A young man with graying hair walked down a musty and damp hallway. The air smelled stale and lingered heavily with illness and death. The coughing of the other occupants filled the mostly silent hall. The light fixtures here were overly bright for some of the occupants, judging by how more than a few cowered in the darkest corners of their cells. He stopped at a particular cell and peered in it. A pair of glowing eyes were staring back at him from the corner. Behind him, the light fixture began to dim until it was just above total darkness. The silhouette of the creature came out from the shadows and stood in front of him; it was vaguely humanoid, two arms, two legs, and one head, but it had a bone-like tail and neon-blue eyes. Compared to him, the creature was maybe four-and-a-half feet tall, no bigger than a child.
“How’re you feeling today, hero?” he asked.
The creature breathed heavily for a moment; the noise it made was almost like it was struggling even to accomplish this task. “I…” it started, its voice raspy and deep. “Am…Good.” It doubled in its efforts to breath, making up for what breath was lost in the conversation.
“Excellent, hero!” he smiled. “Today’s the day; we’re finally going to allow you out, under supervision, of course.” The creature got excited, the glowing pupils opened dilated, and it got closer to the cell door. The man waved his finger. “But, you have to promise to be a good boy this time.” The way he spoke to the creature was very much similar to a parent talking to their adolescent children.
The creature took another deep breath and spoke. “I… Promise!”
“I promise…” The man repeated and then waited for a response.
“I…Promise, Doctor…Yen”
“Good!” Praised Doctor Yen. He unlocked the cell door pressing a key card into a slot on the door. The hand of the creature pushed it open, the claws on each of the fingers were incredibly sharp and left marks just by making contact with the door. The creature showed a lot more human traits, short, white hair, glowing blue eyes, and brown skin. When the creature got up closer, he could see the face more clearly, before he could hardly stand to look at it, but now, the face was indistinguishable from an average human child. As the creature passed him, Yen noticed something new, a pair of under-developed appendages on the back; precisely, they were above the shoulder blades. The use for them was highly unclear as they pulsed a very dim blue. “Oh my!” he exclaimed. “My baby boy is still growing!” he pulled out an electronic tablet and began writing. “When did they start?”
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The creature stopped moving with the man and looked up into his eyes and said nothing. Surprisingly, the creature had a very child-like expression. “I see,” he said. “You don’t know, do you?” the creature stayed in silence. He put away the tablet within a bag that hung from his side. “Alright, then let’s continue.”
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Doctor Yen stood at a coffee machine that was also occupied by a colleague. The colleague was shorter by a foot and had red-rust-like hair and brown freckles. He wore round glasses that were just a little too small, causing the arms to dig into his face. Yen sniffed the air and visibly found himself relaxing from the delicious aroma of ‘One-Hundred Percent Natural Auriellian Coffee beans’
The portly red-head took the glass filled with the light brown liquid and poured it into his mug that had a picture of a two-tailed cat. “So, Doctor Yen. How was he?” asked another researcher, a much younger male.
Doctor Yen then smiled. “He’s absolutely wonderful, despite his skin pigmentation and hair, he’s almost just like the previous hero!” He sipped from the cup and made an audible noise of satisfaction.
“Wow!” The red-head fawned. He set his mug down and visibly got giddy. His cheeks jiggled slightly from the sudden movements. “It must’ve been quite something to have met the hero!”
Doctor Yen was bothered by that statement, his face went rigid, and he looked at least double his age. “No, the hero was terrible. Rude, impulsive… Name a negative quality he possessed it.”
The red-head frowned. “Oh. I see... I’m sorry that I brought him up.”
Doctor Yen ruffled his hair. “Don’t worry over it; we have our own hero now. He’s polite, kind, a little noisy, but-”
Another researcher cut Yen off, shouting from another room. “He’s gone! We’ve lost him! He’s no longer on the scans!” Doctor Yen ran to the office; ten other researchers were scrubbing through each of the monitors that were supposed to be watching the creature, each camera angle showing a different view of an empty field and forest scenery with no creature in sight. Yen ran to the nearest console and flipped through the screens. “Cut the hologram!” Yen yelled. The scene faded, and everything changed to an empty building interior with nothing around. Yen began sweating profusely. “This is impossible; that room is sealed the moment we close that door!”
The red-head approached from behind and offered his insight. “Are we sure he’s gone?”
Yen’s brows furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”
The red-head adjusted his glasses, pushing them up to his face. “Well, if he left the room, then he would have at the very least triggered twelve different alarms.”
Yen put his fist to his face in contemplation. “Now that you say it, earlier the lights for his cell began dimming when I approached, and I figured it was just the faulty wiring in the pens.”
The red-head crossed his arms and asked, “Do you think he’s showing latent magical talents?”
“It’s possible,” Yen admitted. “I expected them to show up much later when he grew up more.” He shrugged and said, “Oh well.” started to leave the group.
“Wait, where are you going?” asked the red-head.
“To go see my boy,” Yen replied.