behind him, holding his mouth shut, Jean couldn’t muster the strength to say anything.

“The world that we live in isn’t as kind as the one you grew up in. I know you feel it in yourself that there has always been something off. Off about yourself and town that you grew up in.”

Finally, Jean managed to find his voice and asked;

“Then was everything up until this point a lie?”

Klaus couldn’t look Jean in the eye’s.

“No, not everything. The people you knew were all real. The perfect life was the lie. Growing up in a small rural town, no financial worries, health issues, or threats. Those were the lies.”

“And by threats, you’re talking about that thing that attacked the school?”

“Yes,”

Klaus’s answer was cold and blunt. However, Klaus couldn’t find it in himself to continue lulling Jean into a false sense of security.

“The world we live in is a dark place. Perhaps you and the people in the town were the only ones to have experienced any semblance of peace. There are more of those creatures out there Jean. And all your life, I’ve been killing them off before they could get to you or anyone around you,”

“So, it was you in the school,”

“Yes, it was,”

Tears began to crawl down Jean’s face and with a stuttered voice he asked;

“Then why hide it from me? If the world was so dangerous, why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

Klaus flinched at the question. He took a moment and began to reach for Jean’s hand. However, before he could grab it, the door slid open once more.

“Because you’re the asset,”

Klaus and Jean’s head immediately turned towards the direction of the deep voice. Klaus, seeing who it was, let out a sigh as he turned back around to face Jean.

“Jean, this is Sannith Richter. Head of damage control,”

Jean wiping away his tears, grew a puzzled look on his face as he introduced himself.

“Good to meet your Mr. Richter. But, what’s this about damage control and what do you mean I’m an asset?”

Richter took of his trench coat and hung on a nearby rack as he approached the two.

“You haven’t told him?” asked Richter.

“I was getting there,” Klaus said with a slight annoyance in his voice.

Richter crossed his arms and stood at the end of the bed facing Jean.

“I’m sure by now you’re familiar with beasts,” said Richter

“You mean the thing that attacked the school?”

“Yes, exactly that. Have you ever wondered why you were so much more athletically capable compared to your peers? Why your injuries healed far faster than humanly possible? Hell, considering that you woke up only two hours after sustaining the amount of injuries you did, should be raising questions in and of itself. “

Jean felt his heart begin to sink lower than it already was. Richter was right. Klaus had always brushed it off as genetic luck and convinced him that he was just a normal boy. But he was right. He knew it all along.

“It seems I was right. You’ve asked yourself these questions your whole life, yet your caretaker has chosen the hide the truth from you,”

Richter turned his attention to Klaus who was beginning to grow visibly angry.

“As I said earlier, I mean no disrespect. But, todays incident never would have happened if you had told him what he really is from the beginning. Yet, I hear from HQ that you’re planning to pour more resources into training that could have been done earlier in his life. This could all have been avoided if you had just told the boy the truth about his bir-“

Klaus jolted up from his seat and violently pushed Richter up against the wall. The impact managed to shake multiple framed photos off of the wall. Holding him by the collar, Klaus lifted Richter off the floor as his back slid up the wall.

“You keep your mouth shut. This is a matter that is not under your jurisdiction. You’ve overstepped your boundaries quite a bit in this situation Richter… I suggest you leave the room now,”

Klaus loosened the grip on Richter’s collar and let him down gently.

Richter glared into Klaus’s eyes. Klaus glared right back at him.

Jean, despite seeing the altercation, was still in too much shock to respond accordingly. However, he looked up and locked eye’s with Richter and asked;

“Mr. Richter, what am I?”

Richter brushed himself off and grabbed his coat as he began walking towards the door.

“A part of you is the very thing that killed all those people today. Including your friends,”