 
Strange Stories and Novellas

Jillian Kulp

Published by Jillian Kulp at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Jillian Kulp

Discover other titles by Jillian Kulp at Smashwords.com:

Imaginary: Kyo

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List of Stories:

Child: A Chell Side Story

The Acrobatic Vigilantes

The Inner Monologues and Dreams of a Boy on the Edge

Unbearable Being

Excerpts from "The Curl"

Enigami:

Excerpt from "Decrepit Children"

Excerpt from "The Doctor's Failure"

Excerpt from "How the Other Half Lives"

The Original War Children:

Book One: The Beginning Stories of Syd and On

Book Two: Sydney – A Strange and Beautiful Mind
Child: A Chell Side Story

I stand at the back of the smoky club, nursing my cheap ale and hoping that the darkness of my little corner will succeed in keeping me inconspicuous amongst the throng of other patrons. In a way it is easy because most of them are drunk, loud and hooting at the dancing, scantily-clad females on stage; in another, it is always hard, considering I simply look like a mere child, in stature, demeanor, and my undeniably doe-like eyes. I don't talk to many people, as Mother has always warned me that my presence must not be noticed when downtown, or in town at all. She doesn't like that I've begun sauntering here, even if it's only under the cover of night, but she said once that I'm growing up and will do as I please no matter what she tells me. In that sad, hopeless voice I always used to give in to.

But not anymore. Not even her wistful guilt trips can keep me "safe" at home, now that I've discovered...her.

It isn't a boyhood infatuation or a lust of the naïve that drives me – it's a fascination, a false hope I keep dreaming of, wishful thinking perhaps. And I'm not attracted in a way that "normal" teenage boys are; I'm attracted merely by the fact that she is the same as me – but completely different. I've never imagined someone else such as me could exist. Not only that, but she's gained a high profile in this area of Chell, whereas my own mother treats my... "deformity" as an abomination, something to hide, something to keep from others. Shameful, even dangerous.

It was difficult, not knowing many people, to acquire a false ID to get into any of these particular clubs, as I can't deny how young I look – or am. But if Zoe ---- can work here, I suppose the security and bouncers can skeptically accept that someone else can look younger than their ID states.

I look completely sixteen, maybe younger still, but my card (obtained only through begging and a few petty theft jobs which got me the cash to pay for it from a vaguely sympathetic whore I kept running into on the streets on my nightly jaunts) states I am twenty-one. She warned me that even that was pushing it, but if I could convince them as I'd tried to convince her, it would be the best she could do.

My card calls me "Xavier Childman," but actually I don't have a true name. My mother never gave me one because of what I am. She never knew whether to bring me up as a girl or a boy, and chose to wait and see which path I would choose, and let me pick my own name. She wasn't for all those unisex names either, thinking it would confuse my tiny little childlike mind even further. I pondered the idea myself as I grew older, thinking a Morgan or Shannon or Chris could be suitable – and ambiguous as well. But in the end, I gave up as well, and could only respond to the "name" my mother had always called me: "Child."

It didn't really matter legally, as I was born in secret, since my father had allegedly become a defector of the higher levels of the government of Chell. My mother was never specific, but I believe he had once been a Health Inspector or held some such position, and when he became a little too cozy with a specific prostitute, those higher-ups started narrowing their eyes at him suspiciously. Unbeknownst to them, he had actually come to impregnate her – which was why he suddenly took her away and went into hiding. Quite quickly my father became an enemy of the very government he had once served. He "knew too much" of the inner workings of "the machine" and had to be found and eliminated. They may not have known about my mother being pregnant, or even that he had taken her as his unmarried partner, but his disappearance itself was enough to warrant the proceeding manhunt for him. Nevermind he'd never said anything to her about his job – who would have believed that? Certainly no one in the nearly martial-law government of Chell.

So before I was born, he hid my mother in a shoddy shack deep in the few sparse forests left within the highly industrialized Eastern District of Chell – right on the outskirts, near the forbidden shores of an ocean no one has crossed in our centuries, millennia, of history. Some doubt there's even anything beyond it. There, after he had been caught and terminated, my mother gave birth to me. Alone, on her own, no help whatsoever. Which was how we would come to live our lives from then on.

Until I began my curious wandering outside what Mother called our limits.

It wasn't just these circumstances which kept my mother from reporting my birth – my entire existence – to the government, the Health Inspectors, whoever – but the fact that I was born as a "freak of nature," a hermaphrodite. She feared this abomination would cause the government to terminate me as well, as I was not a typical human. So I was raised as a girl-boy, out in the sticks like some backwoods night critter, unknown by anyone but the woman who had birthed me.

I was home-taught by Mother's own limited education – which was not stellar, but far more advanced than one would imagine from a former prostitute. She even ventured into town herself a few times during my youth to buy cheap but updated texts to keep me more informed. I probably know more academic facts than the average student in most of Chell (certainly all of the Eastern District), but the very mundane and daily routines of "normal" folk was lost on me, I soon discovered when I began visiting the city on my own.

Around eight years of age, I announced to my mother that I was male in mind – although in the following years, she questioned me on my decision, as I tended more toward the effeminate nature, what with my somehow innate effeminate mannerisms (perhaps partially formed from being raised by a woman), and my blossoming talents for self-created fashion in dress with either materials from the forest or, eventually, discarded clothes I found in alleyway dumpsters in the city. Being so isolated, I had no idea what "the norm" or "the alternative" were, so my own creations were, more or less, purely original. I may have had the stereotypical masculinity associated with hunting the rare larger animals in the forest for food when our stock began to dwindle; but I always made sure to save the skins, cleaning and tanning and fashioning them into wearable clothing.

But I was insistent that I was male. Perhaps this was an attempt to connect to my deceased father, whom I'd never known but Mother always spoke highly of, despite how I acted naturally.

And then my true calling came to me on my first secret trip into the city at thirteen years old. I happened by a street musician, who not only possessed numerous electronic gadgets which made strange noises, but also a small machine which generous people who appreciated what they heard used to stick plastic cards into. I became transfixed by his one-man electro band, standing there for hours watching him, listening in awe. It was all so new and exciting, loud and confusing, and I relished it. Questions came tumbling out of my mouth between his songs, and he seemed amused by my lack of understanding of the seemingly simplest things. Apparently the cards people stuck into his little machine transferred money into an account he had been registered to use, no matter if it was fifty cents or five dollars. I'd read about the concept of money, and the once ancient form of paper and coins, now obsolete, except in the "underground" areas of the city. But I couldn't quite grasp the concept of unseen finances besides these little plastic cards which symbolized the idea.

But even that wasn't as interesting or fascinating as the other things he enlightened me about. Like the instruments he was using, some bought and some self-made. He tried to explain music to me, but my mother had rarely exposed me to such a thing. The sounds he made, the way he "sang," as he called it, touched me deeply, in ways I could not put into words. It could only be felt, an emotion being drawn out of you like some ephemeral hand reaching in and pulling the pain or joy or whatever the song was meant to convey to your gut.

Of course, I had no money to offer him, no card of my own to insert into his little machine, but he had obviously been a sweet, gentle soul, answering my questions with the patience of a saint and telling me things in a manner which suggested he was pleased that I was so interested. When darkness came and I reluctantly said I had to go, he offered me a strange box-shaped object with numerous buttons and a small set of insertable earplugs which connected to it. He admitted it was cheap (not that I had any grounds to compare), but he could spare it for a child – and I momentarily forgot my situation and wondered how he knew my name – who seemed so intrigued yet deprived. He spent fifteen minutes showing me the basics of its operation, and then I truly had to rush home before my mother became suspicious.

For the following three years, and still now, I used the black box to create auditory landscapes I never imagined possible. I created "songs" similar to what I had heard that friendly musician play – and "songs" that were completely from my own head. I spent hours upon hours, late into the nights, toying with it. I walked the forest and the edge of the shore on the outskirts of Chell, being careful not to tread the water, recording the sound of rushing waves to include in my pieces.

There are rumors (according to Mother) that the government put up electrical walls hundreds of miles out into the ocean to keep people from trying to get in or out of Chell, and if one were to even so much as dip a toe into the water, they would be electrocuted....or at least shocked momentarily. As absurd as that sounds, as much as a superstition as this "Cog" everyone talks about might be (I'm still not sure about that one myself), I still remain on my guard when trudging through the dry parts of the sand. But the view is beautiful, especially around sunrise or sunset, and very inspiring to create this music, and using the surrounding environment to add random bits to it.

But there was still something missing. In one way, I felt lucky to be isolated from the rest of the world, having no influence but my own imagination; in another, I felt too isolated, like I didn't know what was going on. I had no basis for anything except what I'd read and had been taught, and the few things I'd picked up from being on the streets of the Eastern District at night. So I eventually pilfered a playing mechanism from a store in town, and snagged a few musical formats that were compatible with it, mostly just by whether the cover caught my eye or not. I didn't want to speak to many people to ask their opinions, not only because I was a bit frightened of them, but because I felt a dominating urge to not be too influenced by a select few whose opinions might not coincide with my own. Some of my selections were completely not to my liking, and I snuck back later to replace them in their exact same spot in the very stores I'd taken them from. Others...I listened to them with my earplugs from the black music box, repeatedly, obsessively, willingly drowning in the feelings they stirred within me.

My mother scolded me for becoming so enraptured by it all, for stealing (although she had done the same several times in her own "former" life), for shucking my studies and reading to "play around." But she didn't do anything else but scold, so I went half-and-half: half the time I obeyed and put my "toys" away to study; the other half I ignored her and went for a walk with my music box and listening device.

We were admittedly poor, but we still survived after sixteen years on a very strict budget with the "hidden" card my father had left us. The card apparently gained access to an account of this invisible stuff called "money," under a false name – actually, my mother informed me when I was older, it had been the name of a person my father had had to "terminate" while working for the government, but he'd kept the man's account open somehow and started shoveling his own savings into it once he'd fallen in love and was planning to escape with her. She used it sparingly, to get food we could live on for months at a time, her own fear of being caught in the city keeping her from going there very often. She would spend two days beforehand planning when and how to go to a mere grocery store, then devote that specific day entirely to her task before rushing back home. And the following two days she would have to lie down in bed to rest after having a series of panic attacks, even after she had returned safely. I found it all a bit melodramatic, but I suppose she had seen much more than I ever had, so I allowed her that bit of mania without any question.

Despite her previous lot in life before having me, my mother was not an average "whore." She was good with numbers (which was probably where I got my own knack for understanding complicated equations and mastering subjects such as calculus, abstract mathematical concepts and physics before I turned thirteen) and surprisingly strict and disciplined when needed. So she managed to stretch out that savings for over a decade without any other income. I stole now and then because I knew my wants were not in the budget and I didn't want to burden her. (Besides, I wouldn't want to force her into such a horrifying situation as going into town when she nearly had heart attacks every four months or so...)

For all her strict airs and demands, though, my mother is a very loving, compassionate woman – otherwise she would have handed me over to the government as soon as she had discovered my deformity. And I love her for that, and for who she is, no matter how paranoid she may come across at times. The fact is, she has valid reasons for feeling that way, some she won't even tell me about. She just can't bear to mention them, they frighten her so much. I'm sure my father's death had a lot to do with it, but I never had the heart to push her on the subject.

This doesn't mean we never butt heads or come to blows either, though; overall we have what I feel is a superb relationship, but I get agitated when we argue because she'll oftentimes use my deformity as ammunition, or slander me for choosing to be male despite my effeminate features and tendencies, not to mention my obvious preference for other males (discovered when I was fourteen and frequenting the city at night at least twice a week).

But I pass for an effeminate male, and anyone I "got off" with were more impressed than revolted by my "deformity," using it to its full potential, preferring it to "bumming," as they call it. And personally, I do too – ever have a thick rubbery slab shoved up your ass? It can bloody well hurt, damnit!

At five foot five and only one hundred pounds, I'm hardly what most would deem a "man." But my "breasts" have hardly developed as a true woman's should, and with all the exercise I get with hunting and just playing around in the forest (yes, even at my age, I climb trees like a monkey), my body, though sickly thin (mostly from a very restricted diet due to our financial state, and partly genetics), has formed more masculine but sinewy muscles, especially my wiry arms and somewhat broader shoulders than a typical woman's. Therefore, my body has developed in such a way that my "breasts" are virtually negated, unlike the "bouncy milk mounds" my friend the prozzie (the one who got me the fake ID) calls her own – like she did when she tried to shove them in my face the first time we met and she thought I wanted to buy her.

I suppose that's why my mother, though still wary of my jaunts into town, seemed a bit more smug and content when I began saying I was going out "to see Zoe." She must think "Zoe" is a girl I'm infatuated with, while all this time she feared she was raising a sexually confused gay boy with weird female functions and tendencies. I hate to dash her hopes, but my fascination, as I've already said, with Zoe is nothing to do with a sexual attraction to her.

I want to meet her. To talk with her. To connect in a purely platonic way. To share our similar histories or issues. To gain knowledge from someone who is (albeit only slightly) older and obviously completely comfortable and accepting of herself and her development.

I want to know someone who is like me.

But the longer I stand here in this dark corner tonight, smoking a clove cigarette (I don't quite like them, they're too rich for me, but I do love the smell and some girl just handed it to me), trying not to be noticed while my wide, black eyes remain glued to the stage, the longer the time feels as it drags on and on with no sign of Zoe. I was hoping tonight would be the night I would gather the courage to request to see her backstage. I know that's not an easy task to achieve, especially for a stranger, and especially with the Health Inspectors frequenting this part of the city more than usual lately (another reason for me to be cautious myself), but my hopes are high tonight, and I feel ready.

When three a.m. finally comes and the show is officially over, my spirits are dampened by no appearance from Zoe at all. I've just been staring at half- or fully-naked women for the past five hours with no reaction whatsoever. A night wasted – almost.

Despite her absence tonight, I still gather the strength to weave my way to the front side entrance to the heavily guarded backstage. But the bouncers won't deter me tonight.

Amongst the herd of disappointed (or sated) men and women on their way out, I finally reach my destination.

"No one backstage, kid," the largest of the guards grumbles, not even glancing down at me to notice I haven't made a move to try forcing my way in.

"No, I'm not going to," I shout over the din of techno still blaring through the club. "I just wanted to ask..."

"No one backstage," the oaf states again, completely stoic.

I huff, hands on my hips, growing impatient. "I don't want to go backstage!" I shout, now out of anger instead of wanting to just be heard. "I only wanted to ask..."

"Just leave, show's over." Stony as a wall.

Blast this idiot!

Nearly shrieking now, despite my calm demeanor, I blurt out, "I just want to ask where Zoe is!"

Finally the brute's eyes flicker down briefly at me, his face flushing slightly. "Zoe? Never heard of her. Get goin'."

I blink in astonishment. "Never heard of – what d'you mean!? She was just here last week! She's the biggest draw at this club! How could you not..."

"Zoe?" comes a female voice behind the guard, and both of us turn to see a rather fetching (if I went that way) blond creature in a white robe, toweling off her damp hair. She had just been dancing before the final act.

I fix my attention on her when she clearly shows an inkling of recognition at the name, bypassing the guard all together.

"Yeah," I urge, leaning closer despite his brick shithouse, arms-over-boulder-chest stance. "Do you know her?"

Her crystal blue eyes widen considerably as she comes nearly face-to-face with me. "Know her? Of course I do!"

"Cristal," the guard growls in warning. Funny, I think. Very fitting name for those eyes.

The blond waves him off with a roll of her eyes. "Oh, can it, meat head. What's the point in denying it?" Turning back to me, she pouts, "We all knew Zoe. Loved that girl to pieces, I did..."

My heart leaps at her words. "Loved?" I emphasize, my hands clenching worriedly against my chest. "That's past tense..."

"Oh, well, I still do, in my heart," the blond sighs ruefully. "Unfortunately, she was let go from here just recently. I'm sorry if you were a fan..."

I recoil in horror. "Let go!? But...why? How? What for? She was the biggest..."

"I know, we all know," she sighs again, her eyes brimming with tears now. "The biggest attraction at this club. No one really knows why, all Dmitri said was that it was out of his hands."

I gawk at Cristal in disbelief, my stomach churning with dread. "That means...she won't be here anymore..."

"Afraid not."

My mind reeling, I thoughtlessly blurt out, "Well, is there some way to get ahold of her? Do you know that much? I don't know how close you two are – er, or were – but if you know anything..."

"Oh, we were pretty close," Cristal smiles sadly.

"Then you know – please, can you put me in contact with her? It's – It's nothing sleazy, I swear, I just need to talk to her, that's all!"

Cristal's face winces in pained sympathy, and she steps closer to touch my cheek. "Poor boy...I'm really sorry, but no one knows where she's gone."

I blink again, shaking my head – partly in confusion, partly to dislodge her gentle touch. "Gone? But...you just said she was fired..."

"She was," Cristal confirms. "And of course I was concerned, so as soon as I could, after I heard the news, I tried to call her but she never answered her phone. I went to her place just yesterday to check in, but it looked to be in shambles, like she'd either left in a hurry or had been robbed... There was Inspector tape blocking the door and everything... No one knows anything around this place – no one knows where she's gone or what's happened to her. It's like she just..." Her fingers flutter whimsically in the air and she shrugs. "...vanished."

My shoulders sagging, jaw hanging agape, my vision doesn't even register the beauty in front of me anymore. My breath feels like it's been ripped out of my lungs, and I can't keep the tears from welling up myself.

"Gone," I repeat softly. "Zoe's...gone... And I never even got to..."

Cristal gives me another knowing look and nods. "I'm sorry to have disappointed you, honey." She suddenly shifts into saucy mode and lets her robe slip slightly down her bare shoulder. "But maybe another girl here will catch your fancy if you keep coming back. You're quite a cutie, even for a girly-boy – some girls here like that sort... Me included!"

Too disheartened to even care how rude I am by snubbing her slight come-on, I turn my back on her seductive wink and mumble sourly, "Doubtful." And without another word, I slink out of the club, spirit completely broken.

It's three-thirty a.m. in the Eastern District of Chell, and the streets are thinning out, even the lechers and sleaze calling it an early "night."

And I stand outside in front of the gaudy entryway of the club, feeling utterly deflated and hopeless. I should start the long trek home on foot, no matter how heavy my feet and heart feel.

But instead, I stand here, motionless. Thinking up wild, unimaginable scenarios. Crazy ideas. Ideas like...maybe I can find her...on my own.

Or...maybe I can't. I just don't know anymore. My one chance at connecting with someone, perhaps the only other one, like me, and now...that hope is dashed. Or is it? Oh, there's no way I could ever hope to find her in this city...I barely know my way around this tiny slum I've been visiting for over three years now, how could I ever possibly know where to begin?

Maybe my feet will take me home.

Maybe they'll take me somewhere else.

But wherever I go, I'll always be alone. That much I know now.
The Acrobatic Vigilantes

The Acrobatic Vigilantes started out in a dream i had a while back. I was bored, frustrated, cynical, depressed and sick of not writing anything for a while. Different endings came to mind, and maybe eventually there'll be more from these twits - er, i mean, heroes. Think of it as a short, silly, stupid story from a short, silly, stupid girl with a weird brain.

The Acrobatic Vigilantes came together in quite a common way that superhero troupes are formed. It was during a very ordinary nightly mugging of any random elderly lady when, as he rounded a corner into the fairly imaginable dark and filth-ridden alley, Eric witnessed the argument between the short, stocky woman, who was sifting madly through her purse, and the taller individual in black hoodie and skull cap, looming over her impatiently. Sizing up the situation with lightning intellect, Eric immediately whirled into action. Legs and arms flailed in the trained and mundane extraordinary fighting displays often depicted in comic books and action film blockbusters. But a clumsy and unassessed round-house kick to the assailant's side sent the mugger crashing into the very victim Eric was intending to protect.

(And why would an old lady with a big shiny white purse be prowling around dark alleys at night anyway? One is forced to wonder, though Eric did not.)

Thankfully, at that precise moment, another figure appeared at the opposite end of the alley and swooped in, catching the victim just before she fell against a grimy brick wall (which had probably seen more sex action in the past decade than the old woman had in her entire life). Dressed somewhat like a dandy, in colorful and tight-fitting attire, complete with pale smooth skin and black top-hat, her rescuer smoothly settled her quivering form on a ratty couch left to dwell for eons by its previous owners (who had, in fact, ditched the ruined furniture just there in the early nineteen-eighties). As the dandyman turned to assess the situation of the remaining fight, the strong, pungent stink of cat piss buffeted up from the moldy cushions where the gran's plump rump had plopped.

The fight hardly seemed to be an even match, what with Eric's bulging muscles now visible after having pointlessly shed his black trench coat to the side. (The mugger wasn't even putting up a protest, merely recovering from the last kick while attempting to straighten his skull cap.) Eric roared and charged the other, knocking the wind out of the smaller man's lungs; he would have fallen on his back too, if Eric had not remained gripping him so tightly, as if expecting a retaliating shove - which the thieving kid had no energy to do.

Just when "all seemed lost," the sound of SHOOP! filled the air, and the dandy raised his hatted head to catch sight of a fifth player in this game: a slight but tall, graceful body in skin-tight leotard, a flaming red color, bouncing - nay, FLOATING - as this newly introduced female took two powerful leaps into the air. One toe arched on the edge of a nearby dumpster and sent her FLOATING toward the (half-)scrambling men now halfway down the alley. A daintily pointed stilleto high-heeled foot landed right on top of the mugger's covered head, as the Attack Ballerina did a lovely pirouette; had Eric not been crushing his ribcage at the same time, the assailant surely would have been spun into the ground like an infused screw. Instead, the grinding against his skull merely increased his already dazed mind even more, and his slack jaw hung dumbly from his wide-eyed face.

After the mauling of the would-be criminal, Eric dropped the limp form to the ground as the dancing girl made a swan's hop to her dainty spike heels. The three heroes congregated in the space between victim and mugger, complimenting each others' maneuvers and tactics - even their wardrobes.

Meanwhile, the horrified old lady struggled to lift and push herself from the stinking couch, as the younger man on the ground slowly, delicately used the nearby wall to heave himself into a half-standing position.

"Anthony!" the old lady cried out. "Are you all right?"

The young man groaned, holding his ribs with a bleeding forearm. "Aw, Grams, they beat me up!"

"You still need that change for the bus, dear?"

"Aw, Grams! Fuck the bus! Call 911!"

"ANTHONY! WATCH THAT TONGUE!"

The Inner Monologues and Dreams of a Boy on the Edge

When these four dimensions become too concrete to my meager senses, there's a place inside that I can go to, a place that sprouted years ago, nursed by an angel whose heart was so vivid and warm that it could only stand to burn in that other world, where the monsters are, for a short time. Too short. And she made it grow here, made it come alive with enthusiasm and wonder. Here, in my own home, I could never find the courage to set the boundaries - and here, where other un-nameable abilities within me can seize complete control of my physical perceptions, I willingly allowed it to spread. Here, anything at all can happen, beyond my own limited comprehension. Even my basic accesses are distorted in this realm, and sound can be smelled, thoughts can be tasted, sights are felt immeasurably by tingling fingertips. Here, I am king, I am leader, I say so and facts change accordingly. Yet my instincts are sharper than they've ever been, making the outside world a mere shadow of what remains important in my mind - borders crumble away, existence melts into a translucent puddle, and I can soar into an empty abyss of possibilities...

...I've been driven here by the fierce violence of a man's fury, by the insatiable, by that which can never be reached in my more solid form. And in this heavy atmosphere, I can let myself drift into every unattainable belief known (or unknown) to man. I can hover over the present, looking down upon a gruesome scene, and am able to laugh like a child at the pointless nature of every action, of every reaction. I can intellectually understand and feel bemused by the ridiculous notions of all petty attempts at grasping for purpose, yet its effect is deflected by the numbness seething internally...

...The thrumming guidance of my imagination personified leads me to a cavern hidden away from these four walls, where laws of physics and metaphysics collide and pause for a spot of tea to discuss the weather. All of these ideas and ideals I hold in different spaces in my mind, here is where they all converge and discuss, pontificate and - hopefully - eventually arrive at some kind of conclusion. But tonight they are arguing, and the equations don't add up, and they're loud and obnoxious and relying too heavily on science and fact. One end doesn't always have to meet the other. Sometimes the frayed edges can never be mended. But they don't want to listen to me - whoever I am - and ignore my vain screams. And then my ego stands up and proclaims haughtily that it controls the rain, and suddenly it's just a pissing match between unseen entities, trying to decide who has the most control. Consciousness joins the circle and brags that it can vanish at will, but is unable to perform when the others challenge it to prove its worth...

...And all of these shriveled forms are oblivious to the small boy with the round eyes watching their gestures and hearing their boasts with keen attention. I barely recognise him myself, but I know I've seen him before, haunting my every waking moment, just waiting for me to fall to my knees, every day, and admit the truth: that I haven't been king here for years. Even my delusions are falling for delusions. And every flaw these beastly entities expose, he sneakily snatches before they realise they're gone, stowing each one away for safe keeping, his own precious treasure chest of negativity that will one day be opened to swallow all of them in one gasping, desperate gulp...

...He travels these lonesome paths in my brain with the illusion of curiosity walking just beside him. They converse and converge consistently, at times merging into one so completely that one would be hard-pressed to tell them apart. But always they remember their purpose - the absolute lack of purpose behind every movement, the tight-rope act being played out upon a knife edge, dangling just above the sea of innocence - don't swing your feet too closely or the weedy tendrils will snake up your legs to drag you under, into that well of ignorance...

...I can't keep coming back to this place, this dream of clouds and feathers and melting wax, meshed together to trudge up some unfathomable geyser of night terrors that caused this gaping rift to yawn before my invisible eyes - I can't keep holding onto these lies of infinite peace, reality is too strong now, fighting its way into my cracked head to seep into every crevice, every weakness, caving my will from the inside-out...

...I delve deeper for any sign of recovering my other self, the one who plunges onward into the mysterious depths of this cruelly veiled shelter from reality, but I only find remnants of soft touches and whispered promises mingled with tears of rapture and cold, cold solitude, and pleas of a wounded child; but all my words of insistence to be better, to do good and try harder, couldn't morph into a physical chain to wind around her hands, to keep her arms from falling from me. My fingers left stroking empty air, groping for a rescuing hand to catch me before being devoured by this world I could no longer control...

And then they were there, the hands of a saviour. A gentle caress from loving flesh, smooth but solid, unmistakably real. Fawning over my weary form, cooing words of tearful hope to bring me back from that pit of nothingness. Moist blue eyes peered back into mine, and with a rush of pure Spring air, I felt a genuine longing to whisper to him, to assure him that this wasn't an empty vessel he tried to look into. The aching I held in my chest turned into an actual sensation, a throbbing throughout my entire body, and never before had pain felt so sweet.   
A sort of wordless grumble trickled from my lips as I tried to say his name, relieved to see a grateful smile-turned-grimace break over his face as he stroked my hair and repeated those words he knew I needed to hear, "I'm here. I'm right here."

We're on a beach, somewhere... somewhere warm. And it's night, but somehow I can still see every last eyelash, every dark hair on your head. You're kneeling in the sand in front of me, running your hands through it as you speak, and I feel like I've just arrived, though you're speaking to me as if I've been here all along. I look past your shoulder at the crashing waves, recalling a time not long ago when I imagined the warmth of the water to be my mother's embrace.

"Don't you think?"

I catch your blue eyes with my own, a mirror reflection of what I've been given – but yours hold a plea in them.

"Think what?" I whisper, my throat feeling like I've swallowed half the beach we're sitting on.

"You can't stay here," you repeat, a soft smile on your face, averting your gaze as you say what you've been telling me all long, but I don't want to hear.

I study your smaller form, wondering how – because I can't remember – you got me back to the shore on your own.

"I want to," I assert, for perhaps the fiftieth time.

Still, it's like the first.

"But you can't," you reiterate. "There's nothing here for you. It's all broken apart here. There's nothing to salvage..."

"There's you," I argue, taking your fingers with my own.

You give me an awkward stare. Frozen in time, a question on your lips.

"This isn't right," you tell me. "This isn't what it seems. I'm not who you think I am. You're mistaking your mind for reality again."

I grasp your hand firmly. I can feel flesh between my palms – warm, soft, soothing. "This is real to me – we're safe here--"

"But it isn't." You slip your hand through both of mine – not pulling away, but actually THROUGH them, like a mirage, a ghost. You hold it up to show my wide eyes. "This is as much your hand as you think it is mine."

I think back desperately, trying to recall the exact moment when you pulled me from the waves...

"You saved me," I insist breathlessly, even though the image in what I think is my mind in this delusion is not substantial.

You shake your head sadly. "I didn't. You want to believe I did. Only my spirit. In this place, only you can do the rest. And you can only do so much here. Which is why you have to go..."

"But if I leave here..." I look around at the fading scenery, only able to hold onto your gaze as my centerpoint.

"Trust me – reality can be rewarding too," you assure me, and then even your solid gaze evaporates from my sight.

I'm on the beach again. I don't know why or how I know it's the same beach; many tend to look alike, but I just know it's the same one as before. Only this time, you're not here.

Instead, there's a boy in your place. The same wee kid who was hanging around when the factions in my mind were at war; the same elusive brat who kept nicking everything in sight.

But all he's doing now, as I approach him, is making a sand tower. Not a fancy castle, but just a tower, going up and up and up. He doesn't seem to notice me, even as my shadow covers him. He just keeps piling wet clumps of sand on top of each other without a glance upward.

Finally, I ask him, "What are you doing?"

"Building," he answers.

"Building what?"

"A bridge."

I kneel down beside him, eying up the tower skeptically before turning back to him. "Doesn't look like a bridge to me."

But his nod is confident. "It is."

"Don't bridges normally go horizontal?"

"Not this one. This one goes up."

I watch him for a while as he keeps adding on, even when the thing looks like it'll topple over any second.

"How far up you goin'?" I ask.

"As high as it can go," he answers, standing when his arms can't reach the top anymore.

I chuckle, reminding him, "Y'know, there's only so high you can go; and only so much sand."

He pauses for a moment, looking down at me so gravely that my amusement ebbs.

"You've been out there in reality too long; you're losing your guts."

I blink at him, my smirk fading. What could this little runt know about ME?

"But to answer your question," he goes on smartly, "I'll climb to the top and add from there." With conviction only a child with an unstoppable imagination and belief can utter.

"And as for sand," he goes on, picking up another handful, "there's no limit to what can make up a person. Don't you know that by now?"

I squint up at him, suddenly in awe of his simple wisdom. I drag my fingers through the sand, feeling the soft scrape against my flesh.

"What... is this sand made of?"

He doesn't look back at me, only answers, "A grain of sand is minuscule alone; one piece fallen from a clump seems like nothing. But when a whole castle breaks apart, it scatters, and the work to rebuild is endless."

He pauses again to catch my eye, adding poignantly, "But you can't say I didn't try."

I hold his gaze for a long moment.

And eventually, as he returns to his tower – his "bridge" - I ask again, "How high do you plan on building?"

"Up to the sky," he tells me. There is no trace of doubt in his voice. He's stating fact.

I try to smother my start of disbelief, but he chides, "For someone who thinks he's so creative, you certainly don't have as much imagination as I'd hoped you would. Like I said - no more guts. Well, here's your chance to win 'em back. Are you gonna sit there and mock me? Or are you gonna get off your ass and help?"

Before I know it, I'm on my feet, the kid sitting on top of my shoulders, and I'm hugging the base of the tower hopefully, as convinced as he is that we can build this bridge to infinity.
Unbearable Being

Unfortunately, sometimes even not being alone won't cure everything. Despite all this positivity around me, despite the knowledge that I had my friend there for me constantly, it couldn't dispel all my insecurities. Maybe the trauma of the attacks and losing my mum did something to the inner-workings of my brain, but I simply couldn't climb out of the rut I'd fallen into since it all began to spiral out of control. Before, if a setback came up, I faced it head-on and usually overcame it; this time, I seemed to be running out of steam before even starting to fight.

Useless. That's what I'd become, in my mind. A useless, worthless, pathetic heap of flesh and bone that couldn't even defend itself when put in a dire situation. A nobody, a nothing, a weak loser with no hope of surviving more and more years of misery piled on top of each other serving no purpose. Only causing trouble to those around me, only bringing grief and hardship to deal with. Just a burden they should have never been saddled with. They put so much effort into trying to restore me, but for what? Their work was futile. All I gave them in return was more strife, more anguish. More miserable days which added up to months upon months – and for what? For me to crumble all over again, into an even bigger pile of shit every time I slipped.

I was tired of being a source of such pain. Tired of making people hurt. I wasn't worth all their tears and frustrations, and the more I saw those things in their eyes, the more I hated myself for being that troublesome wretch they all felt like trying to save. What would one loss be to them? They'd invested so much more into me than what I'd ever given them – they'd deserved more.

So maybe one more pain could be given, to save them from further years of multiple ones. One sore spot which would ache for a time, but which they could all eventually get over. They could move on after that – and I wouldn't have to endure anymore disappointment in seeing them all so sad for me.

Besides, what's one little heartache compared to a lifetime of shame?

I thought of these things every night as I lay in bed, so tired from another day of dragging myself through their encouragement. Exhausted from the tension of these unstoppable reflexes of unconscious paranoia. One brush against my arm sent rigid waves of panic throughout my entire body. Even when I felt relaxed, content to rest my head on a small, inviting shoulder, relieved to find some kind of space of peace within me, when I felt the closest to normal than I'd felt in months – one wrong move sent my heart racing in the wrong direction, my breath shallow and strained. I didn't even have flashes of his face anymore; the sensation itself was overpowering enough on its own.

So the morbid ideas overtook me relentlessly, no matter how much I tried to reason them away with acknowledging their psychological origins. No matter how I explained them as typical post-traumatic symptoms, the feelings were still there, eating away at my stomach, my nerves, my conscience. That heavy guilt anchored me in this fixed state of self-loathing, refusing to let me see logic and sense, uncaring that maybe these people worked so hard because they cared. About me. My mind battled that thought viciously with the unanswered question of why they should feel that way about me, especially when they'd suffered enough torment and obligation for my sake already.

I still had trouble sleeping, though I kept that fact hidden from everyone (even my surrogate "parents"). I forced food into myself and coerced my body into physical activity – but my mind repeatedly returned to the question of why. Why did I bother? Why did anyone else? When it was all going to turn to shit anyway...

That was when I started thinking the really crazy thoughts. When I couldn't figure out any valid reasons they – and I – would go to such lengths.

Because they wanted me to suffer. They wanted me to continue on, to feel this pain, this guilt, this weakness and shame. They probably hated me in secret, and derived some kind of twisted pleasure out of knowing – somehow they had to know – that I wasn't going to climb over this hurdle. They enjoyed seeing me limp and ragged, stumbling to try and seem normal again.

OR maybe because they felt they needed this boy to continue existing, so they wouldn't have to feel the weight of their own consciences bearing down on them for having lost him. Just to have him there physically was enough; they could go on with their lives as usual – it wasn't as if they'd been the ones too meek and careless as to end up in that situation. Then they could hold him up later and say, "See? We saved him!"

Yet I was still the one suffering, taking every tedious, draining day as it came, bearing their need for me to stay alive. They wanted me around, no matter how tired and confused, so they wouldn't feel like they'd failed. Their selfishness only festering inside of me, making me more and more frustrated for being such a worthless little pawn in their game.

Or maybe... and this one really floored me...

Maybe they actually... loved me. Wanted me to stick around for as long as possible, to see what I could accomplish, to see how I could grow and change and learn. Maybe they... liked the person I was already, enough to want to rescue him from a terrible thing. Maybe they knew how tired I was, how much I fought with my mixed emotions and uncharacteristic new fears, and found hope in the "strength" I showed by persevering despite these recent handicaps. Maybe they admired me for surviving, despite everything that had happened to try and take me down. Maybe they knew how much I wanted to give up, but felt encouraged to help me even more with each day that passed – because they saw that I wouldn't let myself.

For a long time, I fell asleep every night with tears running down my face, grasping this ridiculous notion with the only hope I had left in me, that it was the right one.
Excerpts from "The Curl"

Tom:

What feels like hours later, I wake yet again, feeling warm and a tad more rested, but put off a bit that Anthony isn't in bed beside me anymore. I turn over in bed to find the bathroom door open, no light on, so he probably isn't in there. But my bedroom door itself is slightly ajar. I shudder slightly for no apparent reason, just a sudden chill that runs down my spine – and then I realise as I start to sit up that, glancing around, there's no trace of Ant's trainers or the parka Matt loaned him.

This throws me a bit. I start running through possibilities in my head. Maybe he stepped outside for a cigarette? Wait – he doesn't smoke, as far as I know. Maybe he just stepped outside for some air? Blimey – could just stand outside the room and feel a draft of sterile, cold air. Maybe he was hungry and went to find something to eat...and just took the parka with him?

I'm just not getting a very good feeling about this situation as I slowly get out of bed and slip into my own trainers, then step warily out the room and start for the staircase.

I consider calling his name, but the house is so big, my hoarse whisper would be drowned by the sheer size of nothing invading the place. I walk slowly, carefully, around the house, peering in different rooms, wondering if he maybe just went to explore and got lost – wouldn't be that bizarre for this mansion. But no room turns him up, no corridor spits him out, and by the time I finally reach the kitchen, only to find the one person I don't feel like encountering right now, I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

He doesn't seem to be anywhere. Not in the house, anyway.

I eye up my mother, who's sat on a stool by the island counter languidly, sipping her usual glass of wine which isn't fooling anyone – especially considering the bottle itself is set right next to her. I'm at least grateful the tart has some clothes on, even if they're rather scanty and inappropriate for the season. A small white sundress over a slip that comes down a bit too far beneath the dress itself, a thin white cardigan, and bare legs and feet as if she's in the tropics.

I swallow hard and step into the kitchen, as if the patter of my trainers is announcement enough of my arrival. She barely turns her head in my direction, but just that slight movement is supposed to be acknowledgement of my presence.

There's a ghost of an expression of smugness on her half-hidden face, but I don't fail to catch it. I immediately step closer to her, somehow just knowing this is her doing – whatever "this" is. "What's going on?" I demand.

She sips her wine primly, not even glancing my way. "Good morning to you, too, prodigal son. Where did you spend last night? A brothel?"

I squint at her, shaking my head. "A br—what century are you living in, woman? I asked, what's going on?"

She sighs and sets her glass down, finally turning to face me. "Whatever do you mean, Thomas? There's nothing going—"

"No, you know exactly what I mean. Where's Ant?"

She raises her eyebrows at me. "Ant? And who might this Ant be?"

"My friend, Anthony – I brought him home with me this morning – I was stuck at Nick's last night because of the storm."

"Funny," she drawls, feigning ignorance. "I don't remember a phone call, but perhaps you did ring..."

I roll my eyes, staring down at my feet. "Fine. I'm sorry I didn't call. I was feeling a bit ill and didn't think of it – besides," I add bitterly, "it's not like you usually give a damn."

She tsks me, waggling a finger in front of my face. "Language, Thomas."

"Right, whatever. Mum, where is he?" I press, now feeling an urgency to get to the bottom of this.

Again, she deflects, "I've no idea who you're talking about, love. You're collecting insects now?"

"Anthony," I growl, stepping closer. "My friend, his name is Anthony, we call him Ant. I brought him here this morning because it's too dangerous for him to go home. So where – is – he?"

She pauses, letting that smug smile play about her lips again, and finally admits, "Oh, him. Strange little boy-girl, isn't he? I saw him in your bed earlier – eyes barely open. But then he saw me and woke straight up. Yes, I called him out of your room. Thomas, love, you're far too young to have people in bed with you, I couldn't possibly allow that... So I told him he's not allowed there."

"And?" I demand when she doesn't continue.

She drags out the moment by taking another long sip of her wine. "And then I told him to leave."

I glare hard at her, eyes bugging out and muscles tense as I step even closer. "What?"

"I said," she repeats airily, "I told him to leave. Told him he's not welcome here—"

"You did what!?" I yell, grabbing her by the arm and yanking her around to face me – to look me in the eye. "You had no right—"

"I had every right," she snaps back, suddenly less nonchalant and far more waspish. "This is my house, Thomas, and I will not have some strange little thing taking up residence in my son's bed!"

"He's not some strange little thing!" I yell back, still clutching her arm fiercely. "He's my friend!"

"He shouldn't be sharing your bed—"

"Oh, but you should?" I throw at her.

And that earns me a slap so hard, my grip on her arm is wrenched away. I straighten up, working my jaw around and trying to blink away the sting.

"Calm down, love," she hisses at me, not sounding very calm herself. "There's no need to worry – the snow's stopped, he can catch a bus home."

"No!" I protest, clutching her shoulder now – trying my best not to be too violent, though what I really want is to pound in her pointy nose. Glowering at her, I plead, "You don't understand! He can't go home! He has to – he can't – why would you even do that!?" I blurt out, appalled by her careless nature.

She slaps me again, harder this time, and shoves me away to keep me from grabbing her again. "Because," she snaps, standing from the stool and almost reaching my level as I pull myself to my full height again, "as I told him, he's not welcome here."

My cheek is starting to hurt now, and as I reach up to nurse it, noticing the ache in my gums and teeth, I have it worked out in my head now. Of course one of my friends, someone I care for – someone I actually have deep feelings for – isn't welcome here. Because of those cold, harsh eyes staring back at me, that indignant, condescending expression.

I hiss back at her, "You... You bitch – you told him to get out because you're jealous—"

She smirks, letting out a less than convincing chuckle. "Jealous? Why would I be—"

"Jealous, or mad, or just plain bloody evil!" I shout, backing away from her – and this time she's the one advancing on me. "You saw him, didn't you? You said you saw him lying in my bed, and you wanted him out! Why's that, Mother? It's not because we're too young – it's because it's not you!"

Another smack, this time knocking me back into the doorframe, my lip cutting over my bottom teeth. There's a fire raging in her eyes, and I smile faintly as I regain my footing – I've hit the nail on the head, it seems.

"Can't stand to see your precious little boy with anyone else, eh?" I snarl at her. "What were you even doing in my room!? I was asleep! What gives you the right—"

She grabs a handful of my curls and yanks hard, reminding me, "It's my house and you're my child, I have every right—"

"No," I growl, snatching her wrist and forcing her hand away from my head, even if it pulls my hair with it. "You gave that up when you nearly killed me last year with those drugs—"

Another blow – this time an actual punch to shut me up, not giving me time to finish the rest of the reminder. But she knows exactly what I'm referring to. But even if she has some fight in her, and some power behind those blows, I'm not one for giving in easily either.

"Thomas, love," she mimics herself petulantly, like it's a joke to her that she's a mother at all – certainly had me fooled, at least for a few years. "I don't know what you're talking about—"

"Shut up!" I scream at her, backing further away, out of the kitchen. "Don't call me that! I'm not your `love,' you hear me!?" I look around wildly, ignoring the ache in my head the movement causes. My heart's pounding too hard in my chest, my breath coming wildly, as I realise what this means for Ant. "Oh God, where's he gone, I have to find him—"

She waves the violent hand she used on me carelessly in the air. "He's probably on his way home now. I sent him away over an hour ago..."

"That's just it, you witch!" I march back up to her, eye-to-eye, green-to-green, and tell her angrily, "He can't go home, it's not safe for him there—"

She puffs out a snippet of laughter. "And it is here? With you? Thomas, love, you're ill – you don't need some sexually confused tart coming in here, messing you up even more..."

I freeze in my spot, eyes widening as I digest her words. "`Tart'?" I shoot at her viciously. "Is that what you just called him?"

She shrugs. "Is `tramp' better? Or how about `trash'?"

Maybe I've inherited more than just height and eye colour from the wench; before I can stop myself, the hand beside me flings around, slapping her arrogant face just as harshly as she's been serving me. It knocks her back a bit, and even if it makes me a bit ill to think I'm reacting just as she would, a small twinge of satisfaction shoots through me at seeing her startled face.

"Don't you ever, ever call him another name like that again," I grind out through gritted teeth, "or so help me God—"

"What?" she demands, recovering herself quickly. "You'll strike a woman again? How many times is this now? Come on, Tommy, have a go at your poor old mum—"

"Twice, you cunt!" I yell at her furiously. "Two bloody times! I've lost count how many times you've had a go at me! And how about last year, eh? What was that like!? What's it feel like," I taunt her, knowing it's getting to her as she shivers and looks about helplessly, "tell me that, Mum, tell me what it's like to rape your bloody son!"

Maybe I've gone too far – I even feel myself choke off after spitting the words out, and immediately I have to spin around, busying myself with something else. I start pacing back to my room. "Where are my keys? I need my keys—"

"You won't find them up there," she informs me breathlessly, and I spin back to her, staying halfway across the room from where she holds herself up against the door frame.

"Mother!" I yell. "Where are my car keys!?"

She lifts her hand, the familiar chain and gadgets dangling from loose fingers. "You mean these?"

I dare to take a few steps towards her, holding out my hand. "Give `em here."

She suddenly closes her fingers around them, warning me, "No, no, Tommy. You can't drive without taking your medicine first."

"Fine," I sigh, grateful to have the distraction to turn and run from her. "I'll go take my—"

"Oh, no you won't."

"Of course I will! What, you think I don't take them on purpose? That I like being outta my bloody mind?"

"No – you won't take them...because you don't know where they are."

I stop at the other side of the room, spinning back only briefly to see the wicked smile on her face.

My heart pounding harder and faster now, I feel my breath leaving me now too as I piece together her threat – or, rather, what she's just informed me of. I race through the rooms and dash up the staircase, crashing into the door to my bedroom in a panic and jerking around to head into the bathroom.

To my horror – though perhaps not surprise – the cabinet above my sink, as I whip open the mirror door, is completely empty. All those bottles, every pill, every medicine – gone. Utterly bare.

No wonder she'd seen Ant in my bed – finally catching on to my sneakiness, realising I'd taken all my meds into my room...she'd lost that control over me. And whilst I slept, she'd come to take them back. To steal back that shred of control. And whom does she come across? Some small, pretty boy lying in bed with me.

No wonder she cleared the cupboard bare. Talk about vengeance.

Talk about bloody crazy.

I try to catch my breath to start yelling again, demanding to know what's going on – but I don't even get out a word. I spin to head out of the bathroom, but the door is suddenly slammed shut before I have a chance to make a grab for the handle.

"Mum!" I yell, running into the door almost completely by accident.

There's a click, and I grope desperately at the handle. It won't budge. My heart feels like it's racing faster than ever now, and I smack an open hand on the door.

"Mum! What're you doing!?"

"Calm down, love," I hear her through the door. "It's only for a little while, until you turn back to normal."

My eyes feel like they're going to fall out of my head – is she really doing this!? I slam my fist into the door, yanking at the locked door handle. "Mum, open the door! Mother! What've you done!?" True and real panic, gut-wrenching terror bubbling through me as I realise who the real psycho is here. I pound feverishly on the door again, still jiggling the handle to no avail. "Mum! What've you done with my pills!?"

"You've been naughty, Tommy," she croons at me through the door. "Naughty boys don't get their candy."

I can't believe what I'm hearing! Candy? "Mum, it's not bloody candy, they're my bloody pills!" I screech, and pound harder. "Now open the bloody door!"

"Where on earth did you get such a mouth?" she teases.

I pause, trying desperately to calm myself. I really don't know how to work with a crazy person – I've always been the one on the other side! I draw in several deep breaths, and even if that doesn't work to calm me, I try to reason with her in a shaky voice, "I'm sorry. Please, Mum. Please may I have my pills? Please?"

There's a long silence on the other side of the door, until she breaks it with a crisp, "Sorry, love, you need to take a bit of a break, I believe. Maybe a day or two off from school. Get you back to normal after that bloody tart fucked with your head—"

I instantly lose my cool and start pounding furiously at the door with clenched fists. "Open up! Open the fucking door, you bitch! Let me out!"

"Now, Tommy," she coos, "you'll have to calm down and stay that way for a while before mummy lets you out. That's just how things are."

Yeah – not trapped in a loo by an insane, jealous mother...

"You fucking bitch!" Not that it helps much, but at least I can let my true feelings be known, now I'm aware she doesn't plan on letting me out anytime soon. "Get me out of here now!"

"Sorry, love," she sighs, and if I'm not mistaken, it sounds like she's sitting right on the opposite side of the door, leaning against it, making herself right at home in my room. No way she's letting me out of her own accord.

Okay. I'll admit it. No pills. Already messed up from the chaotic schedule anyway. Lunatic mother wants me for herself and won't let me have my meds. Migraine most likely to start creeping back up on me soon – and no help for that either. Migraine, loss of control, and then...then what?

I'm terrified. Which is why I carry on smashing myself into the door, not even thinking about it. Even if it's no use at all.

And then there's the witch, sitting right outside, trapping me herself with her wicked ways. "You've been coasting a bit too long now," she informs me icily. "Time you were put back in your place."

With a stomach full of dread and a head full of throbbing, I pause for a moment to drink in the realisation...I'm stuck here. I'm not going anywhere until that woman on the other side of the door wants me to.

My guess is, that's not happening soon enough for me.

The hum of the light above me is hypnotising. Or would be, if I could concentrate on it. As it is, I simply can't. I've already been through dozens of half-hearted attempts at self-remedy, of course to no avail. I've lost track of time. I've lost track of the migraine, even as it comes and goes. The world – such as it is to me in this tiny, four-walled cramped space – is numb and tingly, vibrating around me. The window near the top of the ceiling was never any help; not only is it too far for me to reach, but even if I could reach it and fit through, it's at least a fifteen to twenty metre drop to the ground outside. I'd break me neck, my luck.

In the panicked moments of gleaning onto what my mother was doing, I'd desperately groped into my jeans pockets for my cell, thinking perhaps Matt or Nick could figure a way to help me out, or at least check on Ant to make sure he was all right – then I remembered I'd left it in my parka, in my room. On the other side of the door. I could have kicked myself. I was livid for quite some time, screaming at my mother, but somehow my anguish only made her laugh – a sour, vengeful laugh. So after nearly losing my voice over the commotion, I gave up, if only for a while, if only to keep from hurting my throat more.

After pounding at the door for hours, running out of steam and then trying to knock again later, patiently, solemnly, apologetically – any way I could think of – my mum was still hell-bent on teaching me some kind of a lesson. I'm not sure what that lesson is, but perhaps it's to do with trying to get a catnap in a ceramic bathtub with a migraine when you're too long to even fit.

I sat on the lid of the toilet for a while, holding my head in my hands, trying to talk to my mother rationally, quietly, telling her my education was important and I needed to at least be prepared for the following day of school. Her dazed giggle was all I got in response, and I gave up that tactic.

I reminded her my father would be home soon, and he would definitely have questions about this. To which she informed me that he had left Monday night – even during the bloody storm – on a business trip and would not be home until the weekend.

What a man. Not even a blizzard can keep him staying home with his family. Such is the way of my father, I suppose. More money to be made, no ice or snow was going to stop him.

That was when I'd given up and huddled into the tub to try and prepare myself for the inevitable pain, discomfort, and overwhelming fear that I knew would overtake me.

At least, that was what I expected. Last night. Strangely, the migraine never appeared. I decided to stay positive, to not question why I wasn't feeling ill, even if past experience argued that I should have. I'm not one to puzzle over it if it's not there – I was relieved. Instead, I settled in for the night and tried to get some sleep.

But that was a futile thought. It's gone dark and then lightened up once more already. Though the drone of the light above me should have lulled me into a stupor, it simply didn't, and I couldn't get comfortable at all, so I stayed up staring at the ceiling and humming songs to myself, trying to come up with some melodies, commit them to memory. Once in a while calling to my mother to check and see if she was still there; she was. Spent the entire night on the floor in my room, in front of the door, just to make sure I didn't get out.

That's me out a night's sleep, even if, given other circumstances, it would be the perfect opportunity to do nothing but laze about and drift in and out of sleep. Bask in the wonder of surrealistic, vivid dreams.

But even now, the next morning, I'm quite unable to sleep despite the exhaustion of insomnia and feeling the seconds tick by. My breathing feels shallow, my eyes heavy, but I can't quite fall asleep in these early morning hours. Legs bent, knees sticking in the air, poking through the widening holes, all I've been able to concentrate on whilst attempting to sleep in the tub was succeeding at scratching little shapes into the flesh peeking out. For a while it was almost funny – I was just bored. Sighing every now and then as I shifted into another position, in or out of the tub. Calling to Mum to ask if I could come out now. Alternately met with either a negative response, or eerie silence.

A few times during the night, when I suspected she wasn't around or had drifted off, I tried jiggling the handle, yanking at it, slamming my shoulder into the door, even inspecting the hinges to see if I was able to dismantle their hold and get out the opposite side. No luck.

And then, just an hour or so ago, the migraine took hold and I knew I was finished. No more logical, rational thinking. No more trying to reason with Mum or distract myself. No more relief over being spared the agony of withdrawal. It's started to set in now. And I'm just not ready.

Can't reflect on last night anymore. Can't think of the early morning hours. Can't remember those periods of strange calm and, apart from initial panic, the rather blithe acceptance and mild irritation of my mother's behaviour. Now all that is overwhelming my senses is this headache, this throbbing, stabbing, nauseating, dizzying sensation. And the panic is back, knowing somewhere in my muddled mind that it's her doing this time, nothing to do with my own forgetfulness, just her wicked retaliation for me being a typical teenager. For once. And for her own twisted reasons, which I can't even fathom considering right now. It'll just make me...

Oh, too late. Already tumbled to my knees in front of the toilet, vomiting and shaking all over. Mind becoming a mess. Turning into something barely recognisable. I vaguely remember drinking some water a bit ago, but now it's gone, chucked up into the toilet with some remains of yesterday's breakfast that had still been stewing in there.

Who made it again? A mother. A proper mother. Now that's a mother. How wonderful to have one.

The chink of my bracelet against the porcelain draws my attention. I stare hard at the metal monstrosity. "You disgusting piece of jewelry," I hiss. "Why can't you be more subtle? Or prettier, at least? Grow some beads."

I'm cut off by another bout of stomach lurching, but all it produces this time is dry-heaves and some minor spit-up. Eventually I flush and fall back against the wall behind me, pressing my palms into my closed eyes. The shapes behind my eyelids are fascinating. Like tiny snakes and worms waving and swirling around, some taking a hint of colour now and then.

The hum of the lights is getting louder in my ears. I tell them to shut up. They won't listen. I yell my command. They still won't relent. Dizzily, I open my eyes and swivel my head around, wondering why I'm on the floor. Push myself up, feeling drained and weak. Head's about to crack open, I know it will. And some bubble or shining light will come lifting out of it, and there, that will be my real and true form, yes?

No. You're just nothing...

"Bugger off," I tell the familiar voice. I've heard it several times in the past few years. A wet, slithery, angry hiss that reminds me now and then of what rubbish I am. Sometimes high-pitched, sometimes a growl. I don't feel like paying it any mind today.

I stumble over to the sink and glower into the scruffy visage staring back at me. Rub my hand over the scratchy surface of my chin. Blimey, I've let that go a few days too long. Good! Something to occupy myself with!

I set about shaving, amazed me mum hasn't had the forethought to confiscate my razors whilst raiding my pantry of useful drugs.

"Drugs you paid for, mind," I mumble at the door beside me, adding a frustrated kick for emphasis. Imagining it's Mum's backside.

I nick myself twice with trembling hands, but at least the distraction gives me reason to ignore the headache. Oh, it's still there, numbing and stabbing all at once, but I'm stubborn, me. I'll fight this to the end, I will.

"You can have a laugh too," I mutter at the reflection of my forehead. "Go `head, don't matter to me. I'm fine. Ain't like I never had one of you before, y'bastard."

But I can't stand the itching of a fresh beard. So I slice it away. If I can't slice through the flesh of those I despise, I can at least slice through bristled hair and make my face look less haggard.

There. Now I look about...twenty or so again.

Bloody hell. When did I start looking older than my real age? Them rings round the eyes won't do either. But can't do much for them. Can't bloody shave them off, now, can I?

I pause, sizing up the razor, considering...

No. Better not. Just more mess to clean up later. And then I'd be blind and it'd be even more of a hassle to clean. Not like I'd get help to clean it, eh?

I toss the razor carelessly to the tiled floor, and a spatter of blood hitting the sink catches my attention. I stare closer at the reflection in the mirror. Perhaps that "nick" was a bit deeper than I thought. A thin red trail of liquid runs down my neck. Falling onto the collar of my white t-shirt. Soaks it up greedily. I watch it for a while, mesmerised. How much blood can be in one man's face?

I'm thrown back suddenly by a stabbing, relentless pain. I clutch my head, breathless, and hit the wall behind me as if someone's shoved me. Eyes bugging, I can't believe it's coming on this strong now, overpowering, grabbing my brain and squeezing, poking at bits with sharp talons.

Without really meaning to, I slam a fist against the door to my side and shout at the top of my lungs, "Open it! It's really hurting now, Mum, open up and gimme my bloody pills!" I add a few more thumps for emphasis, but there's no response on the other side of the door.

Slowly, I slither to the tiled floor, clutching myself tightly in a hug and curling up, knees to chest, closing my eyes and willing the overwhelming on-coming hysteria to go away. But my brain isn't obeying me. Panting, sniveling like a child, I blindly pull myself across the floor, feeling around with my hands until I feel the cold, hard edge of the tub. Slipping off my trainers and shaking violently, I haul myself over the side and flop into the uninviting porcelain. Still huffing like I've just moved a house, I convince myself I can avoid this whole mess if I just become as small as possible and disappear. I curl up into a ball again, head lowered to tuck my chin into my chest, and cover my ears with my fists, trying to concentrate only on my harsh breathing and the racing thudding in my chest. Trying to ignore the tearing pain in my head, the ache in my neck, the gradual and rising onslaught of indecipherable sounds starting up in what I logically know to be an actually silent room.

I can't shut them out... As true as I know they don't exist, my grip on this knowledge is slipping, and the hissing and mumbles and sharp snaps of derogatory names keep coming, and all I can do is stay here, huddled in the bathtub, hoping against hope that my mother will see reason soon and come in to save me.

I don't fall asleep, as exhausted as I am, but time seems unreal to me as I struggle inwardly, and agonising minutes eventually turn to hours. I don't necessarily black out, so much as lose sense of reality and blink my eyes a few times now and then to realise I've changed position. The light in the room is still glaring, so I try to keep my eyes shut through most of it. But through wisps of consciousness, I take note that the window near the ceiling becomes dim, then darker, then completely black again. And seeing that total oblivion just beyond my reach is so tempting, so bloody merciless in its taunting me, that my head starts slamming back into the porcelain repeatedly. There's no reason for me to do it – I can't even try to put words together in my head to explain anything. My muscles are simply reacting in this way, for some unknown goal.

The pounding stops for a while, eyes wide and staring up at the ceiling, feeling dry and on the verge of popping out, even as moisture leaks down the sides of my face into my hair. It's freezing, snowy, cold outside, and I'm pouring down sweat into the bathtub. Hair wet with perspiration, curls sticking to my skin, covering my eyes, flopping limply with every twitch and tic my body involuntarily makes.

The rasping breaths fill my ears, drowning out any other noise inside my head, chest and throat feeling tight and smothering. My own breathing. Barely breathing. Some kind of shock? Withdrawal and shock? I can't think. I don't know. I'm here but I'm not. Back is numb against the porcelain. Am I floating?

Humming lights are growing in strength now. I have to get out of here. The light will expand and envelope me and blind me, and I'll be burned inside those awful fluorescent tubes, and no one will know what happened to me, they'll only find a tube of ash and bits of bone and melted eyeballs or...

The anxious rock in my gut won't stop me now. I have to crawl out of this. This wasn't my doing, but I need to get away. It takes me a few weeks – or so it seems – but I slowly lunge and slither and crawl out of this infernal white hell. Takes me a day or so to push and pull myself to the other end of the bathroom, dragging my body to the door by way of a rope... Probably not there, I suppose, but it looks like it to me, though it fades in and out of my perception.

I can feel trickling sweat down my back and face when I reach the door, huddle up next to it, tap slightly with a fingertip.

"Mum?" I call, my voice sounding cracked and broken even to my own ears and in this enclosed space. "You there?" My throat feels dry and sore, cramps and shooting pains through my stomach, legs achy and strained. I wince as my joints screech when I push myself up on all fours, forehead resting against the bottom half of the door. I dare another slight knock, eyes closed for fear of seeing the room spinning around me.

"Mother?" I whisper. If I'm too loud, perhaps I'll frighten her away. I've become this sad, withering mess, I can only imagine how she'd see me... Either disown me for such a weak-minded, pathetic existence, or disgusted that this thing ever came from her, or worse, pleased that she's reduced me to this... this... this desperate, feeble creature who can't even trust his own ears.

There's a vibration of some kind against the door, I feel it in my hand. Whether it's verbal, physical, or psychic – I have no idea.

"Mum, please," I beg her, any pride or self-righteousness depleted from me over the course of the last...

How long have I been in here?

"Please let me out," I groan. "I'm better now... I promise..."

Better than what? I've no clue. But it's something to say, I suppose.

I want to get out of here. I need to... do something. Find someone... My friends...

Friends. Yes, that's right. I have friends now! Matt and Nick and Topher and...

And...

"Ant." I slump against the door with a deflated moan.

I suppose the monster on the other side actually heard me this time, because suddenly she's the one banging and clawing at the door, hurling shrieking insults at me and cursing the boy's name, trying to "remind" me who's taken care of me my entire life, who should get the credit and attention...

Funny. Here I thought it was all owed to prescription drugs and myself. But then, I'm often known to be wrong.

I try to cut through her angry shouting by pleading some more to let me out. The panic rising inside of me is causing the hyperventilation to rebuild, and I can't tell what I'm holding onto and what's thin air. I'm stumbling around wildly, feeling as if parts of me are going numb at different intervals, and her voice is mingling with the roar of upset inside my own head, and I can't tell them apart anymore.

Sobbing now, terrified and just wanting to go to sleep, a sudden sharp thrashing throws me off-balance, and I fumble back to my hands and knees, noticing the painful spot on my forehead. Don't remember doing that, don't remember wanting to do it, but now I just can't stop. It's the only thing I can do, whether it breaks a hole in the door or just grants me the blessing of unconsciousness – I don't care. I now purposefully start bashing my head against the pure white of the barrier in front of me. Losing count of how many times. Soon the enclosed room is filled with my own howls of pain as I go on, ignoring my mother's confused and suddenly panicked pleas from the other side. I don't care – even if she gave me my pills now, even if she let me out, what point is there? I'm suffering now, and I'm sick of waiting for it to be over...

The white door I can barely make out through my fuzzy vision and the damp ringlets of hair in front of my eyes begins changing, from the pure white like the snow outside to a faded pink... And then, after a particularly violent attack, a satisfying cracking sound and a splotch of dark, pure red, which instantly begins to streak and trickle down to the floor.

I smile crookedly. Shouldn't be long now. I gasp a few times, spasms gripping my muscles, and I dive one more time into that beautiful gory stain, before feeling my body slump limply to the ground and the fuzzy room around me fills with a wave of relieving darkness.

Eyes blinking. Stinging. A red hue clouds my vision as I slowly come awake. Groggy and blurry. I'm staring across a vast off-white sea of tile dotted by red and pink blotches. My eyelids have been moving longer than I've been conscious. Every blink shifts my perception – attention darting back and forth randomly, as streams of silent tears and warm blood trail over my skin, over my eyelids. Blinding me completely for one moment, then, like a red strobe light leaking through, and another blink clears the view again. Repeatedly. Like windshield wipers. The steady but fast pace of their thumping isn't in time with my eye movements – and I sense the sound is not of windshield wipers, but of my heart beating out a laboured rhythm.

A dry, wretched gasp fills the room, my chest feels stretched and full. That must have been me then, struggling to breathe. A few more inhalations, and my mind – though not nearly lucid – becomes more alert, more aware.

I'm lying on my side on the floor. Sprawled where I blacked out...

How long ago?

Twist my head, an unintentional groan escaping my lips as my neck muscles scream, and I see a vague shape of a crack in the shadows of the door, right along the bottom panel where the blood is still dripping fresh and new on the tiles. Must not have been long...

Hang on...

Shadows?

I sit bolt upright, stumbling sideways into the wall behind me, and let my gaze drift to the trail of droplets leading in a slight arc from where the door is set just beside my shoulder...to the door frame several inches away.

I almost let out a cry of astonishment as I take it in. The realisation.

The door is open.

I use the door handle and the wall at my back for support to drag myself unsteadily to my feet. Shaking involuntarily, I hover there for a moment, staring at the ghastly visage of a gaunt, pale young man staring back at me from behind a partially open door. There's a stunned expression on his vaguely familiar face, which is half-covered in blood, all down the entire right side of his face, smeared through matted curls of sweat-dampened hair, and streaked across his forehead to the left side.

Bloody hell. I look like I just stepped out of a gore movie.

I slump towards the mirror, bumping the edge of the door with my shoulder, gaping at the state I'm in. I barely look like myself. Even as my vision shifts from clear to blurry and back again every few moments, I can at least make out how awful I look.

I wipe rigidly at the right side of my face, but all I manage to do is spread the increasing stain to my hands and arms. I can just barely feel the wound I gave myself on the forehead still gushing, and I know it'll keep going like that if I don't do something for it soon.

But...I shiver sharply and look away from the horror in the mirror. Tainted, trembling fingers leave prints on the white door as I struggle, half-blinded by blood, to limp out the partially open door.

The beast isn't around, I note as I peer into my bedroom cautiously. I know I haven't been out cold for too long, but the longer I take to get out, the less chance I'll have to succeed in escaping.

I wonder faintly why I'm having more trouble moving my left side than my right, but can't dwell on it too long – the pounding in my head, which had miraculously subsided for a while from the shock of sudden oblivion, begins to return. In spades.

I stumble against a dresser in my room from the force of the migraine, causing everything on top to shift and rattle. As I steady myself, I recognise the clinking of keys, and eye up the familiar chain and implements warily.

She really just left them there? With the door open and me alone, she left them right there, out in the open like that? She must have been in a hurry.

So am I.

I snatch the keys up into my blood-coated fingers and continue to stagger towards the door. Only thing to do – have to get out – get somewhere safe – away from her, that evil...

I pause in the doorway, listening, straining to hear past the thudding in my skull and the constant white noise that I know logically doesn't exist. I can just barely make out her voice drifting down the open corridor. The staircase is only a few steps away, but I listen intently, too careful to go charging out if she's right there to catch me.

Somehow, I manage to pick out her words, and with some harsh concentration and fierce blinking to keep my eyes open, I start to make sense of what she's saying. Takes me a bit to process the meaning, but soon I catch on to what would usually be a simple understanding for me. Aphasia setting in. Hold on for the rest of the ride. I'm still aware enough to be able to identify my symptoms as they come on – could be a good sign.

"Yes, he has a history, almost three years now. He's been ill all week, but he hasn't shown signs of this degree of violence since he was started on medication... No, I can't be certain he has, and at this point I'm ready to believe he hasn't been taking them at all... He was breathing, yes, but not conscious – no sign of response or communication... Well, please do so, and hurry! My boy could be dying right now!"

Hurry, indeed.

Without another hesitation or pause to hear more, I launch myself towards the stairs, taking them two at a time – while groping at the railing for balance as my left side continues to drag – to the first floor. I hear her call my name, her voice now from the direction of my room, but I don't dare to look back.

I skid and hurl myself out the front door, leaving it wide open behind me as I head directly for my car, which sits in the curved lane in front of the house. The snow, I notice vaguely, has since half-melted away, perhaps giving some idea to how long she's kept me locked up. Wiping at the blood in my eyes, I manage somehow to stumble to the driver's side with only a few painful steps on icy gravel beneath my bare feet. Takes a few attempts to get the key in the lock – forgetting completely about the remote unlock button on my keychain – but just as she appears in the doorway, I'm lunging into the seat and grappling with the keys again to get the car started, before I even shut the door. And when I do, I glance up only briefly to catch a glimpse of her running down to the driveway, trying to stop me – then I shift into drive and slam my foot on the gas, screeching past her with a spray of gravel from the tyres, and swerve around in the direction of the outroad.

I only check the rearview once, letting out a sigh of relief as I see her form becoming smaller and smaller with every passing second.

This is mad, I think to myself, even through the bloody fog in my head. Dizzy with adrenaline and panic, shaking from low blood sugar and fear, quickly losing blood from this gaping wound in my head, losing touch with my senses, half-blinded by blood...and I'm careening down the road towards the only place I can think of to find help.

The drive is fast, manic, and I know I don't have complete control, so it's a miracle I make it to the school in one piece without getting pulled. Even as the world becomes more and more of a fuzzy mess to my eyes and ears, I'm coherent enough to tell myself not to trust my parking skills at this point. I avoid the carpark entirely, skidding to a halt right outside one of the sets of back doors. I consider taking a moment to breathe, to calm down, but the instant I shut the engine off, my body is moving by its own accord – like it knows better than my slipping mind what it needs.

Can't bother thinking what I look like, the lack of warm clothes and shoes, the abundant presence of blood covering me like someone dumped a bucket of it over my head. Just need to get inside, get to someone I know, someone who can help...

I can't even hear the noise of the heavy doors as I stumble inside, using the wall outside the cafeteria as a crutch as I move forward. I pause by the large, open double doorway, thankful to see the cafeteria empty, and catch sight of the large round clock hanging across the vast space over the opposite set of doors. I take a long time to decipher it, having to blink several times because of the blood and clear vision turning to blurs, but as I catch my breath, feeling the wheeze in my chest as I gasp, I eventually figure out it's almost half-one.

Half-one. Where should I be at half-one?

I shake my head vaguely, pushing off from the doorframe to get myself moving again. My steps have become feeble shuffles now, my body lagging against the wall as I head for the staircase to the second floor, and I'm not sure at all of my schedule anymore. Forgetting the routine of every weekday for the last three months. Best thing I can think to do is just...chance it.

My arms are doing most of the work to drag myself up the two split staircases, and by the time I reach the second floor I'm panting and sweating again, but still I don't dare to stop. I have to keep moving or else I'll feel those cold, evil hands on me again, catching me from behind before I can even call out to anyone. I can practically feel her breath on the back of my neck as I sidle along the wide corridor, sliding against the wall until I come to the first classroom door to my right.

I stop momentarily at Mr. Shepherd's room, peeking round the edge of the wall and through the thin glass window beside the closed door to scan the desks for a familiar face. I see a few – but none I came to look for.

I start to move on, not noticing when my body flops ungracefully against the door, a thud resounding in my ears and through the corridor, but not quite reaching my mind to register the noise. Instead I continue to the next door, the next classroom, limping along at a snail's pace, but still moving.

I don't hear the door I've just left behind me open, don't hear the familiar voice over my shoulder. I simply take note that the second room is closed and dark, so I take a deep breath and go on to the third. It feels and looks like it's a kilometre away, but I don't care, I don't care what hurts, what's starting to rise up in my head, I just know I have to get there...

"Thomas?... Tom?... Is that you?"

A hand on my arm sends me lurching hard into the wall, a twisted sort of cry filling the otherwise empty corridor as I whirl around to confront my English teacher.

I must have been the one to yell, because he instantly steps back, a shocked look on his thin, bespectacled face. He's horrified at what he sees, that much is clear, but I don't have time for him right now...

"Thomas, what happened!?" Mr. Shepherd is trailing beside me now, trying to stop me in my tracks, but I can only thrust his hands away and grunt in response, my attention solely taken up by the next door.

"I know you've been ill, but if something's happened, I can help – Thomas..."

I don't listen to the man as I come upon the next classroom – in fact, I can't even hear him anymore as, when I peer through this window, a wave of relief crashes over me and I let out another wordless cry to see a familiar face.

Don't care how I look or what I'm doing, who's around and who's watching me – all I know is that I have to get to him.
Enigami

Excerpt from Chapter 30: "Decrepit Children"

Kerry:

By two years old, I had mentally mastered the Utarian language spoken in the area of Alicheen I was raised, though my mouth and motor skills had not developed to the point where I could actually speak in the same amount of time. I thought in complete sentences, however immature and self-centered those thoughts were - as any two-year-old's would be - but the words refused to form around baby lips and cheeks. Not eighteen months before, I hadn't a clue about anything, except that the creature holding me and giving me artificial sustenance was my only chance at survival. Six months before that, I had my first day free of the incubator, and I remember still, the shock of cold and dry air on my skin. I did not cry - but I shrieked with every ounce of pain that air brought. The harsh wind in my still-delicate lungs was unbearable, and I screamed out to whatever entities were surrounding me with all my might that, no, I did not want this.

Even to my own ears, that powerful howl from deep within me only sounded like the weak mewling of a starving cat. But I meant it.

My early upbringing, until I was seven, consisted of constant daily lessons and tests conducted by "The Doctor," who acted as a kind of stern yet curious father figure, and two others: a male and female, who I later learned were a husband and wife scientist team. The woman had taken care of my vital needs as a "newborn" and infant, at least attempting to show what "motherly" care she was allowed - but "The Doctor" insisted that affection and attachment were to remain at a minimum; he didn't want "the subject" to grow up thinking it was worthy of the care real Utars showed their offspring. It was, after all, an experiment - not a real child.

For those seven years, the three worked together to raise me. Well, as much as one can "raise" an experiment. The married couple seemed more interested in my natural development, while "The Doctor" focused mostly on ways to infiltrate my behaviors, trying to find the best methods to control me, especially when he proposed (behind the couple's backs) to the government that artificial enhancements be added to my body as I grew - to use "the experiment" as a manipulated weapon, so to speak. Unbeknownst to the couple, the government supported "The Doctor" in this plan for "the experiment's" future.

Before anything was ever added, however, initial learning and development were quite different to how my later years would be. The couple worked to awaken my manually-placed Utar genes and powers, pushing creativity, curiosity, intelligence and comprehension; meanwhile, "he" insisted that my understanding of Utarian superiority and obedience was more vital - moreso than even my own still-fragile constitution, which rendered me underdeveloped in appearance...

Though, according to the couple's reactions, I somehow managed to stun them with my overdevelopment of intelligence and comprehension - to the point where the male once proclaimed me "the oldest damned six-year-old" he'd ever known...in a slightly sorrowful tone, I now recall, as if he felt partly responsible for how I was developing into an overly alert though severely solemn child. Having caught glimpses of some of their notes, as the "curiosity" of a child was one thing that I was able to retain my entire life, I knew that, for their expressive natures and all their kindness, the two scientists (who weren't basically insane) worried for me; they noted that my tones were flat, my facial expressions were...well...let's just say rare, and my emotional maturity was either higher than an old man's "I don't give a damn anymore so I'll do what I want" level, or simply non-existent.

One entry for an entire day in the woman's note's read once: "Today was a landmark day: Kerry smiled at me!" That particular day's entry was frowned over by "The Doctor," as it had no details about any activities or anything, well, "useful," as he uttered while reading it; I, however, was so intrigued by her reaction to this one tiny detail that I allowed myself a few more "slips" after that, and it was as if she knew it were some kind of secret - I would purposefully glance around, making sure "The Doctor" wasn't around or observing, and then look her straight in the eyes and let the miniscule grin come out; she seemed to catch on that I didn't want to let certain others know that I could feel these reactions, so she didn't make a big deal out of it and kept it between us, as "our little secret" (though I know now that she merely thought I was intensely shy, not knowingly trying to keep "The Doctor" from suspecting me of anything unusual).

Despite being unable to suppress my natural tendencies to be a typical child, however, my physical body remained to look like that of someone at least two years younger, for several years. Not only this (the prematurity), but because of certain other aspects of my unusual creation (some parts of which were simply uncontrollable even for the scientists who helped create me) and the apparent lack of care any of the scientists held for particular grooming (who says you can't pick up or "inherit" traits from your environment?...), I also appeared a bit on the effeminate side. The scientists never noticed \- they were too absorbed in their work and in my intangible qualities rather than what I looked like - when my hair grew too long, or if I was a bit too pale or thin. Every now and then, an agent from the government would come in to oversee the experiment and be caught up on the progress they were making; every time they came, the agent (it was a different one every time) remarked that they'd been informed "the subject" was male...to which the scientists could only respond, "Um, he is."

"Uhh...oh."

That was when the female would decide I should get a haircut. But it never lasted - six months later, my hair was down to my shoulders again, and another agent would come in and make the same remark. The husband would laugh, smacking his forehead as if it were something he'd meant to take into consideration for months but never got around to; the wife would almost look offended, as if she preferred me with longer hair, and her utterance of, "Well, I suppose we should trim the hair a bit," always sounded forced.

"The Doctor," however, would simply barrel on before the agent could show too much of an interest in my grooming, as if it didn't matter in the least. (In fact, I'd be willing to bet money that half the time, he didn't recognize me as male or female anyway - he didn't care about any sort of individualizing factor to "the subject." Except, of course, when that "individualizing factor" happened to occur in manners which he thought "abnormal," such as gender; only then was it an issue, but the couple dismissed that as easily as he usually dismissed my actually being male.) At least the husband and wife team, when it was pointed out to them, tried to make an effort towards caring for these details; in a way, I suppose it can be said that even I, in my initial stages, was brought up with an idea of what "parents" were supposed to be...

They would have been funny parents. Which, in truth, they had tried to be to me, whether they realized it or not. It was simply in their natures to be warm, caring and genuinely interested in the person they were raising. Not "the subject," not "the experiment" - but just being around a child, they acted as they would have been around any child in need of guidance and learning.

Halfie or not. As if the original purpose for their assignment had never been fully explained to them \- or they'd simply forgotten it once "the subject" was born and they saw how utterly identical a Halfie actually was to the typical Pure-blooded baby.

"The Doctor" was the one to officially name me "Kerry"; the couple had urged the Doctor to name me this, and as he didn't seem to care much for naming me other than my identified number, he let them choose.

Just out of curiosity, I later looked into it, only to discover the multiple meanings of the name "Kerry": not only did it mean the equivalent of "beautiful warrior" in Utarian (as opposed to Kerry's "dark warrior"), but in Human English, the masculine form Cary meant "stony island" - in reference to my seemingly detached personality. However, the feminine Kerry referred instead to "dark-haired," and they constantly commented, since I was born until a week before I never saw them again, that despite many Utars having dark hair coloring, mine seemed to be the blackest they'd ever seen. Finally, there was Carrie: the Human Gaelic for "song": a reference, not only to my Human half, but also to my natural, inborn Chordjia powers. For some reason, even before I began processing my emotions more earnestly, this description meant the most to me - as if, even when I was very young, these scientists saw me for much more than what I'd been created for - they knew me as what I truly was; and, had they had the chance to, they would have encouraged that in me even despite whatever "The Doctor" would have said about it.

Unfortunately, things didn't work out that way for us.

At seven years of age, I was to have the first of a number of electronic and mechanical additions engineered into my body - an operation "The Doctor" and the government had put together to endow me with, and get me "used to," cybernetic parts that would only prove useful much later - when I would be revealed to only those who needed to know as their weapon.

Before even knowing what the original intention for these enhancements were (though I'm sure they were able to come to these conclusions on their own, as not every child is ordered to be raised with as much lack of emotion and abundance of obedience, and then given specialized ornaments that could be manipulated to kill), the couple fought against the procedure. "The Doctor" ignored their pleas, even the very obvious, less emotion-based arguments, and told them that they had no say in it. Not realizing how far back this experiment began or who in the government higher-ups were aware of these activities, they quietly went behind "The Doctor's" back, appealing to the very head of Alicheen himself - they reasoned that I was far too young, not to mention far too physically immature, underdeveloped, for such a drastic, risky manipulation; it could, they argued, have a permanent effect on my already seemingly stunted growth.

The leader of Alicheen, and the actual government as well, shocked the couple by ruling that "The Doctor" be given full custody (or "ownership," as they called it) of me. The couple was removed from the experiment. They had grown attached, the leader said, just as "The Doctor" had suspected and informed him of earlier. This was not part of their plans for "the experiment," and therefore, the couple were now breaking government laws which stated that government property not be mishandled - like an insane civilian taking the gun of a policeman and shooting down anyone in sight. Their personal involvement with me was unacceptable - I was, after all, just an experiment.

This would have been the end of it \- except the couple did feel like they were parents to me - perhaps even moreso than before, because they had recently discovered that the female was with child. But after that crucial decision, they thought better of informing their authority figures of this situation. Remaining quiet about their fury over the decision, and their abrupt dismissals, they obeyed their government-issued orders and removed themselves and their belongings from the compound I was kept in.

Within a period of three days, however, they didn't go look for other work, or even another place to live. Instead, they holed up in a ratty hotel room and, using one phone and their photographic memories of the compound structure, they concocted a rather clever plan to "kidnap" me and run away to Ysatnaf, where the woman had family who could protect all of us; there, they could expand their family - including me - as well as my education - an education that revolved around real learning and understanding, not obedience and how to eliminate targets. And they would be doing this in Ysatnaf - one of the safest countries for free-thinkers on Enigami (even if it was also home to such Regime-controlled dustbins as Quanaar).

Needless to say, the plan failed, and the couple was caught. As punishment, they were sentenced to be banished from Alicheen indefinitely, sent away to work instead in separate Utarian scientific communities in Yriaf and Elat. Rather than be sent to the other side of the world from Alicheen and separated from each other, especially at this critical time in the growth of their family, the couple escaped and disappeared, forced to leave me behind - I was simply untouchable, too strictly watched by "The Doctor" and the government. (I never held this against them, just to be fair; they had sacrificed their careers, their safety, their freedom, and nearly their lives in order to try and "rescue" me - just because it didn't work out was no reason to despise them; in fact, I can only ever recall them with what I know now is fondness and...well...a sort of nostalgic caring one would usually hold for, say, a particularly kind gradeschool teacher or babysitter.)

Unfortunately, they were uncovered barely a year later at an independent scientific facility in Quanaar, Ysatnaf, by Regime soldiers. In a bid to gain access to Alicheen again, the Regime bartered the couple for entry into the southern region of the country - but the Alicheen government tricked the Regime soldiers escorting the couple. The government later claimed that they acted in this manner because they knew of the child the couple had had, but the Regime had never mentioned a word about the baby. Therefore, Alicheen could still claim that they had been lied to by the Regime, even if, in reality, they didn't care what happened to the baby. It was just a convenient excuse to explain what happened to the soldiers, and to re-establish the anti-Human Law they had momentarily dropped in order to re-claim their errant scientists.

The Human soldiers were disposed of in secret, and after the incident, no other mention was made of the scientists - except that their only child had been taken captive at the now Regime-owned facility in Quanaar which had previously been a predominantly Utarian operation (though even Humans worked there before it was raided by the purist Human Conservatives).

Though I never heard their names repeated again in my presence, it was obvious to me, even at seven years old, that "The Doctor" was pleased with this turn of events: now, "The Test Subject Kerry" had been turned over exclusively to him, and even an official reprimand from the Alicheen government (for allowing "objectionable persons" to become so heavily involved with "the experiment" as to nearly lose them their "subject") couldn't take the twisted glint from the man's eyes as he made a stab at "consoling" a seven-year-old "kidnap victim" by assuring me he wouldn't let anyone take me away from him again.

As if that were supposed to be a relief. As if that were the good part.

To ensure this, he had the government brand me with a tattoo; he tried to tell me it was a mark of one chosen by the illustrious overseers of his great nation (never mine, of course, because I was only allowed to exist by their standards, therefore nothing was mine) to be their special agent.

Even then, I knew it was truly just a symbol of ownership.
The Doctor's Failure

Richard

The orders had come from above, and had been nothing if not clear: locate and retrieve, if but a body. The unspoken understanding, of course, being: dead or alive. And the underlying message which always came with an assignment of this nature: or die trying.

In a way, I was shocked that we were picked, considering even the masters of the corps and the experiment both knew that, at the very least, I considered myself the target's friend--as much as a person can be friends with a virtual machine. And Teegan... Well, in between the lines of their stilted arguments and emotionless bickering, it was obvious that there was some kind of familiarity between them--especially in those last few months before the disappearance of our comrade, when everyone else, besides myself, was sure Teegan avoided the guy even more than usual because his disdain for him had grown so strong.

Come to think of it, it wasn't so surprising that they would send Teegan. If no one else had known the man as well as I did, they would simply think he despised the "pet project" of the government's twisted version of a scientist; however, knowing him as I always have, I suspected there to be more than an irritating rivalry between them. And, as usual, I was right. Though it ran deeper than even I suspected, as was shown when he was faced with an ultimatum one would imagine would have been extremely simple for Teegan to answer, and he stunned everyone, including the one person who knew better: me.

Then again, considering the logistics of the matter, it was completely understandable that Teegan and I were chosen: no one else would, or could, have even had an iota of hope of success but the two of us--together. If they needed to, they could have replaced one with another three or four assassins, but aside from the "Project" himself, Teegan and I were the top of the corps.

Much to the chagrin of our leader; yes, we were considered "the best," but this is not to say we were always cooperative, or that we were proud. I had been merely a wandering soul who had no idea what to do with himself; the ads for the military had been tempting in their compensation for education usually unheard of for Utars of my economic and social background, so I thought it would be my last-ditch effort to get out of one of the few undesirable sections of Alicheen, where Teegan and I hailed from. Teegan, on the other hand, had been sentenced to years in a military academy as punishment for rebellious acts as a youth. In those days in Alicheen--even today--it was very strict and insulated; one was not allowed to wander streets alone at night if one was under the age of fifty. (Anyone older always had something better to do anyway.) So petty acts of vandalism and peace disturbances landed the boy in there as a way to, so to speak, "straighten him out."

It didn't help much, really, except to develop both our already powerful Utral bodies into even more dangerous mechanisms of strength. But Teegan and I also retained something that many military men lacked: our personalities, our beliefs. We were either desperate or forced into this, so we weren't the type to fly our colors, so to speak, when around civilians. In fact, we were more ashamed than anything else. But it guaranteed me a regular meal and something like a job, and Teegan...well, at least he wasn't in jail.

During the second shift of our official military training (out of school, into the active duty), we were taken notice of by the assassin corps leader--not that we knew who he was, but he was scouting the different locations to fill some empty spots in his own "classified mini-army." This dude was above even our commanders, and they couldn't tell us what exactly his rank and position was. So when he saw our skills and, along with a few other potentials, had us psychologically tested, he asked our higher-ups to offer us new positions. Considering our respective unique situations, no matter how good we were, our leaders back then were more than eager to get rid of us: they knew, they could see our lackluster attitudes, and were tired of reminding me that I was a military man, not a hippie (well, excuse me for liking flowers and smiling!), or handing out reprimands (Teegan). Even if I was particularly friendly, merely because I associated with Teegan more than anyone else (and Teegan has never been known for being a people-person), our colleagues probably threw a party when they caught wind of the possibility of us leaving. We knew we weren't exactly loved there, and looking at our pasts, we figured it wouldn't be so bad to leave it all behind, as that was part of the conditions to accepting this chance. So, we left our days of anonymous privates, nameless and faceless soldiers, behind us--taking up, instead, even more stern anonymity in the literally private and shadowy lifestyles of government assassins.

Twenty years we spent together--as friends, comrades, partners in some instances--in this special sect of the government unknown to virtually everyone else in the world, acting as Alicheen's secret hitmen behind the backs of all its naive citizens. We were granted privileges some can only dream of; while at the same time, nobody knew us except our masters and the other assassins.

This was why, when Kerry, the "Project," the "pet" of the science branch's master--a very creepy, powerful older Utar with the disturbing and unique ability of mind control, psychological manipulation, and inflicting mental anguish upon any who would oppose him--disappeared for a year, an unspoken panic began to spread throughout the higher-ups of the corps.

When the signal was finally located in Quanaar, Ysatnaf, Teegan and I were present to hear the chilling interaction between the "Project" and his master.

"Return to Alicheen immediately, Kerry. You have been gone for entirely too long. Your training has undoubtedly suffered."

"...No, thanks."

Teegan and I had exchanged wide-eyed glances; even his voice sounded different. More... like a person. But, in the presence of the assassin corps leader and the scientist, we didn't dare utter a word.

"...Kerry...I am offering you this choice as a friend. A parent, if you will. Out of the goodness of my heart..."

(Oh...really?...The man had one?)

"Return to Alicheen, or you will not be considered one of us any longer."

"...I have not completed the assignment."

We had all been shocked to hear this; Kerry, take more than two days to complete an assignment? An entire year? That was...impossible. Anyone who knew Kerry would have known that this was not only odd, but...just plain...well, impossible! I vaguely wondered if they were sure they had the real Kerry on the other end...

"Then finish it and return; or, if you are unable to finish, delete it from your programming and return. We will send someone else, if we feel the need to carry it out at all anymore."

"...Nah...No, thanks."

Listless, airy, nonchalant. As opposed to...stark and stern non-emotion. He didn't sound upset, afraid, or intimidated; but he did sound more...real.

The master of the "Project" was quickly becoming flustered, having the leader of the assassin corps there as well, overseeing his every order--which were being denied repeatedly. They had always had a debate between them: Kerry needs to have no emotion in order to function properly as our weapon, and Without at least a flicker of emotion, I cannot be sure to be able to control him--if it's even possible to rid him of any feeling at all.

No doubt, by this point, the corps leader was thinking, Told you so, and the scientist was cursing Kerry, You bloody stupid brat, you're making me look a fool!

Instead, he continued in that superior tone of his, remarkably controlled, "You know we cannot simply allow you to abandon us--"

To which Kerry interrupted cleverly, "Then that cancels out the choice facade, doesn't it?"

After an uncomfortable silence, instead of verbalizing the rather obvious positive answer to that, the scientist responded by completely ignoring the direct (yet still questionably rhetoric) question: "Refer to your decision meter, Kerry. What is the highest ranking decision to make in this situation, according to your meter?"

"...To return to Alicheen after finishing my assignment."

"Then why don't you do that." Said as if it were already agreed.

Kerry took it as an actual question instead: "Because the decision I've decided upon does not list on my meter. Funny, that."

Infuriated, the scientist gritted his teeth as he growled out, "Then how can you make that decision if it's not suggested?"

I could almost feel Kerry's careless shrug. "Because it's what I want to do."

"...You cannot decide something that isn't on your meter..."

I caught a glimpse of a smirk flutter over Teegan's bemused face, which he was hardly trying to cover from the two leaders (who wouldn't have noticed any insubordination from the two of us by then anyway, since they were too caught up in the little drama the would-be cyborg was unexpectedly causing them), and I could nearly imagine the same expression crossing Kerry's own features at that exact moment: "Lemme test that out. I'll get back to you if it doesn't work."

And the clever plan the scientist had had--putting the order to Kerry under the veil of a choice in order to really see if the Project was functioning properly, a test to see if he would be able to oppose a direct order when it had been fed into his system as a command, disguised as a "choice"--was blown to pieces. With that devious sarcasm (which, apparently, had existed beforehand, though only one other person had suspected it, but at that time seemed to come out of nowhere), and a simple click and static over the already weak wave connection we had with the missing operative, the scientist had his answer. The "cyborg" was not functioning as he'd expected it to; Kerry, however, was perfectly well and fully-functional...a flaw the scientist had not counted on at all.

Through the cursing and yelling that ensued between the two heads, Teegan and I exchanged glances again--mine being too stunned to be read any other way, and Teegan's being so full of different meanings that I was unsure whether he was more amused by the entertainment, or proud of the one person in the corps he hadn't been able to tolerate for more than an hour...

But in that same instant, the light in his eyes gave him away, and what I'd dared to guess was not hatred but some other odd feeling...proved true. It wasn't quite what I thought--perhaps some kind of respect, or a reluctant fondness, maybe even a twinge of jealousy. Instead, he cemented my suspicions the next day...when he outright sacrificed himself to save our "friend."

It was then that I knew, because Teegan wouldn't go out on a limb like that for anyone but me, and I knew he didn't carry any romantic feelings towards me, and vice-versa...So for him to react like that--friend? Nah--had to be more than that.

Teegan and Kerry hardly "got along" when they were in the same proximity because, as Teegan muttered under his breath many times, "Bloody machine can't think for itself." Independent thought and freedom were both very crucial for Teegan, especially after years of forced military training (many crack and crumble under that pressure over the years; his resolve only grew stronger); getting into the assassin corps was less like an opportunity for him, more like the lesser of two evils--the mindless, droning obedience of the military had been torture for the "free spirit" ("free" being a different definition for Teegan as it is for me when I'm referred to as the same thing--where I'm friendly, outgoing, personable and hyperactive, Teegan's "free spirit" longs to "freely" mope, ponder, muse and brood). Although we still had orders to carry out and the price was becoming government- condoned murderers, at least in this position, Teegan had more privileges than carrying out a jail sentence, or military service put upon him as a punishment.

("That's funny: if I kill a dude because he hit on my lover, I'd get put in jail; if the government tells me who I can kill, they'll take care of me. And I'm doing it. How fucked up is that?"

"Today's an existentialist angst day, is it, Teegan?"

"What do you mean, `day'!?"

"Right: you lead an existentialist angst existence...Hey, say that five times really fast!"

"No.")

I, on the other hand, simply wanted out of the dangerous and desperate squalor of Wasglow, one of the very few tenement districts of Alicheen. I was not militant in the least, really, not in my mind--and most of my knee-jerk reactions to obeying did not come from an instinctive reflex, but of a deeply-thought-out reasoning of If I don't do this, they might send me back to that place. Teegan liked me because he knew, despite my tendency to do as I was told with no complaint and a cheery attitude, that I also felt the same way he did--but indigence can be just as soul-draining and demanding as the military. I wanted to at least be able to say I had done something by choice.

This whole concept of choice was something that was endlessly debated between myself and my best friend, especially after Kerry joined the fray. We had grown up together in Wasglow, constantly butting heads when it came to personal philosophies (yes, even as children) but still being the best of friends; we were separated, of course, when he was sent to the military academy, but that was when I began considering my own position in life, in the world. It wasn't entirely to be with my friend again, but when I decided to join up, it was just a fateful bonus that we ended up in the same division. So we reconnected in the military, found that our mindsets had become closer than we realized, though our personalities were still as different as night and day--which, honestly, I think was crucial to our friendship, because even if we agreed on certain beliefs, we were extreme in those personalities...so we balanced each other out. I respected him for his intelligence and thoughtfulness, his daring and willingness to rebel no matter what the cost, if it meant he was following his beliefs; and he respected and admired my open mind and kindness, my ability to persevere and smile even through the worst of situations. That connection we shared with each other carried over into the assassin corps; there, it grew even stronger, and we became more like brothers than just comrades.

And then the ten-year-old Kerry was brought into the corps as an operative...

Well, obviously we had been shocked--but at the same time, upon meeting this child, we knew he was...not like anyone else. Watching him grow, and growing up ourselves in more subtle yet vital ways than the actual physical appearance of the "mopheaded beanstalk" (Teegan's words, not mine), Teegan and I had countless discussions about the concept of choice. It had been a minor thing when we had been younger, but seeing it tested and broken repeatedly in front of our eyes with this...thing...this half-Human, half-Utar experiment...Teegan and I struggled with our morals and ethics on a daily basis.

Even as a teenager, Kerry showed very minor hints of still being...human, for lack of a better word. Not much feeling or emotion was evident, but even I could detect a wry humor and a genuine thoughtfulness behind the cold blue eyes beyond what the scientists were trying to wring out of him. If anything, the more they tightened their grip, the stronger those hints became--as if he were playing a game, seeing how convincing a machine he would make. But he was unable to hide his true nature from me. Teegan was unsure; he eyed the boy up always as if he were trying to mentally solve a complicated math equation--usually ending with rolled eyes and a muttered, "Bloody weak-minded fool."

But that day, when Kerry officially--and rather flamboyantly--disconnected himself from the Alicheen government, I could see it in Teegan's eyes, the answer he'd been calculating from the start: He did know all along. Kerry fought back, finally\--and won. And he thought it with a smile even Teegan, the master of misery and anguish and doom and gloom, could not smother.

That smile was not evident, however, the next day, when we stood in our assassins' garb on the landing ground of the government's aerial base, awaiting our orders with our typical expressionless faces. The day before, after the secret pride he and I shared over our kind-of friend's successful abandonment of his country, we were brought down heavily by the quiet mutterings between the two heads in front of us: bickering with each other over what to do about the matter.

Kerry knew things. He knew many things. About Alicheen, the government, the Utar race...Things that a random Utar wouldn't consider "common knowledge." Hell--things that even a privileged Alicheen government employee wouldn't know. They may have presented the decision to him as a choice, but underneath, it was obvious that they could not possibly just let the operative go, let loose in a country full of Humans, Regime affiliates, the suspected source of the Rebellion, free-thinking Utars and other Alicheen defectors--the possibilities terrified them. (Note: they had no concern of the boy's potential culture shock or anything of the sort; they never discussed the change that was evident even in his voice. They only worried about covering their own asses.)

Teegan and I knew, before the order was given that cold, windy day on the aerial ground, that we would become involved. The knowledge seeped into my brain minutes after the link was broken between my old friend and the base, and for the rest of the day and sleepless night, I fought internally over what to do.

In the end...I shut down. I caved into my military training and shut down, went on autopilot...so that I wouldn't have to face the consequences of a tired conscience. I was merely obeying orders. I was not well-equipped enough to think or feel anything; I could not make myself search for Kerry with any kind of hope or emotion inside of me. I had to become the cold, hard killer.

Even though, not too deep down, rather near the surface actually...I didn't want to. Killing a politician that is unfavorable in the Alicheen government's eyes...that's one thing. But...my friend?...Even if he himself did not know what "friend" was, I always considered him one.

I knew from the time when I inadvertently "tested" him--when he was thirteen, I was accidentally injured during an assignment, stupidly being hit in the leg with a bullet from an automated security gun in the very beginning. Rather than ignore my pain and carry on as if it had been a solo gig in the first place (as we'd been instructed), he had (quite consciously and deliberately) paused to assist me, checked on my well-being intermittently, and in the end, tended to me first and foremost after getting us both out of immediate danger. Even though his programming had specified to keep the top priority as the mission, to eliminate the target and retrieve an item from safe-keeping, and to return the item to the government...before tending to any other detail of the mission.

To Kerry, the assassination was second; the item we'd snatched was stowed away in a bag and barely thought about. My health, however, was what was occupying the majority of his mind.

I knew from that point on, Kerry was no machine, no matter if he was faking or he really was like that. From then, the question of his nature was no longer an issue--instead, the question became, what parts are an act, and what parts are real? But really, it didn't matter. The fact was, despite numerous little nuances that built into something larger, making him seem like a clueless and naive Human when it came to interaction and behavior, he was no cyborg. He may have been installed with some electronic gadgets, and he had a very cold and logical angle to his intellectual thinking, but the scientists couldn't squeeze the Humanity out of him. When it was crucial to him, he would bypass any gestures to keep up the "act," in order to get done what Kerry thought was necessary; not the government, not the master scientist, not the assassin corps leader, not his fucking decision meter. He did what he wanted, as he saw fit.

For over twenty years, he "saw fit" to play their game by their rules; but when the chance came up for him to opt out of the game, he took it.

And that bitterly cold morning on the landing pad, I had become the Kerry they had wanted out of him: ready to act on their behalf with no trace of guilt or shame--on the surface.

My, how easily I am read by those around me.

Imagine my shock when Teegan, given his orders to retrieve Kerry from Quanaar--this man who, for every time I joked with Kerry and tried to make him act more Human, merely scowled or rolled his eyes over the kid who seemed to not have a shred of something real in others' perceptions--responded abruptly, "I refuse."

There was a long silence, in which the rest of us--the corps leader, the head scientist, myself, one of the government leaders and two of his guards--stopped and gawked at Teegan, stunned.

Not only was it unheard of for a soldier in Alicheen to refuse anything his superiors ordered him to do, but...it was...Teegan. True, he had been rebellious in his younger days, and still harbored a strong defiance towards authority and a hunger for his own freedom, but he was one of the few members of the corps who liked being an assassin...who liked the danger, the fighting, the kill, and wouldn't do anything to jeopardize having that lifestyle. Not to mention he wouldn't risk having to be put back into the military, or jail, now that he had this life.

And, as everyone knew--or assumed they knew...how to put it?...He hated Kerry. Hated everything he stood for, was, seemed to be. The kid was too obedient, too intelligent to be such a lapdog, too stupid about things everyone knew, too cold and calculating where Teegan ran on instinct and feelings, and...he just didn't like him very much. They worked incredibly well on missions together, but the disdain between them was obvious--the hulking, dry-witted, bitterly caustic closet romantic and the deceptively scrawny, icy, sharp-eyed partial-cyborg. In a way, it fit that they didn't get along: they were nothing alike. The only similarity they held that was obvious was that they were both socially inept--though Teegan just disliked people in general and didn't care what anyone thought of him, no matter how rude he came off; whereas Kerry was clueless, naive, and inexperienced when dealing with others in almost any capacity...yet he didn't exactly try to understand either, like he didn't care to put out the effort when other things were more important to him. (As for what other people thought of him--I doubt Kerry ever considered that, even after his escape; it could've seemed arrogant or overconfident, but in regards to him personally...I just don't think it occurred to him--unless you count how he perceived the scientist to perceive him...if that makes sense?)

But in another way, it also fit that they didn't get along: they were too much alike, though anyone back then would never have been able to know, considering all the "acting" Kerry was doing, in his head as well as in front of others.

Their dynamic was...tumultuous. Their sparring matches were spectacles everyone wanted to witness (though Teegan never won one, even with the handicap of Kerry putting one wiry arm behind his back, he was the only one among us who ever came close--certainly the only one who could pin the younger one down for more than a second). Their incessant off-assignment bickering and endless tormenting of each other was...annoying, but amusingly so. (At the time, I knew Teegan did it out of spite; Kerry was a different story, so I tried to stick up for him, reminding Teegan that he was "unique," so many of his questions and poignant remarks were not made in order to, so to speak, show Teegan up, but just honest confusion--now, however, I keep remembering previous incidents...and I wonder how many times Kerry purposefully roused my lifelong friend's ire just for kicks...sneaky little bugger...)

In my mind, I couldn't decide whether they would one day tear off desperately in separate directions and never turn back--or end up killing each other. Even if, later in those years with the corps, they seemed to have some kind of unspoken understanding (which others misinterpreted as pure hatred), I still figured they'd prefer not to be in each others' company. And surely they'd still derive some satisfaction from landing a punch or two in the other's face...

So when the order came to fetch the "cyborg," and Teegan had the chance right in his hands to go wring the guy's neck like he'd wanted to do for so long...

"I refuse."

No one had counted on that. It seemed Kerry and Teegan were both having fun twisting our comfortable, familiar reality to their wills...

"May I ask why?" the leader of the corps asked, still overcoming his own shock.

As if he had declined to do the laundry, Teegan answered, "It is not my place to fetch your lost child."

I didn't believe that for one second. Teegan didn't care who gave the order or who the target was (besides me, of course, but things never ended up getting that twisted)--if it was to act, to fight, to have a struggle, he was all over it...

The older Utar's eyes flickered to me, obviously churning his mind to the next option, which also began surfacing in my own.

"Are you sure it is not because you are sympathetic to others' wishes?"

Of course. The leader knew I liked Kerry--he didn't care one way or the other, but in this instance, I'm sure he got off on the idea of setting me up for some mental anguish. I know the scientist was hiding a boner...

But Teegan was my best friend from our childhood. Everyone knew this. He had tolerated Kerry up until their "secret agreement" (as I'd begun to name it in my head) only because I liked the boy. And even with his own disdain, it would be logical for him to feel bad for going along with the orders, when it obviously tore me up to have to be the one to retrieve the kid.

Teegan just didn't like seeing me in pain, so he was giving me a reason to not be able to go.

To startle us all further, however, he merely answered, "Partly. But in general, no. This was not a deciding factor in my choice."

A snide snarl on his face, the corps leader hissed, "Then what was?"

"Many other factors, sir."

"Please, then...list them for us."

Calm and collected, Teegan responded, "I have lost my faith in the government; if a boy of twenty-four can escape you, one of your own creation, how can I rely on your future decisions? And what right does that incompetent government have to give me orders of any nature? Yes, I sympathize with my colleague over being sent to find our comrade, possibly at the expense of our own lives, but my friend's feelings should not and do not interfere with decisions regarding my work. I am a professional, and I act accordingly. However, I feel the government is not acting as it should in sending its two best assassins on this mission when they, of all people, should know that it is a lost cause. They would be sacrificing two operatives they cannot afford to lose. Furthermore, personally, I do not wish to be killed; it is evident from incidents in the past that this is virtually a suicide mission. If we are to use force if the target resists--and if he refuses to come willingly now, there is no doubt in my mind that he will not change his answer even when confronted with former colleagues, therefore the possibility of resistance is, in my mind, a given--I guarantee, without bias, that we will be overpowered--especially if he is desperate. The target has been trained in multiple ways to kill, some of which neither of us are capable of. There is really no contest.

"However, despite all of these reasons, the main factor for refusing direct orders is that I feel the target has earned his freedom."

The leader balked at this--as did I. Teegan continued, his tone sincere despite his face remaining expressionless, his eyes staring and not seeing a thing.

"It has always been a question in my mind if Kerry was truly being controlled, or if he was merely allowing himself to be led in a secret direction, unbeknownst to you, towards his own personal goals. But he confirmed for me yesterday, that which I've suspected all along: Kerry is no machine, he is no servant, and he has only obeyed you in the past according to what he wished to be surmised."

His eyes suddenly sparkled in a rare moment of unveiled pride, and he smirked at our leader. "He's tricked you fools for over two decades; in my opinion, that's a remarkable feat, and I do not wish to punish anyone for that--if I even could. Not only has he proven you incompetent in my eyes, but he's proven his own independence much more strongly than you've shown your control over him. As we all know I have a personal affinity for self-awareness, it should not come as a shock to you that he holds a higher regard in my heart than my government currently holds."

Okay. I know I said I figured they'd basically "made up," for whatever reasons or maybe even just for my sake, or maybe Teegan started to like him as Kerry got older. But this? More frightening than being sent to retrieve Kerry was hearing Teegan refer to his heart and use Kerry's name in the same sentence! (Unless it was along the lines of "I fear to go near Kerry because he may tear out my heart," or "I'd like to go near Kerry so that I may tear out his heart.")

"He's won my respect and admiration, and it would be against my own morals to stop him. Simply put: I don't want to. I cannot willingly bring him back if he does not wish to return, and he's already shown he does not wish to return. He wanted his freedom from you monsters who forced him into this existence, and now he has it--I cannot and will not assist in taking that from him, in any capacity. And so I formally refuse my orders."

After several long, tense minutes, the leader let out a long sigh, obviously disappointed and holding down a fierce anger.

"You realize you will have to face punishment for this transgression."

Teegan nodded. "I am aware of this."

With a gesture, the corps leader ordered the government official's guards to seize Teegan; surprisingly, he didn't put up a fight when they put the cuffs on him. He even smiled at the prick leader, as if to say, Yeah, bring it on, you'll get yours later...

I, on the other hand, was too shocked to do anything but gawk as the guards led Teegan away by the arms. I watched silently, my jaw hanging open, as he was pulled to the vehicle we had arrived in, and put securely inside--in the back, as a prisoner.

And that's when I realized the leader of the assassin corps was watching me with those beady eyes, that intense glare, waiting patiently for me to restore my wits.

When I collected myself on the outside, swallowing hard, I was still reeling in my mind. I was barely thinking at all.

It was the first time either of us had disobeyed; we'd had our moments, but to outright refuse orders? The threat of punishment from this sect was...far too chilling to even consider. And he'd just agreed, voluntarily, on Kerry's behalf, to take it.

I could already see the scientist in the corner of my vision practically drooling in anticipation over what he had in store for Teegan's punishment. The loss of his prize experiment had surely driven him over the edge, and now Teegan was going to have to bear the brunt of the twisted old man's rage and embarrassment. And, in a flicker of realization, I saw that the pervert had come to a realization himself--one not even Teegan could admit to himself, let alone me, until the doctor showed it to him...I instantly began to fear for my friend, because that look told that the scientist knew just what to use to get to Teegan for his punishment; and there was not a damn thing I could do about it, because, even if there was a way I could interfere in the punishment, I wouldn't know what that secret was.

If I couldn't stop Teegan from being hurt...then I was going down with him. Whether he sacrificed himself so I wouldn't have to feel bad for going after Kerry, or so Kerry could have his freedom--or, as I would discover later, for his own selfish reasons--I wasn't going to let him go through this alone.

Just that thought itself was enough to make up my mind for me, but after hearing Teegan's words...after the jumbled mess that was my head cleared...I knew what was going to be asked of me, and I already knew my own answer.

"And you? Your orders are the same. When you accept them, as I know you will, we shall find you adequate partners to be sent--"

I cut him off with my own soft, timid voice (believe me, even Kerry was startled, when first meeting me, that I sound as I do, with the way I look--like Teegan, with the intimidating stature, but the soft baritone to balance the equation...though Teegan, unlike myself, can make himself sound threatening and vicious when he wants to).

"I am truly sorry, sir, but...I also am forced to refuse the orders."

Sure he had misheard, he leaned down closer to me and asked--quite politely, as many people do with me, since I've always been a polite person myself--to repeat myself.

More firmly, I did so, making sure there was not a quiver to my voice this time. I squelched my own fear by remembering Teegan's words, knowing that he was right, and that I truly did believe the same thing--and if I hadn't shut myself off as I'd done, I would have been the first to refuse. Since I hadn't the strength to be the first, then, I instead took Teegan's surprising U-turn and used it as fuel to put more conviction in my answer.

After an eternity of silence and a piercing glare--which, I'm proud to say, I did not blink, flinch or look away from, but held in utmost sternness and belief--the assassin corps leader turned away from me instead, as if he couldn't look at me anymore. He barked to the fast-approaching guards, who had locked Teegan in the back of the vehicle, to add me to the prisoner section of the van.

The poor guards looked baffled; I didn't know them, and it was fairly obvious they didn't know exactly what was going on, but they obeyed--though I literally had to go to them and hold my own hands out for them to cuff me.

And, amongst the ensuing arguments between the three leaders present, I caught on that the search for Kerry would be abandoned, considering no other operatives would even have a hope of retrieving him--if they could even find the sneaky little fucker. Though I was also relieved that I would not have to be the one to go after my friend, and relieved that the poor kid had finally won against this monstrosity we called the scientific branch of the Alicheen government, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the realization of my impending doom: what form of punishment would that sick prick think up for us? What was the "secret" he would use against Teegan? What would he find to use against me? What was my weakness? Seeing as Kerry was his pride and joy, and we were aiding the absentee in his escape by not helping the government retrieve him, I knew one thing was certain: it wasn't going to be pretty.

We'd helped keep Kerry away from his monster master, and now the monster was going to turn on us instead. If we survived, I thought to myself, I hoped karma truly existed. By protecting Kerry, we'd just earned ourselves years of rewards.

The turn-around between Kerry and Teegan happened on a specific night. For a time up until then, I recall Teegan going a bit softer on the kid, even if Kerry didn't seem to need it. But there was definitely an abrupt change in attitude after one specific night.

No one saw what happened, and rumors circulated through our relatively small group like wildfire--but no one, excluding myself, dared to confront either of them about it to get the straight story. Even when I asked Teegan directly, he--in a rare moment--simply looked confused, lost for words, and stumbled over his own tongue before shaking his head at my telling him that everyone thought he'd tried to kill the younger man. He merely mumbled softly, "I was only trying to help...Wouldn't do that...I tried to help..."

But that was all he would say about it. Whatever it was that happened, it certainly had an effect--on both of them. Teegan would see Kerry enter the room, and he would sigh heavily and leave, but not how he used to scowl and roll his eyes: after that night, his insistence to be away from the kid seemed reluctant, or...even afraid. I asked him if Kerry had tried to hurt him, and Teegan just laughed bitterly, a sadness in his eyes as he assured me that he hadn't.

I began to notice little things. The way Teegan would flash a concerned glance towards the Halfie when they passed each other, but then how he would rush onward if Kerry seemed like he would stop; on the other hand, Kerry seemed to become more lifeless, more expressionless. He looked older, and not in a good way; his eyes were sunken but sharp, narrow--like he was in assassin mode twenty-four hours a day. If I had known at the time that he could feel those things, I would've known that he was sulking; instead, I just thought he was becoming more robotic than ever. Quiet and stiff, barely acknowledging anyone else. I noticed how Teegan would become tense and irritable anytime the scientist was around, even if Kerry wasn't in the room.

And I noticed, overall, how Kerry tried repeatedly to approach him, and when Teegan left the room, would look...the closest to hurt as I'd ever seen on him. I knew something was going on--where before, they purposefully avoided each other, Kerry reluctantly accepting my offer to join us for a meal when he realized Teegan was there, or Teegan scoffing when Kerry asked a simple question...I noticed that, after that night, they truly did spend more time apart. Everyone else, of course, whispered that they couldn't be near each other because they might try to fight; knowing Teegan so well, and picking up on the subtlety of Kerry's--yes\--emotions being unable to be held back anymore, I saw, instead, two people who now wanted to be friends...but couldn't. For one reason or another.

And then, one night, just before Kerry disappeared, Teegan admitted to me moodily at my persistent questions, "If I get near him, I might hurt him."

I was confused because my instincts are pretty good, so the actual words didn't fit at all with what I had suspected. But the way he said them...He wasn't talking about physically hurting Kerry; he meant he might do him more harm than good.

Not that this answered any other questions for me. I had to wait for over a year after that little confession, to get any real answers. And Teegan wasn't hiding them from me on purpose. He simply...didn't know. Until something that was supposed to destroy him instead woke him up more. And that was the doctor's second huge mistake.

My punishment had been brutal; being shown memories of my abusive father, my terrible life in the so-called "projects," my fears of being left alone to wither away and have no connection to any sort of reality anymore...

I had nightmares for weeks afterwards, waking up in a cold sweat after falling into an endless void in my dreams. I saw ghostly images of someone I'd never met, so beautiful and yet I couldn't see their eyes, couldn't make out their face, and it always vanished before I could grasp it.

And I would wake in a cell next to Teegan's, and he would already be awake, staring glumly at the cement floor and, undoubtedly, repeating his own punishment in his mind.

On the third night of our detainment, at his concerned urging, I dared to share with him what my punishment had shown me.

I was terrified of being nothing, not being anything to anyone, afraid to be exposed to any type of violence, and of never finding that person who would make my heart beat faster and my hand reach out to hold onto something real. This anonymous life...this assassin's confidentiality...it was destroying me. I wanted to know more, more things, more people, more life. And I...couldn't continue taking it--life, that is. The more I thought of all the people I'd killed, the sicker I felt and the stronger the urge came to repay those atrocities I'd committed, even if under order, with my own life.

It was made clear by the doctor, to the corps leader, that my future after this punishment had become undeniably altered; considering my knowledge and my past with the corps, that future wasn't going to go very far at all. But I couldn't continue being an assassin--it was simply impossible. I would never be able to do it. It wasn't even my choice anymore, really; I would be unable to pull the trigger, so to speak. So what to do with an unusable assassin? I pretty much knew what was going to happen. But by then, after so many disturbing nights and memories, I was ready to beg them to execute me.

What I didn't want to admit to myself that the doctor forced me to see? My happy, kind, friendly, cheerful exterior...was a cover for how much I hated myself. How much confidence and certainty I lacked. I longed to die, to be rid of all of it...and yet, one tiny shred of me refused to let go, because I was so sure...so sure of that mysterious image in my dreams--but that only caused me more pain, because I was only certain that whoever it was would let go of my hand once they knew who I was, what I was, what I'd done for so many years...so dying would just be the logical thing to do...

But if there was one tiny iota of a chance that I would find this person...and they would somehow knock down all my defenses and break through every wall to get to me--and not run in horror...

Well, then, I would put up with the constant hell. Because one moment of honest love from them would be worth the pain. Because that one moment would be forever for me...

If that makes sense. Well, it did to me, somehow.

And now, the extended punishment was knowing that even with all that strife on my head, I was willing to continue living...but I would more than likely be killed for becoming useless.

I talked so much that night that I slept without dreaming. It was a blessing, really. And just before I drifted off, I tried to ask Teegan about his punishment--but he just smiled through the bars at me and said, "Don't worry about it."

I didn't that night; I was too damn tired from recounting all that emotional bullshit that I didn't have the energy to stay up and listen. Thankfully, Teegan knew this, so he put up with his own troubles for one more night before I bugged him to tell me the next night.

What he told me floored me.

Unable to look at me, keeping his gaze on the ground as we both sat hunched on our respective beds, separated only by the bars and a few feet, he told me what the doctor had shown him: "I lied when I said I didn't want to go after Kerry. I do want to find him... because I...I have feelings for him."

I had to blink a few times when I realized what he was actually saying. When I did, I blurted out thoughtlessly, "You what!?"

He just laughed, but it was a tired, sad sort of chuckle. Rubbing his forehead, still not lifting his gaze, he sighed heavily. "He tried to use that against me... Kept telling me that I should go to find him...bring him back...so I could be with him again. But I kept refusing--because I didn't want to..." He winced, shaking his head. "I can't."

"...Can't what?"

"I can't be with him," he whispered shakily. Folding his hands together and pressing them against his mouth, he muttered tearfully, "If I go after him, they'll take him away...and he's worked so hard, for so long, to get where he is...and now that he's free... After all they've done to him, if I was responsible for him getting captured...I wouldn't be able to forgive myself."

I tried to piece everything together in my head, but I was still coming up short on a few points. Finally, I resorted to the basics: "What did he show you?"

Closing his eyes, Teegan told me what the doctor had done while messing around in that mental enigma that is Teegan's mind. And right away, bulls-eye: the mysterious night in question that no one really knew about.

The assassin corps is made up of twenty-five individuals who were hand-picked by the leader himself, all from military backgrounds, usually those who were a bit more strong-willed than the average soldier. The tests the leader gave to determine who would be an ideal candidate for this position concerned someone's flexibility with, eh...morals, ethics, and how far one would go to satisfy a certain need, whether that be money, pride, or obeying for fear of death.

Strangely enough, more men than women qualified for this corps. (Yes, that's sarcasm.)

Still, the few women who were in the corps were...how shall we say?... unavailable to the rest of us for any other, um, activities. Hell, with Utars, it doesn't really matter anyway, considering almost a quarter of our entire race is not concerned about gender when it comes to love or sex. Even so, one of the few very strict lifestyle rules in the corps is that we are not to have relationships of the romantic sort. We all knew some people willingly crossed the line and hid it when it came to sex, but...well, surprisingly, Teegan is not one of those who would go to just anyone to fuck, basically. I've always known this about him, so it doesn't surprise me. Simply put, he wasn't about to screw around with any corps assassin, so he pretty much suffered because he wasn't the type to go out for a prostitute (not that prostitutes are very easy to find in Alicheen anyway).

That being said...a man does have needs. And after years without any "action," it would be easy to confuse genuine fondness with lust. So no wonder he was baffled by his own actions for those months between "that night" and Kerry's disappearance. He was just trying to sort through his own bullshit to get to the truth--and that truth didn't show itself until over a year later when the doctor made him see it.

Still, he admitted to me that night, it didn't mean that what happened between him and Kerry was all just an inability to control himself because he was...well, horny. (Just to be clear, nothing happened, it wasn't able to before other obstacles came up--but the fact that he wanted it to was what shook Teegan so hard.) A lot of it was eerily genuine, coming from Teegan, and he was startled that it was...Kerry, of all people, who made him lose his cool.

Specifically, I recall it being a very late night, a very hot night, and my bedroom door was left halfway open. So I heard the shuffling of Teegan's feet as he sauntered down the hallway--surely, I figured, he had given up his few staunch "morals" and he was gonna go hunting. (Generally we weren't to be off the base at all, but that late at night, the rules slackened, and considering we were all assassins, it wasn't easy for us to get caught; in fact, it never happened, and many members had slipped out for a night, so our leader trusted us to be as cautious in public as we were when on assignment.)

I drifted in and out of a hazy sleep as my fan drowned out most of the noise from outside my room, which really wasn't a lot. It was awfully quiet, and usually was by two in the morning--because everyone was either asleep or on assignment. But just below the drone of the fan, I could hear voices mumbling quietly to each other. Just a few feet from my door, I guessed lazily. I couldn't see their shadows, but I knew they were just on the edge of the common room, around the corner from my half-open door. I couldn't make out anything that was said, but I heard a few mumbles and hisses...and then something like a struggle...

A few quiet moments later, I nearly shot out of my bed. Not only was the shouting sudden and loud, but it was particularly troubling. Not even shouting so much as some kind of anguished outcry, not a wail because it wasn't whiny, but definitely painful.

I started towards the door, stumbling over my own bedsheets, and slammed against the wall in my haste, unable to get out in time to see what had happened. Instead, I listened intently, barely breathing, and could only make out the faint sounds of someone weeping. This went on for a few minutes, though calming as time went on. I hesitated in my doorway because I wasn't sure whether I should have gone to see what was going on, or if I should have just left it alone, seeing as whoever else was out there, they seemed to have it under control.

But when I felt myself nodding off as I leaned against my doorframe, I jerked myself awake enough to turn back to my bed--and was stopped once again by a different voice shouting quite clearly, "What the hell do you think you're doing!?"

I whirled back to the doorway, closing the empty space almost entirely when I recognized the creepy doctor's voice; I kept my door open only slightly so that I could still listen, but I wanted nothing to do with that prick.

But as I listened, unable to make out many clear words, I became stunned at what I could hear--Teegan, arguing with the doctor in a stifled, restrained voice, while the desperate sobbing continued, turning almost to shrieking for a moment--and then nothing. Teegan's voice was hoarse and muffled, like he was gritting his teeth, when he demanded of the doctor, "Why'd you do that!? You didn't have to--"

And the doctor cut him off sharply, though quietly, and mumbled some kind of threat dangerous enough to keep Teegan quiet. Several heavy footsteps faded away as the doctor continued in that oily, disgusting tone of his, and then his clacking shoes told me he was gone as well. After a long period of dead silence, I was sure the room was empty--but then Teegan interrupted the silence with a furiously hissed, "Shit!" before stomping down another hallway to his room. I could hear him slam the door all the way from my own quarters. Even if I'd been expecting it, and even if I'd been far enough away for it to merely be an echo, I still jumped.

I debated on whether to go to him that night--sometimes it's better to let Teegan cool off first, while other times he needs someone there right away.

Seeing as the couch had received an uncalled-for denting, I decided it would be best to let my own ass remain undented. It was hard to get back to sleep after that, but somehow I managed. I tried to figure out what could have been going on, but the memory of that agonizing scream was too distracting to think of anything, really.

I didn't even know it had been Kerry until the next day; it hadn't sounded like him at all. I tried to ask Teegan about it, but he was...well, not in a talkative mood, to say the least. It was one of the few things in our lives he had never properly explained until long afterwards--but at that time, from the looks of things, I figured it was better that I didn't get involved after all. Teegan obviously agreed. And Kerry...well, who knew what he thought? The rest of us wondered and speculated, came up with our own scenarios, but none of it turned out to be close to what had happened.

From Teegan's point of view, things went a bit differently.

He just wanted to get out for a walk. Stifled from the heat of the night and restless because of his usually calm libido deciding to be a nuisance, he thought some exercise would take his mind off of things. It was just a passing thing, he could get through this, he'd done it plenty of times before. It was no big deal.

No big deal until he encountered Kerry in the general room. He said the kid looked so unlike himself that even Teegan was concerned within the first second of seeing him. It didn't help matters that he hadn't been seen by any of the corps members for days beforehand, and when I asked our leader about it, he simply explained crisply that Kerry was undergoing some experimental testing with the doctor that week.

(We learned later that "experimental testing" meant the doctor's experiments with his own powers, using Kerry as the subject--nothing to do with Kerry's abilities, really, unless you want to go so far as to suggest the doctor was trying to find the Halfie's limits. Which really wouldn't be going too far at all, considering the type of monster the doctor was. And if the guy's "tests" had rendered Kerry as weak as they did, there's no doubt in my mind that it would have killed a normal person.)

With just one glance, Teegan could see that the kid was uncharacteristically tired, which was surprising because we all knew Kerry didn't sleep much--he didn't need to. A few hours a week was enough for him. The rest of the time he spent working, whether it was mechanical, strategizing, fact-finding, or just disappearing with the doctor for hours on end, having whatever tests done to him that the weirdo asshole put him through. His sloppy state of dress was off-putting as well, not that he dressed up much or even took good care of his uniforms. But it looked as if he'd thrown on whatever had been around as fast as he could: his sweater seemed lopsided, like the neckline had been stretched, and his pants were too loose, like someone who had recently lost a lot of weight, and his hair was stringy, limp and damp with sweat...

Kerry was absent-minded and not very concerned when it came to personal grooming, but he was just too out of sorts to be "okay" that night. To see him with dark circles under glazed eyes and a somewhat pleading, sad look on his face (which seemed more ashy than the usual disturbingly pale white that is Kerry's skin tone), Teegan was taken aback--enough to forget his "problem" all together. He asked if Kerry was all right, and the Halfie shook his head plainly, a wide-eyed, paranoid look to him--he looked "haunted," Teegan said, spooked...frightened. Talk about not being yourself!

Then, in his deep voice that was much more raspy than usual, Kerry asked the same of Teegan, though nothing changed about his look: it was just a courtesy. But it didn't seem like he was going to elaborate on his own response unless Teegan pushed to know--Kerry was never one to offer information anyway unless it was asked for (and then only if he knew it was "appropriate").

"What's wrong?" Teegan asked worriedly. A typical response from Kerry when asked how he was would be to ask why someone would question his well-being, citing the fact that he is conscious and functional to be proof enough that the question wouldn't need to be asked in the first place. (Basically, "Why ask if you see I'm fine?")

Something was definitely wrong, Teegan said. The younger man was more than just out of sorts: confused and uncertain, paranoid, even trembling a bit. Teegan recalled that our leader had said Kerry would be in testing all week, and with that doctor, all week meant all week.

Teegan was sharp enough to realize that Kerry...was not supposed to be there. The doctor was probably looking for him. But if Kerry, the obedient lapdog, was lurking around the base, trying to hide from the doctor...

Taking a deep breath, Teegan approached him carefully, and Kerry looked like he would either lunge at him, or leap backwards.

Instead, Kerry just gulped and held out a hand, as if to push Teegan back, even though he was too far away to touch. He asked why Teegan was up, saying it was late and he should be sleeping.

"I could say the same for you. In fact, isn't there somewhere else you're supposed to be right now?"

Kerry flinched--it was the first time Teegan could remember him looking like he was in pain--but then just shook his head again, swaying slightly in his place. Ignoring the comment, he asked where Teegan was going.

"Just out for a walk."

Kerry did something very awkward, then: he smiled a lopsided, wavering smile, and, his gaze low, like he was ashamed to look at Teegan, his voice came out in a startlingly high-pitched quiver, "C-Can I...come with you?" As if asking it as a joke, like he knew Teegan would say no--or, more accurately, as if to say, "Yeah, right, like I'm even allowed." To Teegan, the tone was clearly a faltering cover-up, a cracking sheet of very thin plastic trying hold back a storm of hysteria.

Teegan hesitated, seeing how the Halfie was leaning heavily on the back of one of the couches, like it was the only way to stay on his feet. His eyelids fluttered several times, and just as his knees buckled and he started to collapse, Teegan took two rushed steps forward and caught him under the arms, surprised by how light the guy was, especially for his height (for the record, the same height as Teegan, two inches taller than me).

As soon as he touched him, Teegan admitted, he instantly remembered his own "problem," and something strange happened. Situations similar in nature (not circumstances) to that had happened to him before, and he'd always been able to resist it, push it away, keep with his own private promise to not give in to just lust. But when he looked down at Kerry in his arms, only half-conscious, so obviously and rarely vulnerable, Teegan confessed that he just didn't want to try forgetting it. At the time, he didn't know why, just figuring he couldn't control his own urges--but after the doctor "reminded" him of the incident, he knew that he couldn't let go of the younger man because he...really cared. Seeing Kerry like that was like a punch in the stomach--it took the wind out of Teegan. (That, and coming to the realization that he was attracted.)

He tried to ask if Kerry was okay, pointlessly, but halfway through the question, Kerry opened his eyes and lifted his head--and the next thing he knew, Teegan was kissing him, pulling him closer and trying to grope him. Kerry was awake by then--shocked out of his little "spell," whatever it had been, Teegan said. He made a move to jerk back at first, but then stopped, letting Teegan kiss him; he didn't react much, didn't melt in his arms or anything like that. In fact, Teegan eventually realized that Kerry was staring at him with the most baffled look on his face--not stunned or appalled, merely puzzled, and curious.

Realizing this rather unaffected coldness, Teegan let go and stepped back, clearing his throat.

"Why did you do that?" came that typically clueless, inquisitive tone. Not angry, not passionate, not even flustered. Just wanting information.

Teegan glared at him heatedly--even then, he told me, he couldn't shake the urge to just grab him and do it again, even going overboard and maybe just giving the kid more of a lesson than he probably wanted in why Teegan had "done that."

"You don't know?" Teegan hissed at him, grappling with the dual dilemmas of (first) whether he should even try coming on to him now, despite his own strong urges, when Kerry looked like he'd already been through the wringer, and (second) coming to grips with the fact that he was, in fact, attracted to the younger man...at all.

"I know that people have natural urges to procreate--" Kerry tried to explain logically (and Teegan didn't miss the slight slur to his speech). "But I've always known your intelligence level to be exceptionally high, and I am obviously not equipped to carry a child--"

"I don't give a fuck about procreation--"

"That's a sensible conclusion to make, since your advances are being made on another male, so the possibility that you wish to procreate with me would be eliminated--"

It occurred to Teegan that this slight detour in their situation was...actually kind of comical...

"There are other reasons for making such advances on another, however. Some people long for affection, or just to copul--"

"Oh, fuck, forget it," Teegan blurted, fed up with the "lesson," then gripped the boy's arms, ready to smash his lips again--but then he stopped, because the question in those dark eyes was shifting slightly. And Teegan wanted to see where it was going.

Kerry blinked and tilted his head to the side. "Are you really that desperate?" A twinge of teasing to his voice.

Teegan was taken aback again; not just that the kid had asked it, but that...he'd done so with a smirk on his face.

"I mean, c'mon...it's me. You don't want to ruin your reputation, do you?" Kerry's eyebrows waggled suggestively. "What would the neighbors say?" He giggled deliriously, then winced, slumping forward slightly.

It was Teegan's turn to be confused. Kerry was switching back and forth between clueless robot and knowledgeable smartass too drastically for Teegan, and his already flustered body couldn't take it anymore. As much as he knew he wanted him in that moment (nevermind asking why he suddenly felt attracted to this kid he generally wasn't all that crazy about--at least, in the front of his mind, let's not forget...), he forced himself to let go, his breathing coming fast and heavy and his mind reeling through a fog of frustration.

"I'm not desperate," Teegan growled at him, rubbing his forehead. "I just..."

Kerry sounded weary and lost again as he assured Teegan, "There are plenty of others here who would want to--"

Sick by the mere suggestion of being that "loose," Teegan snapped his head up and grabbed him by the shoulders, scowling at him fiercely. "I don't want just anyone," he sneered, surprising himself with his own words--and how true they were. "It doesn't work that way with me--"

Kerry squinted at him. "How does it work, then?"

"What do you mean, how does it work? It just happens, Kerry, I just feel it--"

"But why would that happen if you are associating it with me?"

"It's...It's...I don't know, okay? I really don't. I just know that it's right here," he slapped a hand against his chest, although he could have slapped a little lower too and been just as accurate, "and it's real."

The younger man looked dazed. "There..."

"Yes--and...well..."

"It isn't just...a natural reaction from hormones?"

"That's not the point--"

"If you're feeling aroused, like I said, you could have anyone here. I'm sure of that. Maybe not Richard or the doctor or your master, but other than them..."

"Would you stop this already!? Why are you trying to discredit yourself?"

Kerry's eyes drifted around for a moment, then settled on Teegan. "What is it...that makes a person...long for someone else?"

Teegan narrowed his eyes at him, unsure of what he was asking--or why. "Look, all I'm saying is that...I...have never been with anyone here. And I've been here for so many years..."

"I'm very sorry."

Teegan rolled his eyes.

"That must be terrible for you."

Perhaps it was the fact that Kerry was so distressed otherwise, but he honestly sounded like he meant it. Teegan sighed again, trying to explain himself more clearly. "Kerry, the only thing I can tell you is that...I've always been able to control myself. When it comes to attraction, to sex, to this...I've always been able to stop if I knew I had to. I've never actually felt a...longing for someone..." He hesitated for a moment, then lifted a hand from Kerry's shoulder, touching his face gently. "I wasn't...I couldn't stop...I saw you, and I couldn't..."

Tired eyes slowly closed and then reopened, and Kerry slurred, "So...your hormones were activated by me somehow? Or were they already active and the urge was perhaps so strong because you have gone without for so long--"

Teegan scoffed and his hand tensed for a second, but he relaxed it immediately. "Hormones, chemicals, rules of attraction--I don't know, and I don't care. All I know is that--whatever it is, whatever you want to call it--I feel it for you...Please, at least try to make it sound more personal!"

"Why?"

For an instant, Teegan wanted to slap him--sure he was being a smartass again. But then...he realized that Kerry was honestly asking.

Not as a robot. And not as a curious knowledge-seeker.

There were tears in Kerry's eyes. "I don't understand..." he said helplessly. "Where it all comes from...Where does it...Why does it feel like this?"

He didn't realize the subtle wording Kerry used--so he didn't get it right away; to him, Kerry was just being difficult again. Trying to pick apart the physiology of Utars, Humans, any species, really...

Sighing, Teegan dropped his hands, lowering his voice. "Nevermind," he told him, feeling useless--how could he explain it to Kerry if he didn't know himself why only Kerry was able to make him forget himself like that, to lose his control enough to lay a hand on him...

"I want to," Kerry pleaded suddenly.

Teegan looked into the dark eyes again, saw the frustration in them. But he could only shake his head. "It doesn't matter," he blurted out, his voice betraying him and coming out harsher than he'd intended. He went on anyway, not bothering to try and cover his irritation. "I'd be surprised if you even have a libido. With all your other functions, y'think they fucked that up? Or maybe they took it out?"

Kerry's wet eyes blinked again, but he only shook his head.

"Just...forget this happened," Teegan growled again, waving him off. He was finding it more and more difficult to look at the kid--especially with that suddenly emotional expression...

"It doesn't matter," Teegan muttered, more to himself than to Kerry, though Kerry could clearly hear him. Teegan turned away and continued, "Even if you could understand, you'd never be able to relate--you gotta be able to feel to know what I'm talking about. And you..." He paused, then tossed over his shoulder, "Hell, whadda you know about love? No one'll ever love you, because you can't love 'em back."

Kerry swallowed, and Teegan could see out of the corner of his eyes that his lip was quivering.

"What?" came the sharp retort--Kerry was clearly not asking for information this time. He actually sounded...offended.

Teegan turned back to him and shrugged listlessly, gesturing to him. "C'mon--no matter how attractive you are, you can't have sex, because you have to be able to feel to make love to someone. So no matter how horny I am, or how much I'd want you, even just for an hour--hell, it wouldn't matter. You can't feel anything."

Teegan was too disappointed to realize how far he was going, not even seeing what was going on behind Kerry's eyes. It didn't even register that the boy was literally crying right there in front of him, and he kept pushing.

"You're nothing but their pawn--those other times I had a vague sense that maybe, just maybe, you had someone in there, some individual with a personality...I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe I just feel so attracted physically that I'm trying to attach things to you that aren't there. But it's just hopeless in the end: you'll never feel love, in any way. But...what do you care? Not like it hurts, right? It's not like--"

And that's when Kerry broke. It could be a pun, but really, even if he'd never been perceived as some kind of weapon, machine, cyborg-whatever-you-call-it, it would have been the same thing: he just broke.

Slumping over, shoulders hunched, the boy was hugging himself fiercely as Teegan trailed off, finally realizing the words that were coming out of his mouth--and Kerry's reaction to them. Just the fact that he was reacting...proved Teegan wrong.

There was a series of harsh, strangled gasps, and Teegan cautiously stepped towards him again, reaching out a hand.

"H-Hey...You okay?" he asked gently, regret filling him as his own words repeated in his head. All the while, he thought, Did I just say those things out loud? To him? Did I even...mean them?

"C-Can't...l-lo--" Kerry choked out, sounding like someone had their hands around his throat. "C-Can't f-feel--l-lo--N-No one could l-love...something like...me..."

Teegan paused, biting his lip. Was it really all right to try to comfort someone who may not appreciate it? Who wouldn't know what it was?

"D-Don't...know...b-because I...n-never...w-was...And never...will..." A sharp, hissing inhalation, then a rush of air as Kerry whimpered, "That's what she said..."

Teegan leaned forward slightly, trying to make out what was coming from the Halfie's lips. "What?" he whispered softly.

"Sh-She...d-didn't...didn't w-want...me..."

Teegan shook his head, trying to recall any instance where Kerry may have been involved with one of the females--no, no...that was just ridiculous...

"Sh-She h--ha--hated me...Th-They...gave her m-money..."

He felt like he was getting more lost with every word that came out, but didn't know how to ask what Kerry was talking about--

"T-Tried to...l-lose me...She th-threw herself down...s-stairs...She t-tried to...t-take d-drugs...c-couldn't get any...I never...never asked to exist! It wasn't my fault! She never w-wanted...a...a child, but I didn't...I didn't do anything!"

Teegan sucked in a breath, closing his eyes. "Gods..."

"H-He showed me...He showed me all of it...What he remembered..." Covering his face, Kerry sobbed into his hands, shaking violently. "I was made...from hate...a-and I was born...unwanted...I d-don't know what this...this is...this feeling..." A fist slid down to his chest, pounding on it furiously. "I don't know what it is..."

Teegan stopped hesitating finally, seeing how distraught Kerry was, how he was swaying again. Sighing regretfully as he tried to think of how to apologize, Teegan reached out for him.

As soon as his fingers brushed against a shoulder that was now only half-covered by the loose black sweater, the boy's head snapped up and Teegan saw that his cheeks were soaked with tears, and a trail of blood trickled down his chin from where he'd been biting his lower lip to keep himself together--which obviously hadn't worked.

"Kerry, I'm s--"

A pair of clawed, rigid hands groped for Teegan's arms as that cry of pure emotion ripped out of Kerry, though the rest of his body went limp. Teegan immediately moved to catch him again, and this time, Kerry didn't even try to recover. Instead, he fell into the welcoming hold, and, being a bit off-balance, they stumbled to the floor together--but Teegan didn't let one inch of the younger man hit ground harshly. He took the brunt of the fall, straightened himself up a bit, then continued to gather the hysterical, shaking boy in his arms, not even wincing when he felt nails digging through his shirt to scratch his chest in desperation.

While Teegan tried to whisper senseless words of comfort to him, Kerry could only cry, literally weeping into his shoulder, grunting as his body twitched and jerked with spasms as he begged Teegan to help him...

"Help you?" Teegan asked, not even considering going to someone else--in fact, not even thinking to let anyone else handle this "problem" at all. He fully expected to be the one to fix this--he told me straight-out, what he wouldn't allow himself to acknowledge was that he'd hoped to be the one to fix things.

"Please," Kerry cried, "please, help me--I can't--I can't take it anymore--I d-don't want to...to do it...I c-can't...f-feel anyth-thing anymore--"

Teegan laughed softly, lowering his head to brush his lips against the damp forehead--Kerry was sweating? Kerry never sweats!

"You're certainly feeling something right now, aren't you?" Teegan reminded him, hoping that he sounded reassuring. He pulled back a little to look down at him, but Kerry just tensed and whimpered.

"D-Don't...Don't let go..."

"I wasn't--"

"P-Please," Kerry begged, burrowing further into his hold. "D-Don't let me...g-go...N-not yet..."

Teegan shook his head immediately, clutching him tighter. "No, no--I won't, I'm right here--"

"D-Don't let him...d-don't let him...please...Don't let him take me away--I don't want to...g-go yet, please, Teegan, don't let him..."

"Who? Don't let who?"

Kerry just hiccupped and pressed his face against Teegan's chest--he feared, Teegan confessed, that he would be able to feel how fast his heart was racing, but then, at the same time, hoped he would...

But Kerry only groaned and clenched his fists. "T-Teegan...I n-need...I need to..."

"What?" Teegan coaxed him gently. "What can I do?"

Shaking his head, Kerry lifted his arms up, wrapping them around Teegan's neck--like a child holding onto the last trustworthy person in their life. "I don't care," Kerry blurted out. "Do anything, please--I'm not...not a...machine...I'm not...I need to feel something, anything\--hit me or kick me or punch me or shoot me or--or--hurt me, I don't care--just make me feel something again, I can'tfeel anything but this panic--this--Gods, just make it stop, I'm so tired..."

And, of course, Teegan being Teegan--and Teegan being in the state he was in--he wanted so much to help, since he'd helped reduce Kerry to this unrecognizable bag of uncontrolled emotion, that he could think of only one thing to do to comply--and to prove to Kerry that he knew he'd been wrong when he'd said that Kerry would never feel love in his entire life. He leaned over and, lifting the damp face upwards, kissed his forehead, much less desperate and frenzied than before, but somehow, with even more feeling behind it.

After a frozen moment, Kerry relented, closing his eyes and seeming to fall into the embrace this time, relaxing into the strong arms protecting him.

It was the closest any of us had ever gotten to Kerry--and it was the real Kerry in there speaking, clawing and fighting so fiercely to not forget himself. And in the process, he'd let himself be known to someone else--and during that process, Teegan went through his own. Watching how hard Kerry fought to remain in control (not emotionally, but in control of his own individuality so that he could keep that part of himself), Teegan knew he had misjudged the kid from the beginning, and that his vague suspicions from the few times Kerry had "hinted" that he wasn't falling for their "game" were dead-on.

But by that point, after over twenty years of staying so in-line and maintaining the lie to a brilliant madman such as that scientist, it's no wonder, really, that Kerry broke down. He should have done so years before, but he'd held on so long, and it wasn't until Teegan pointed out to him that he'd become that way that Kerry really began to panic. If he hadn't run into Teegan that night, he may never have been able to notice it, and would have certainly turned into what they'd wanted all along.

But with that realization, and then the genuinely heartfelt moment they shared, Kerry remembered. And that was all he needed to keep going.

Unfortunately, at that moment, things didn't go very smoothly. It was as if Teegan had reached him just in time, had shown him true caring just by holding him--even going the extra mile by kissing his forehead, smoothing his hair, whispering to him, because Teegan is just so self-sacrificing that he'd go to those desperate extremes just to comfort a friend... (Yes, that was sarcasm; Teegan probably would've gone further if it hadn't been for what came next). And when Kerry was finally comfortable and calm within himself, to the point where he stopped shaking so violently and merely lounged against the warmth and strength of Teegan's chest, the doors to the common room burst open, and Teegan snapped his head up, away from Kerry--to see the angry doctor storming towards them, with two military guards behind him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" the bastard shrieked at Teegan, immediately grabbing Kerry by the arm and yanking at him.

As soon as the doors had opened, Teegan said, Kerry had snapped back into that rigid, quivering state, his nails digging into Teegan's skin and his breathing picking up again. And when the doctor got his hands on him, Kerry fell back into the hysteria that had gripped him before--trying to fight off the doctor's surprisingly harsh grip, but perhaps too weakened or hopeless to put all his strength into it. Even though he managed to slip out of the doctor's fingers once, and no matter how Teegan fought and argued to keep his own hold on him, the kid was ripped out of his arms when the guards reached them and cut into the group. When Kerry was jerked away by them, the furious protests instantly began spewing forth from the rabid Teegan--and only moments later, the doctor spun to him, silencing him by placing a threatening finger to his forehead.

"Don't even think about it," the doctor sneered. And no matter how sharp the urge was to tear through those guards to get to Kerry, who was still struggling (however weary he was, he was only going to be taken kicking and screaming, literally), Teegan found that he simply couldn't move. That was how powerful this scientist was--by touching his head, the bastard was able to paralyze Teegan for a few moments so that he could deal with the real problem.

"Calm down, now, Kerry," the doctor said as the guards held the boy as still as they could manage. He turned to him, and as he lifted an autosyringe from his pocket, Kerry let out that shriek, like he was facing his worst fear. The doctor stepped towards him, there was a click and a strained groaned, and in the next instant, Kerry's faint voice signaled that he had been sedated--but he was still fighting it.

Teegan struggled to move, still paralyzed, but only managed to croak out, "Why'd you do that!? You didn't have to--"

"I wouldn't interfere in matters unfamiliar to me if I were you," the doctor mused absently as he reloaded the autosyringe. "This is not of your concern."

Teegan could hear Kerry's smothered gasp as the doctor lifted his hand to his neck again. "N-No--I d-don't want--"

"Quiet now," the doctor cooed in a mock soothing tone. "No more of this."

"Stop... doing... that..." Teegan ground out when we saw the flinch of discomfort and disdain cross Kerry's face as soon as the doctor touched his neck. Another stifled cry, and the second dose was injected, Kerry's eyes going wide and round--before rolling back and fluttering shut as he went limp again.

Teegan managed a snarl and rumbled, "S-Sick...fuck..."

The doctor turned back as one of the guards lifted the unconscious body and headed toward the door, and Teegan couldn't look away from the bitter sneer on the guy's face.

"Mind your own business," the doctor ordered menacingly. "This has nothing to do with you."

"Y-You're...hurting...him--"

"Hurting him?" The scientist cocked his head and smirked. "Kerry cannot feel pain."

"You...bastard..."

He leaned down close to Teegan's face and hissed, "That...is mine. Keep your hands off...or I'll have you removed from here, permanently."

Teegan said the doctor was lucky he'd been paralyzed, because he would have twisted the guy's little pointy head off with just those first three words. And this is coming from someone who debated with me for years if Kerry was actually considered a real "person." Suddenly, the idea of someone referring to him as an object infuriated Teegan.

But what could he do?

"Now," the doctor sighed ruefully, "thanks to your little perverted playtime..."

He didn't even try holding back the rage inside him--because the trick the doctor had used had done it for him, so Teegan just let himself feel it.

Playtime? Perverted? My actions were real, you fucking--

But he didn't get to think much else, because the doctor continued on carelessly, "Because of that, he's probably been regressed--I'll have to go back a few months now. I'll be sure your master hears of this--"

How about him hearing of whatever the hell you're doing to that kid--

Teegan stopped that train of thought without any aid except logic: like the leader of the corps would care how the doctor "took care" of Kerry. What the hell was I thinking?

Through his anger, Teegan realized the doctor was watching him warily. He tried to narrow his eyes back at the cautious gaze, unsure of if he was successful.

"Come to think of it," he went on thoughtfully, "I've noticed that my project tends to need more work every time it's had a period of time around you."

Perhaps the trick was wearing off, or perhaps he was so startled that certain signals bypassed the paralysis, but Teegan blinked in surprise--as the doctor continued to mention several times during the previous years when these incidents occurred, Teegan could scarcely believe his ears.

He'd had that much of an effect on the kid, for that long? And Teegan himself had only started having his questions about Kerry's true self and nature for perhaps three years before that night.

So when Kerry had asked of him "Why? Why does it feel like this?" with those tears of confusion and sadness in his eyes, he had really been asking him... "Why do I feel like this?"

In a way, it was a comfort; but in another way, it was heartbreaking for Teegan.

Once the doctor released him from the paralysis, after another few threats to stop interfering with his project, Teegan fought the urge to strangle the guy right then and there. Instead, he just glared until the doctor was out of the room, then he kicked the couch out of frustration, cursing, and went back to his room to mull all of it over in his mind again.

Later that night, while no one else even suspected, Teegan managed to sneak down to the scientist's floor, and using his expert skills, snuck into a room where he found Kerry--restrained to a poor excuse for a bed, straps and buckles and even a couple of steel bars covering any part of his body that he could have possibly moved to escape. Not that he was fighting at all: as Teegan inched closer, he realized (with a slightly eerie feeling) that Kerry was awake, his eyes wide open and staring, his chest rising and falling steadily. Teegan hunched over, unsure of why he'd gone there, but just following what his gut was telling him: that he wanted to see, make sure Kerry was okay. When he saw his eyes open, he thought it was settled; but as he got closer and leaned over him, receiving no reaction, he began to worry again. Kerry's stare was blank and expressionless once more, the only sign of what had happened earlier being the red-rimmed, exhausted eyes.

All Teegan could do was sigh and lean over him, whispering an apology into his ear. To his surprise, Kerry actually spoke--not too loudly, clearly worn out: "You tried... That was enough...I can finish this now..."

Teegan lifted his head to look down into the dark eyes, relieved to see that there was something still there. He pushed some damp hair back from Kerry's face and tried to think of something to say, something caring and compassionate...

Kerry suddenly blinked and tilted his head slightly toward him, swallowing thickly. After a moment where they simply looked at each other, Kerry told him, "I don't know why, but I want to be myself when I'm with you."

It was as if that one sentence had confessed everything to Teegan, and all that he'd thought of Kerry was confirmed: he was too smart to be their obedient dog, and he was doing this for a reason; he just needed to have a chance to get to his goal, as he'd mentioned once before to Teegan, during a previous "incident."

Teegan merely continued stroking his hair while he thought this, smiling slightly at him and making a decision in his own mind. At the time, he thought he was doing it because he wanted to help someone he had come to respect; when the doctor's punishment for refusing to go after Kerry "woke" Teegan up to his true feelings, he knew exactly why he'd done it.

Teegan leaned down to kiss him chastely, just to remind Kerry of what affection was; he whispered to him, "Don't ever forget it again; you'll need that will to get out of here." And he left Kerry to blankly stare back up at the ceiling.

The pain of all of it? The truth? Teegan had reluctantly decided to keep his distance from Kerry so that the kid could keep himself together; he needed to keep that veil up in order to trick the leaders, and Teegan was sure he would be able to tell if Kerry was getting too "obedient" again so that he could remind him--but overall, he trusted that Kerry wouldn't be taken over by the scientist's headgames again. But he didn't want to blow Kerry's cover--because if the leaders suspected they were being tricked, who knew what else they would do to hurt him?

So, as much as it pained him to do so, whereas before he'd avoided the kid out of preconceived and downright wrong judgments, he'd decided to stay away from him so he wouldn't throw Kerry off again. Because if the chance came up, Kerry needed to take it, to get away from there, away from the people who were mistreating him, who had turned him into this thing that hid someone much more interesting inside.

When Kerry did escape, it both relieved and pained Teegan incredibly. Kerry wouldn't have to pretend anymore; he wouldn't have to keep playing the games, and he wouldn't have to be subjected to those rules, tests, tortures anymore.

But it all twisted Teegan up inside--because it meant that he couldn't even be near him. Even if he couldn't admit it to himself at first, eventually he came to accept it, and what that meant as far as his fear and punishment were concerned. In "torturing" Teegan with making him see what he didn't want to tell himself, the doctor had actually helped more than hurt him. He didn't find it difficult to confront it, even if everyone else would have found it unbelievable for him to have such strong feelings for Kerry, this kid he'd always seemed to dislike or have a grudge against. But Teegan didn't care about that.

The real pain came from knowing that he would probably never again see the person he loved--now that he'd admitted to himself that he was in love, not being with Kerry--that was the torture.

How The Other Half Lives

Hajime:

My earliest memories are vague recollections of huddling under the corpse of a woman who had apparently been attempting to protect me from something horrid. It was the first attack on a Utar village since the Second Race Wars, and one of the few spurts of violence that occurred between major wars—the Third Race War would begin eleven years later, in 2218. But at that time, in 2207, it was uncommon for the HCR to approve an attack on a village populated by pure-blooded Utars. I suppose they had their reasons, or excuses, for doing so; but not even the city of Quanaar would later admit to the scheme, claiming it to have been a fluke.

So, according to them, it was a pure fluke that, at five years old, I stood above the bodies of my supposed parents and nudged them with my bare feet to see if they still breathed. Their eyes stared and their limbs stiffened over time, and I crawled back under the woman's arms and waited. I didn't know what to wait for, but I didn't know what not to wait for either. So I stayed there and watched as, two days later, a band of Gypsies came through, poking at the strewn bodies of the murdered, finishing off those in pain, and searching like vultures for booty the HCR soldiers had overlooked.

My next memory is of air. Air bursting into my lungs as the cold, dead weight on top of me was hurled off and a set of small, beady eyes stared down at me in shock. I know now that he stared so because I frightened him with my un-childlike, hideous gasp, which was merged with a maddened screech, as I was shown the blue skies above me without warning. And then I stopped. Abruptly. And sat up. Stood without a word, stared levelly into the eyes of the kneeling Gypsy, who only gaped back.

I've been told I have an expressionless face; a dour face; dull, emotionless eyes. I imagine I've always looked this way, because the man seemed startled that I, a mere child, hardly seemed perplexed or overwrought with fear or shock over the death of my parents. But...I was five. I only knew the word death, not the meaning. And, above all, I am Nispar.

Five years with a child is much too short a time to create much of a conscious bond; five years with any Nispar is much too short a time to penetrate their already flooded minds. At least, for a pure-blood.

My earliest memories of audible words were: Wossat y'got there, ehh?

Eh, see that? Finded me a li'l person, I did.

A whut?

Utar.

Ahh, 'e's only a tad, 'e's on ta dyin' soon anyway.

Naw. Naw, me wants it.

Eh? 'e's a wee tad, at that, whut good 'e'll do?

'e's got two arms, 'n can stand, eh, prob'ly walk'n'aw. Good enough for slaverin'.

Ah...True enough.

Being a Nispar, I could understand their every meaning, their every word. I don't recall having a reaction or a feeling about any of this conversation taking place in front of me. I only watched curiously as the dirty-faced middle-aged man in front of me with the yellowed eyes, discolored teeth and blood-stained hands peered at me in interest. Then a rough hand was on my arm and I was being jerked elsewhere, pulled along behind him—though he held my hand as a caring adult would, he dragged me as if I were a ragdoll. And I let him.

I was put in a large cage which was chained up in the back of a slow-moving motorized vehicle. Inside, a woman in a blood-streaked white wrap sat huddled in a corner, running paint-stained fingertips over a sheet of paper. As she drew abstract shapes with home-made oils, she hummed a tune I'd heard my mother sing several times since my birth, so I recognized it easily and identified her as that type of figure. I watched, intrigued, from several feet away with my head tilted to the side until she looked up at me and smiled calmly.

"Hello there," she said in our native language. "And what's your name?"

I lifted my eyes to her, and where most people would – and still do – flinch, she only waited for an answer without a shift in her open expression.

Encouraged that I did not frighten her, I asked in my childish voice, "Aurial?"

She giggled lightly and admitted, "No. Though I've been told I have a pleasant voice. Here." She lifted the sheet of paper for me to see. "This is what I am."

Right before my eyes, the meaningless shapes began to dance, slowly, almost seductively, and I was transfixed—for the first time in my life, I was absorbed by something I wasn't touching, mesmerized by sensations I wasn't reading from an inanimate object. I blinked several times, and each time, the shapes shifted, and soon, the sadness behind the woman's kind smile shone through the haphazard markings on the paper; and the image my eyes made out were of my own parents' bodies, lying there in front of me, lifeless, covered in silver blood.

I fell to my knees and, overwhelmed by the shock of having the emotions that I was so detached from, because of my Nispar characteristics, began sobbing and dry-heaving at the same time.

The Avaraura (for that is what an artist of Utarian heritage is called) dropped the painting and crawled over to me quickly, took my small form into her arms and hugged me, apologizing and assuring me that there was nothing to fear, that she would protect me.

And I only thought, Like my own mother tried?

Many of my vivid memories are from increments of five years, because my next clear image comes from when I was ten, and while going about our daily servant duties in the common room of the immense hut in which several different Gypsy families co-existed, I accidentally called Ayu, the Avaraura who swore she would protect me, "Maman."

She stopped in her cleaning and stared at me with large eyes, as if she'd never expected a word like that to come from my commonly silent lips. She knew what type of Utar I was; she knew I was detached and distant from the world the rest of society saw. But apparently, she hadn't known how highly I had thought of her since that day she took me under her wing. And when I showed her what she was to me, how much she meant to me, she was taken aback. And then she gave me her usual pleasant smile, only this time tinged with a genuine happiness in having found someone who truly appreciated her, and I actually found it in me to smile back.

But I didn't smile often. When I did, I usually ended up frightening people. To this day, Toshi claims that he has nightmares after I've smiled at him. I believe him to be a drama queen underneath the cold, callous facade. Or, better yet, perhaps he's right, and I can use this to my advantage somehow...

The days went by slowly in the heat of the Dobe flatlands; Dibrom is not a very pretty part of the country, and I believe Dobe to have been the most decrepit area besides the swamps no one can live in even if they have a houseboat. But the slave routine in the household of the man who had captured me, as well as four other Dobian Gypsy families who took advantage of the "unhired help," was quite tiring, albeit ordinary.

The disturbing times came at night, when Ayu tucked me in, in the small closet space of a room we shared, and then disappeared for hours at a time. As a mere child, I had no idea where she went; I didn't think about it, and I didn't care. By ten, however, I had heard enough from other children in the house (who always treated me as the slave I was and never as a peer or friend), and the adults as well. I knew what she was doing for our official "master." The man with the discolored teeth who had taken us both in as his servants. He had a wife and three children, but did not share a room with his partner. The Gypsy woman claimed to the other women of the clan that at least her man wasn't groping her every minute of the day, but it was quite obvious (especially to a Nispar) that she disliked Ayu for this forced affair.

The second incident that I recall vividly from my tenth year was when the truth came out about our master, and the affair itself. Yes, he had taken her in with every intention of her being his slave; perhaps he had even intended for her to be in his bed every night as well. But, upon overhearing a whispered argument between the two of them late one night, I discovered the man's original cravings. There had been much thumping, much growling, and then Ayu hissing to him, "Please, no, forgive me, I won't do it again! Please, don't do this, I only felt tired for a moment—I promise not to stop again, just don't--"

I nearly jumped as I heard the pounding next to my head, pressed my hand against the wall and received an image of seconds before, when he had struck her in the face and knocked her aside.

To my surprise, because she had connected with the wall, I was able to also pull the remembered feeling of panic and protectiveness that had been coursing through her while she pleaded with the man. That was what woke me up out of my half-conscious state, and I listened closer, my hand still on the wall.

Through their conversation, I learned that Ayu's submission to our master was only in order to protect the one he truly wanted; when the child he'd captured had reached a certain age, he had planned to toss Ayu to the side and have me learn the things she had pleased him with. Horrified by this idea, she begged him to reconsider; my tenth birthday had come and gone, and I still had not been pressured into anything, so her begging had paid off.

That night, when she had angered him and he had nearly come after me to punish her, she had finally convinced him otherwise, and the door to our room was not opened once. I, however, spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling and wondering what it was I could do to ever repay this woman who loved me like I was her own child.

Five years later, at fifteen, I found what it was I had to do. Still in my own mind most of the time, I only caught fragments of conversations from the Gypsies I was around. Much of it didn't make sense, so I chose not to dwell on it.

Still so small.

He's been forgotten, I heard.

Aye, yeah, other one's got Chabalk's attentions now, righ'?

I heard it from th'oldest boy, since th'mum's died last summer, th' slave cunt's goin' to Chabalk.

Why'd 'e tell you that, I wonder?

Ah, 'e's braggin', 'cause 'e says 'e gets second pick.

An' Chabalk's givin' the lad the slave boy?

So I heard. Fifteen now, eh? That's old enough for ol' Chabby.

Eh, but...still so small!

Not a month later, our master informed Ayu of this decision. At first, she was very compliant. Of course. She always was.

But then he got to the part about his oldest son taking me off her hands so she could see to the master's needs, her future husband, more attentively.

They figured I wasn't aware or coherent enough, because of my Nispar heritage, to really know, mind, or care about what happened to me. No matter how disconnected I seemed or actually was, Ayu knew differently. She fought them hard enough to warrant a beating.

And she was stubborn. Stubborn enough that the beating ended up losing our master his wife. And me, a mother, again.

Chabalk informed his son that the plans were changed, and he was not to marry at all. And the oldest son was losing his own present as well.

Three years passed. In all that time, Chabalk managed to lay only one finger on me. Because the day they killed Ayu, I knew what I was supposed to do. The same day I snuck into the room where she'd died and saw the horrific images of what had occurred in there, I began honing my skills, perfecting my powers, and secretly studying the sword fighting I often saw the others idly playing in their free time in the communal "park" outside the hut. I snuck out at night and practiced myself, for hours, crawling back into my "closet" only when my senses told me that I was about to be checked on. When Chabalk—or his son—approached me, I used my uncanny ability to put people off to frighten them away. Just by...well...being myself. Somehow, this confused them to the point of such uncertainty that they would stumble from my sight; and, of course, I would not stop staring them down until they were out of my visual range.

I suppose some of it was entertaining, amusing, even funny. I was always very quiet, even in my movements, so I could easily sneak up behind them and just be there for several long minutes before anyone noticed me. I kept to my slave chores, never slacking on the duties that were reasonable for a servant.

But when hands came close to me, or the gruesome mouth I'd seen for the previous thirteen years whispered suggestively into my ear, I turned a cold glare and, if they came close to touching, flooded my mind with the horrors I had picked up from inanimate objects over the years—how treasures lying around the hut had come to be obtained, the lives taken and forced violence shaking even me to the core occasionally.

Only once, as I said, did Chabalk touch me, however; I had been bathing at the time, and he snuck in the room, obviously taking this as a perfect opportunity. But I had a lot on my mind that day, and before the finger rested on the back of my neck, my head had been filled with detached anguish over missing my friend, my surrogate mother, Ayu. When he touched me and saw the images I'd gathered from the floors, walls and chains in the room where they had killed her, he was too shocked to defend himself when I whirled around and punched him in the face. He could only nod and rush out when I ordered him to refrain from dismissing me as a mentally challenged lapdog.

The whispers at the dinner table that night were a bit different. I feigned deafness anyway, but this time, I knew what they were talking about.

'e's shot up, 'e has, it'll be hard-off to win it.

Ah, yeah, but with aw of 'em, shan't be too rough, no?

I see 'im at times, out in th' dead of night, an' 'e ain't no pushover, I tell you.

Naw, naw, you're seein' things, you're drinkin' more of that awful ale.

I see it, I tell ya!

'e's a tall one now, but 'e ain't no match for them—or all of us, now, is 'e?

Aw...I guess not...

I was eighteen then. I had grown quite a bit in the previous three years, but it was true: the looks of me wouldn't have led anyone to believe I could defeat my master and the remainder of his family—all sword-trained warriors. And then there was me, thin and officially untrained under any direction. But I did have other talents on my side.

Like the fact that I simply frightened the bastard with just one look. It took until late that night for him to recover from the shock of being told off by his slave. So the gossip at the table was true, and he sent his sons—all three of them—to fetch me. I allowed it—I do not exaggerate, I do not brag; I truly did allow it. I could have stopped them if I'd felt like it at the time, but I knew that this was going to be the night it would occur, since he had taken steps so severe as to actually touch me. (A mere finger on my neck was still too close for my comfort.)

They took me to the center square in the park across from our hut, and there, my master and his sons began taunting me, trying to beat me for being insubordinate when I was a mere slave. And that was when I decided to show them what I had been studying. The boys all had their weapons of choice with them, and when ordered by my master to make up for the incident by "pleasuring" all of them, right there and then in the park, starting with the oldest son, I walked up to the young man very cooperatively.

Jumping the gun, he grabbed me by my hair and kissed me—and as the others laughed, I reached beside him and drew his sword, letting him finish before stepping back and pointing the tip to his throat. I informed him that I didn't like to be touched, especially by the likes of him. The laughing stopped—but not before I had already run him through and he was lying on the ground, shuddering and gagging on his own blood.

Once the group overcame their shock and began attacking me, I felt warmed up enough from my first slaying to let loose my anger over Ayu's murder.

I recall much from that night, quite vividly. The boiling hatred and disgust I held for these people; my master yelling to the rest of the clan for help. Over a hundred Gypsies coming at me with weapons, or their bare hands—and over a hundred times, I chopped them down with the son's sharpened sword and my own unmatched fury. Men, women, even the teenagers who attacked me—all of them. I could tell no difference between any of them. And none of them came without that same twisted, disturbing look in their haunted eyes as they approached, screeching or hollering in desperation. They were a small society of evil demons, and I felt no hesitation in slicing through every last one of them. I used the sword, I used my powers of telekinesis, my grasp of the dark and light arts, all to throw these monsters around, to bring out one terrible pain after another until they were destroyed.

And I saved my master for last. He rushed me several times, but I would only knock him to the side and let him live longer to see another of his companions die at my feet. And when there were no more to come to his rescue, I turned on him and, having not made a sound the entire time, I finally broke my silence. I lifted the sword to his throat, as I'd done to his firstborn, and informed him that I did not care for his ownership. Nor did I care for his affection.

B-But...w-we...s-spared you, didn't we? Can you not...spare me? I...took care of you...all this time...

I offered him my smile, which made him cringe. And now, let me take care of you.

Toshi

It was five months before I found our youngest recruit on the altar of the Ravoorsal temple. I had several of the same operatives that I have today, but not all of them yet. Ten years before this present year. And I received the strangest assignment I had ever been given by my old friend and leader.

"Go to Dibrom," he ordered over the firewalled transmission circuit.

Confused, I uttered, "Dibrom? Gypsy country? Why the hell should I go there?"

"Because," he explained patiently, "over the last twenty hours, there have been disturbing reports from Southern Glin and some of the northern Gypsy tribes."

"Disturbing reports?"

"Yes. Someone from the Glin said that they felt a strong Utar power surge coming from the direction of Dobe."

"How would you know this?"

He scoffed. "Toshi, I'm me."

Which I should have known in the first place; the leader could probably tell the world when I take a piss. "So why do I have to go? Don't tell me I'm the closest..."

"Well...no..." He seemed reluctant to tell me.

"Al," I warned.

He sighed and admitted, "I've spoken with my father. He's very cryptic, as you know--"

"He's a fucking freak, you mean."

Long pause. "He's very cryptic."

"Whatever. What'd the old coot say?"

Another pause, and then, "You know, in all likelihood, he probably is aware that you're speaking ill of him right now--"

"Who says it's ill? I like old coots. What'd he say?"

"Well...Hm. Anyway, yes, he says he feels this is a more complicated situation than we originally feared."

"And your original fear was...the HCR?" I attempted.

"Of course—it hasn't been two months since the Third War started, this is the sort of thing we would expect from them. But..."

"Your dad says that ain't it."

"Correct."

"But you want me to investigate it anyway."

"Yes."

"Even though...he could be wrong and I could just be walking into a bloody HCR trap."

I could feel the bastard grinning helplessly through the transmitter. "Um, I believe you grasp the situation fully well, Toshi, I hope you enjoy the swamplands, goodbye--"

And he disconnected before I even had a chance to say, "Bloody tyrant!"

I thought about taking some of my operatives with me, figuring I could use the excuse that he hadn't actually said not to, specifically...but I knew, deep down, that he had meant every word, that he had faith in his father's powers and instincts, and that there was good reason he wanted me to go alone—even if he hadn't outright said it.

So, as I'd done several times in the past, I accepted my doomed fate, my irksome responsibilities, and I took the jet to head down to Dobe.

And three hours later, I was standing to the entrance of the small settlement, staring around in awful shock at the carnage and wreckage of the place. Of the people. Bodies were strewn everywhere, red blood staining almost every blade of grass I stepped on. I thought it impossible for anything but the HCR to have attacked this village.

But then, coming out of my daze, I turned to see a lone figure standing in a small clearing by a halfway dismantled hut. The figure was tall, lean, and nearly white, with jet-black hair that hung in limp strings around small, hunched shoulders. I approached him at a fast pace, but as I drew nearer, he turned, looking me directly in the eyes, even from several feet away. I felt my body freeze in its place, and I knew, just from staring at him like that, what he was.

He offered me a chilling smile, though his eyes and face looked exhausted in the early morning fog. I learned later that he had done this frighteningly awful deed in a total of twenty-five minutes, and had remained conscious and alert the entire time between when he had awakened the morning of the slaughter, and when I allowed him to pass out in the back of the jet...almost forty-eight hours later.

At that moment, however, at almost six in the morning, with a dim light peeking over the distant mountains of heavy woodland that made up the land where the Tsubi clan had settled, and an eerie mist drifting over the village of now dead bodies at our feet, he simply looked weary and relieved.

All he said to me was, "You are a Utar?"

Barely breathing, I nodded. I was searching for things to say, but somehow, the idea that this young man had been the murderer of all these people...as unbelievable as it seemed...was the only thing I could surmise.

And then he offered me another smile, even weaker than the first as he wiped some condensed mist from his pale face. "My head...hurts."

He took one step toward me, and then his eyes fluttered vaguely. I saw the energy seeping from him and, purely by instinct, rushed forward and caught him as he collapsed. He was still awake, however, and when I asked what had happened, hoping he would say something about how he had been the only surviving person of some kind of HCR attack, he admitted bluntly, "I killed them. They killed my maman...and wanted me to...do things...and I wouldn't. I...I killed them..." His eyes closed and his mouth twitching in an attempt to keep from weeping, he half groaned something I couldn't understand, until I leaned closer and understood: too much pain....

As I fought to keep him on his knees, I stared around the village and, as many times as I took the place in, could not find one sign of life. My Ravoorsal powers kicked in, and even that proved fruitless. The only life left in the entire village...was the weak one in my arms.

I looked down at the young man and asked him how he did it.

He opened his eyes, his fingers reaching up to tangle in his hair. With his eyelids drooping and a listless expression on his face, he told me about the sword he'd taken from a young man several years older than himself who had attempted to overpower him; his inexplicable mastery of several side powers many Utars have but simply don't know about or develop correctly; he told me how he rarely felt much of anything, but the joy he felt in watching his master die at his feet was only comparable to the misery he'd felt when his "Maman" had died. Not his real maman, mind you—but a woman who had shown him love for no reason other than the fact that he was there.

As he spoke, his voice became more and more distant, his body more and more rigid. He slowly slunk out of my grasp and knelt on his own, and by the time he had finished, he had somehow gotten a foot between the two of us. I reached out for him again, but he startled me by merely lifting his hand, and I felt an invisible force pushing me back another two feet.

As he looked across at the corpses he'd created, he asked plainly, "Are you here to arrest me?"

Taken off-guard, I was about to refuse immediately, to tell him that I was only a rebel spy. But I paused and reconsidered; not knowing the extent of this boy's powers, or the lengths he would go to, to protect himself, I decided it wouldn't be wise to admit all of that just yet.

"I wouldn't mind," he continued wistfully. His eyes swayed briefly, then swooped over to clamp onto me again. "I've nothing else to do. Only wait here until the carcasses rot. Live off the remains of their possessions. And when that's through, I'll just walk to another place where I'll be captured again."

It didn't surprise me that he didn't even suggest that he would kill another entire Gypsy village; as enormous a feat as slaughtering over one hundred people may be, Dobe was the smallest populated clan in Dibrom—which was a good thing, because they were the most vicious of all the Dibrom tribes.

And now...they were no longer a threat. To anyone.

The boy stood up and, in his thin white garment, which was soaked and coated with red blood, shuffled to the edge of the walkway to the hut's front doorway, gazing out over the field of bodies. He almost looked sad, but actually...he seemed more thoughtful, his head tilted ever so slightly to the side.

"I'm not usually like this," he informed me quietly as I came up to stand behind him. "I rarely let my emotions take over. But she...was the only one..."

I shook my head in confusion. "Wait—how long...how long have you been here?"

He glanced over at me, and the look of exhaustion in his face was debilitating. "I was captured when I was five," he enlightened me as he turned back to the field.

I gaped openly at him, regained my composure, then asked, "S-So...you've grown up with these people?"

He nodded. "Yes."

It struck me as funny, because I had heard someone from Dobe speak before, and this boy's accent was not completely obvious—it was tinged with the Dobe accent, the choppy, consonant-dominant pattern of speech leaking through; but even if he'd spent the majority of his life there, he still couldn't hide his Yellus tone. I could hear in his aloof, lazy way, the accent that came from that land of reclusive Utars—the ones who detached themselves from everyone and everything else, who seemed so out of touch with everything that even their speech sounded catatonic.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "And you felt no regret in killing them?"

Without hesitating, he shook his head. "In knowing them, I was only more resolute in my decision."

I drew in a deep breath and went in for the kill: "You're a Nispar?"

He looked over his shoulder at me; he didn't need to answer.

I stepped closer to him, resting a hand on the smaller shoulder. "So...a Nispar from Yellus, captured and enslaved by Gypsies. They killed your guardian, and attempted to abuse you. And so, you killed the entire clan."

He didn't look fearful at all; merely curious. "Will you arrest me? Or kill me?"

Surprising even myself, I swore I could feel Enollamai's spirit taking me over; or maybe I just began to feel that thing called compassion. Plus...well, hell, if the guy was fighting for something like justice and had done this...I'd definitely want him on my side. Wouldn't you?

I squeezed his shoulder. "Have you heard of the leader of the Rebellion?"

His cocked eyebrow answered that question.

"He's the leader of the Rebellion in Maerd."

Again, a slight shrug of the shoulder—though I didn't know if it was to answer my question, or get me to stop touching him.

"He's a very powerful leader—though he's only a leader in secret. I work for him, operating a sect in Southern Maerd."

He continued to stare at me, as if waiting for more of an explanation.

I chuckled lightly, then squeezed his shoulder. "What's your name?"

In his deep, quiet voice, he answered, "Hajime."

I nodded. "Hajime...Would you ever consider becoming a Rebel?"

He tilted his head to the side. "And what would that mean?"

I turned him to face me, planting my other hand on his opposite shoulder, and, looking straight into his dim eyes, asked him seriously, "Where are your parents? Your real parents?"

He blinked faintly. "D-..." Even he seemed startled that he suddenly found it difficult to say the word.

I nodded. "How did they die?"

"They were k-..." He gasped sharply, his face contorting in pain.

"Was it the HCR?" I questioned. "Was it the Regime?"

He began to tremble, coughing furiously as he slumped over against my chest briefly.

"You can tell me," I urged me. "It was the raid, wasn't it? In 2207, when the HCR tried to infiltrate Yellus to gain more land, to gain western access to the ocean so they could reach Xiang Xloux. Am I right? They were slaughtered just for being Utars, and being in the way, even when they did everything they could to just stay out of the way. I'm right, aren't I? And if they'd never been killed, you would've never had to be a slave—you wouldn't have had to be degraded like that—"

I was so concerned with getting him to face his past that I didn't realize how intense my powers were getting—which I originally had intended to use on his damaged body without his knowledge. But now that I wasn't paying attention, he was being pulled back to reality, from the depths of his alienated Nispar mind, much faster than he could handle. He snapped his head up to me and, scowling, demanded, "What the hell are you do--"

I tightened my grip on his shoulders, figuring there was no point in being sneaky about it anymore; I intentionally increased the flow of energy I was pouring into him, and he cried out and clawed at my chest in protest. But I wouldn't let him go yet. The more I healed him, the stronger the bond between his mind and his emotions became—and it was clear how disconnected the two were. He could barely breathe just thinking of the words.

"It's okay," I assured him in a calming tone. "It'll hurt a lot, I know, but I promise, it will get easier."

He grabbed my forearms and tried to pry me away, but he was too weak by then. His voice caught in his throat and he sobbed instead, falling to his knees. I followed him down, asking again if he wanted to be a Rebel. He insisted he had no idea what that meant. I told him: Working to stop the HCR scum who killed your parents; protecting the lives and freedom of those who are weaker and less fortunate than ourselves; cutting this goddamn war off before it takes more innocent lives; changing the minds of all those ignorant bigots out there who want to annihilate any race they don't understand; doing something right for a change...no matter what the cost.

It wasn't my healing powers that did it, and it wasn't even my comforting hold on him. It was the images in his own head, he told me later, that he saw when I touched him—and knowing my own pain, knowing what I was fighting for, and seeing what kind of a person I was...That was what made him say yes.

Damn. And I didn't even know the kid was looking. Just one of the many very creepy things, I would soon find out from that point on, that Hajime could do. Besides give you nightmares with one little smile.
THE ORIGINAL WAR CHILDREN

BOOK ONE: "BEGINNINGS"

Stories of Syd and On (1/4)

Sydney

I suppose it was the bomb that woke me up. Not the impact or the screams or the ensuing rubble and chaos. But the bomb itself. Like I knew it was coming, could visualize its path in my dream as I slept that night. So when it hit, my eyes were already open. I wasn't taken off-guard like everyone else. My breath coming in shallow, slow rasps, as the gaping hole in the wing to the west called to me quietly – unlike the screeching, shocked din around me.

The force of the blast had blown the door to my room – cell, more like – clear off its hinges. It had landed flat on top of my roommate's bed, leaving the poor nervous wreck crying out for help – as if his paranoia wasn't rampant enough. Now he had an iron door as a bed sheet to contend with.

I lifted my frail body from the horridly uncomfortable cot they'd provided, slowly and steadily rising to my bare feet, completely at odds with the frantic wailing and utter anarchy overtaking the corridors – some in uniforms trying to stop the bleeding, injured patients from exacerbating their wounds; others in garb similar to my own running wildly about as if – funnily enough – they'd lost their minds.

It was in all this confusion – because of it – that I was able to saunter gravely to the hole itself, standing just at the edge of the crumbling architecture around me, and gaze out on the mass frenzy of dueling armies above and below. I saw the heavy artillery of the Humans, the colored flashes of Utar magic, blasting away at each other as if my own crimes were a drip in an ocean compared to their own meaningless genocide. Right in front of my eyes.

The war outside was raging – but not as much as was the war inside my own pounding heart and racing yet calm mind. I knew the dangers before me: walking straight into the line of others' fire that had nothing to do with me or my existence – not even my own past "antisocial acts of insanity."

My gaze lowered to the moat surrounding the asylum. Originally a ploy for security against attempted escapees; later becoming an attempt to keep us "poor incapable souls" safe from the nearing battlegrounds. Now, it served as my only way out, my only salvation. A leap of about seven storeys.

Only a truly insane man would make that leap.

"Sydney!"

I turned at the sound of my name to see the panic on a familiar nurse's face, one of those rare ones who had actually been more than a mere guard or pill dispenser. A kind-hearted, caring woman who poured her life into trying to help us – us wretched dolls whose minds were considered bent, fragile, broken.

Her sincerity was touching as she silently pleaded with me to come to my senses. My fingers felt the blood trickling down to my palms as they dragged over the jagged ruins of the shattered concrete wall. She stood mere meters in front of me, the wreckage having caused her perfectly blond ponytail to hang in a limp mess around her dirt-covered face, hands stained with the blood of other injured patients she'd been tending to.

She said not a word, only shook her head as she held out a hand.

Come to my senses, she was begging me.

My...senses.

Where did she think I was? Why did she not consider the reason for it? Or why I had spent five years there by then?

Her kind soul, her encouraging words, those years of dedication to try and find a connection between us, to win my trust, my conviction that I could make it on my own, sanely, if I just found the right formula, with her guiding, helpful hand. The same hand she held out to me then.

Such a young, innocent, hopeful girl.

Such a useless bloody fool. So naïve.

I could never stand those bleeding heart types. Though she was but a year or two younger than me, she had no idea. No grasp of reality beyond the safety of this now tainted building of "security." No center or basis, no grounds to stand on when it came to...my reality.

Which, as the war outside our "safe haven" was proving in that very moment, was not as far off, as she'd tried to tell me for the previous five years I'd been in that hell, from the reality of the rest of the world. I would have preferred prison – but that statement alone had been taken as a symptom of my "illness."

I rather preferred the cold, harsh factual staff, the ones who refrained from trying to get inside my head. Served me my ineffective pills, ushered me to appointments, restrained me when I went for my roommate's throat because his babbling was grating on my nerves... Those were the people I liked.

Not this open vessel in front of me. Trying to "save" me.

Save me for more life in a cut-off realm from where I knew I truly needed to be. It had taken me years – over a decade – but I finally knew where my true position was. He was calling to me – that voice. That man I would help protect. And that city – that city I so adored; she was calling me too. Voices this novice could never even begin to comprehend, could never hear herself.

But she was a good girl. No need to expound further upon all my theories and beliefs, as we'd discussed those last five years, incessantly. No need to torture her further with my unfathomable reasoning and impossible points. Give the girl a break, my inner cynic insisted.

I returned her pleading expression with my dark eyes, and this seemed to tame her fear. She let out a breath of relief and reached for me, certain I had made contact with that light which shone so brightly from her endless hope.

But my grin was as crooked as it had been the first day they'd locked me in this dungeon of an "institution." And as I let go and felt my body reeling backward, once pure air now tainted with the smell of electricity and gun powder soaring past my ears and whipping through my hair, the last flash I saw of her face was one of sheer terror – even as she groped for my rake-thin arm in a desperate attempt to keep me from leaving, from giving up to this longing to end it all – but, in my mind, it was just to keep me from escaping their clutches.

And I honestly didn't know whether I'd survive or not, but it was not an attempt at suicide. I figured my chances were fifty-fifty, so what the hell?

That flash of horror stayed with me for the rest of my life – not my own, but hers; the realization that she hadn't reached me in time. Literally and figuratively.

Yet all I could find in myself to respond to that utterly selfless notion was...

Some, my dear, you cannot "save." Not even with a bleeding heart such as yours.

The stars would have been beautiful that night, if not for the overcast sky and remnants of battle smoke overtaking any spot of once clear atmosphere. I could have imagined it myself, as I'd been told by several people, with both positive and negative connotations, that I had quite a fascinating and active imagination. But that night, I was focused solely on the physical, so the mental attempt would have been too much for me then; I simply wanted to see them, just one star even, or one of the moons all those thousands and millions of miles away from us... Just needing visual proof that it was the night sky I was gazing at.

But there was no proof, and the ache in my arm was too distracting to convince myself that it wasn't a dream – I'd been through this type of situation before, and it was the exact same feeling of being in a haze, the body willing itself on despite its own failing capacity.

Hitting the water wasn't an easy consequence of my actions, though I'd expected it. Fortunately, the sharp pains in my head began to abate by the time I reached dry land. And then all my pain receptors kicked into overdrive and my once aching, numb arm now burned with stabbing pains shooting through it constantly. I was fortunate to have survived the jump, so it was a small price to pay for the successful escape as I limped further and further away from that monstrous building.

At least, I thought it a fair trade.

What I couldn't stand the most was being soaked to the bone in my drab "mental patient" uniform. The battle was still in full-force, but had moved north, so the scene I came across was a slew of dead bodies – both Humans and Utars – as far as my mere Human eyes could make out in the dim, foggy night. I found a few random strewn bodies whose clothes were still decent enough to be considered "intact." So I snagged the clothes – not like they needed them anymore, right? – and other unnecessary rags from them to dry myself and redress. A few robes were too blood-stained to use, which was a shame since I rather fancied a particular pattern I found. As for what I could salvage, I brushed off the crusted bits of dried blood and chunks of burnt flesh and covered myself in them.

Then, holding my likely broken arm tightly against my chest, hugging myself out of necessity of physicality rather than a psychological self-comfort, I continued onward, just as Onyx and I had all those years before – but this time, as dazed as I felt again, it was not quite the same. This time I had a clue of what to do. Moving away from the sounds of gunfire and blasts of more wayward bombs and bolts of lethal magic, I headed south, in the direction of Western Central and Southern Maerd.

I knew the Maerdian government would have a fit about a city-state-run facility being hit from this war, but as the Purists and Regime kept reminding us on a daily basis, this controversy affected and involved everyone – even us nutters. They didn't care who got caught in the middle. We were the problem – that "we" taking a different shape depending on which side was asked.

I didn't really care either, to be honest. Human, Utar, Purists, the Regime – they were all enemies in my eyes, and only after certain individuals had earned it would I respect them. Which was why I only respected two people I'd ever met who were still alive by that time.

All I wanted to do was find a place to lay down for a bit. But even when I found one, under a jagged rock overhanging a patch of untouched gravel, I was irritated because I still couldn't spot one goddamn star in the sky.
Stories of Syd and On (2/4)

Sydney

I knew where Onyx was shacking up then, since she wrote me once or twice a week from the outside. It was mostly political jargon and where the war was spreading. But I loved re-reading the bits where she mentioned our dead parents and how she missed me and our teenage antics. Just too bad mine got out of control and I got caught. But apparently the city-state was feeling generous that day, or maybe all those annoying tests they'd given me were telling the truth; either way, I landed in that bloody asylum instead of jail, and had spent five long, dull years submerging myself and dwelling deeper into my "psychosis," which I found funny, as the institution was presumably there to helppeople like that. As if those places really helped. Not someone who is conscious of much of his own existence and actions – but just doesn't care. Or, I suppose, I just have a different perspective.

It's understandable that I would have such a one. I was always at odds with the world around me, apparently, just as my parents were. We'd grown up with Gypsies, settling primarily in the south of Ysatnaf. They were a small bunch, mostly ex-soldiers who were angry with the Regime government for acting as if they didn't exist after having them carry out heinous orders against the Utars who had previously lived there. Our parents weren't soldiers, just wanderers who taught these bedraggled men and their families some craftwork they could later sell on the road to make some cash, seeing as many of them were broke or nearly there.

But when the soldiers started changing, becoming angrier and more violent with every passing nightly discussion about how they had been betrayed by their supposed leaders, my folks decided to try and move us north; we simply were not a part of them, and this newly awakening evil within them was becoming more evident, though none of us felt it. We'd been there for years and in the last few months, we witnessed the progressive downfall of an ever-growing group of furious people we really had nothing to do with. No doubt it was something mystical, my mother deduced, but perhaps we were not "infected" because we had very little anger within us. We hadn't suffered their plight.

They Gypsy groups of Dibrom had begun breaking into smaller sects by the time Onyx and I were ten, and Mum and Pops decided to make our way north. Quanaar was not a friendly place to most, but at least being Human meant we wouldn't be shot on sight. Or, well, we'd hoped for that much. Back when the feeble trailer parks of poorer Utars were just being bestowed upon those who, for one reason or another, were unable to vacate the gigantic city-state, which had since been overtaken by the Regime and its supporters.

Unfortunately, our trip to Maerd was long, hard, and interrupted after three tumultuous and tedious years of trying to gather enough funds to move from one temporary home-base to another, one village to the next, by an unfortunate set of circumstances each time.

Finally, though they were skeptical of a family of four Humans, especially being settled so nearby to an official Regime-owned slew of businesses and residential areas, an older, childless Utar couple in one of these random, ramshackle parks took us in for what turned out to be nearly a year. They only gave in because we were too poor ourselves to rent a hotel room in the closest town for a week, and I suppose that shocked them, that Humans in Quanaar were so unfortunate as well.

So, despite their initial caution, they grew to like us, treating us like a genuine family after only a few weeks – like young grandparents to Onyx and me, parents to our own; or a pair of older siblings living in cramped but familiar quarters with surrogate niece and nephew in tow, as my parents continued working their artisan ways – commuting by foot into town each day to sell their crafts. Even On and I got in on it, me doing childish but quite good caricatures of people in front of shops whose owners grudgingly allowed it (and only because we were Humans and I was just a boy), with our folks just around the corner doing similar but much better artistry and sales.

Onyx, on the other hand, took the more stable route and got a steady part-time job at a small grocers' – age didn't matter then, there were no laws against child labor. So gradually we saved up to move on – even thought of inviting our new family to join us in our escape to Maerd.

But then trouble started brewing. The Regime soldiers began paying more visits to the park (a routine assignment to collect rent and make sure there were no "suspicious" activities going on); no doubt they thought it odd a Human family was shacking up with an older Utar couple. But there were no laws against that either, so they just gave the funny looks we'd grown used to, uttered slanderous comments under their breath when the checks were handed over.

Some in the park didn't like us from the start; others didn't care; still others found it fascinating that, even then, a family of Humans in that area were of such different mentality (and finance) than their other Human peers to have to rely on them for a change. Those were the more sympathetic groups, the families who joined in when we had outdoor picnics or the older people had indoor poker games. A tiny, rundown but tight-knit community on the outer edge of a town which hated them.

The rent began increasing by ridiculous amounts every month, though. Of course we contributed, while saving what we could to move on, but eventually the savings jar remained at the same dismal level for too long – and the rent continued to soar.

Funny, that – the Regime practically herding these poor Utars into something like a concentration camp, then charging them money just for being on that land. It never quite made sense to me, but then, like I say, I've always had a different perception.

My father and surrogate uncle/grandfather began complaining – politely – to one of the routine soldiers who made his rounds regularly, and he assured them he would file their grievances with the town officials (no doubt filed in the circular bin). These exchanges took place for months, until finally, the last time, another furious Utar – one not keen on us Humans being there at all – interrupted the civil discussion with abrasive words, escalating to physical shoves and violent threats. The other Human soldiers began gathering round as the uncontrollable Utar grouch got more and more flustered and vile, ignoring my uncle and – when he stepped in to try and calm the bloke down – outright cursing at my father, saying he had no business being there, and his filthy Human family was tainting their community.

Always a pacifist, my father brushed these insults off to get to the real problem – but by then, the Human soldiers had gathered in strength, other Utars had come to back up their neighbors, and before an all-out brawl even started (just shouted mockery and taunts), the verbal slanders were halted by the sound of gunfire – and my father instinctively stepped in to protect the raging Utar who had started this mess.

After the stunned reaction of the crowd that had been drawn in, as the once racist Utar held my father's dead body in his arms, the pause only intensified the anger between both factions. An all-out revolt occurred – Utars attacking soldiers, trying to drive them out with sticks and rubble, while the soldiers began the massacre of any starry-eyed figure coming close to them. My mother, distraught from seeing her husband killed, attacked the guard who'd tried to shoot the angry man who had always wanted us out; she launched at him like an animal, tearing at his face and screeching with unearthly hatred for what he'd done. Seeing the crazed woman was in for a beating, the Utar who once fought against her and her family now joined her, after carefully dislodging himself from under the weight of my father's limp body.

The two of them fought furiously, despite the guard's advantage of having a weapon – perhaps he hesitated from the idea of endangering a woman, another Human, a manic and understandably devastated new widow. Whatever his initial reluctance to fight back, even when the Utar started in on him too, trying to force my mother back out of harm's way, it didn't really matter; another guard quickly took the reigns and finished her off with a violent blow to the head. Both my uncle and the man who had initiated this melee then ravaged that one, and so on, and so on, until over half the soldiers were dead, half the trailer park inhabitants were dead – and the other half of the latter were shackled and bound for prison by the remaining authorities. Even innocent bystanders. Even the children.

The only ones who survived untouched were my sister, me, and our aunt. Hidden in a secret alcove under the trailer, by order of my mother as soon as she'd noticed the discussion becoming heated; she'd had an uncanny ability to sense when danger was lurking, even from just an angry argument. We saw the whole thing; Onyx and Auntie had to hold me back several times, both of them ending up having to literally sit on my body at the same time to keep me from joining the "battle," or at least running to my parents' corpses.

And we stifled our tears and our panic and our sobs, during the entire ordeal and afterward. Covered our mouths – or each others' – and bit our tongues. Onyx even refused to look through most of it, cowering behind her hands and rocking back and forth on her haunches as Auntie restrained me and held my mouth shut. It felt like hours, but had to have been less than that for the rest of the inhabitants to be led away.

After the park was clear, by dusk, Auntie took us both up to the trailer, gathered a sparse collection of belongings, collected all the money we'd hidden (and hers and her husband's as well), and sneaked us out before more soldiers came back to clear the mess. To cover their massacre. To save their own asses. I tried to pull away, to get to my parents' bodies as my aunt and On dragged me across the dirt park to the greenery beyond it. I needed to find them, I kept repeating, just needed to find them – but Onyx begged me not to, and Auntie ended up having to pick me up and carry me away in her own sinewy arms.

I eventually calmed down as we hid in the closest forest, after running as far in as possible (once I'd agreed not to run back if my feet were to touch the ground again). Night came and we could see the flashing lights from a distance of the Regime cleaning up after themselves before anyone from the actual city-state could find out what had occurred. (Not that they would ever come down hard on the Regime itself, of course – but it still wasn't good for publicity, now, was it? Unless the headline read something like,Violent Utars rampage over soldiers' routine patrols, instead of Massacre of dozens instigated by trigger-happy soldiers.)

We were all in a daze – and by then I was too tired to sneak back on my own to find the bodies, though my aunt kept casting me warning glances. Confounded, numb. But Auntie managed to gather herself together enough to make a small fire and cooked us some soup from a can – which I threw up less than an hour later. We slept together under a thick brush of leaves, arms wrapped tight around each other. I could feel On's nails digging into my wrists, but I didn't tell her to ease up; somehow, the physical pain was a comfort; strange, how that in itself was what allowed me to finally drift off after a while.

Though I doubt Auntie actually slept at all. Just staring up, her eyes abnormally huge, at the expanse of sky beyond the trees above us. Quietly seething now, after the cool head of practicality had overtaken her to get the children to safety.

Of course she'd gone mad by morning. As we began collecting ourselves to move north toward Maerd, a soldier – sent to search for such escapees as us – came upon us. Without a word, just a shriek of agony and fury, Auntie lunged at him, just as he drew his weapon. The impact of her body must have set it off, and she dropped like a sack of spuds to his feet.

He was young, probably newly inducted, and mortified at what had just happened. In his shock, he ran away, back to his cohorts, perhaps not even seeing Onyx and me lurking in the background, still stunned from the day before – and even moreso now.

The childlike soldier must have been so shaken and distracted that he failed to mention our existences, because Onyx and I managed to make a shallow grave for Auntie, weep over it, and then trudge onward without anyone coming after us in all the time that took.

We lived in a mutual haze for those days – weeks, we never kept track – it took to walk the rest of the way to Maerd. We only had each other now, and we felt no need or energy to speak of it. We ate when we needed it, slept when one of us fainted, and just kept going. Just kept going north, as our parents had said hundreds of times over the years –just go north.

Stories of Syd and On (3/4)

Sydney

The border was hardly clear, but eventually we came to realize an actual city was not far in front of us, after miles of decrepit factories and useless rubble and junk heaps. We dragged ourselves there, found the first open eatery, and went in to collapse into strangely "real" and solid booths. Actual people served us. Spoke to us in actual voices. Gave us menus we held in our shaky hands. And they smiled at us. Even as we sat there, dirty and ill and desperate.

And then a young man appeared from nowhere – maybe the waitress noted our mutual state of disillusion and made calls behind our backs; no big deal, after everything was said and done. But to us, in that moment, he came on like a freight train, barreling in and knocking us over. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

The man was more like a boy, though obviously older than us. He didn't ask where we came from or what happened to make us look like a couple of destitute orphans (which, in fact, we were by then). He merely perched beside Onyx on her side of the booth and offered to pay for our meals. Neither of us had enough strength to resist him. Even if we had, I doubt he would've listened.

As real as this place felt, after our long, dreamlike journey to it, his presence and demeanor, his chipper tone and encouraging smile – the tricks he played for our amusement, to snap us out of our shock with an attempt to draw a shock of awe from us instead – it was all so unreal. Though not in the same way our lonely trek had been across forests and desolate wastelands and defunct factories. Unreal in a... Utar way, actually.

When Onyx finally cracked a smile – after the boy built an unsteady tower of coffee creamers with just his mind and then knocked them down with a telekinetic-controlled fork from under her thin hand – he made himself more comfortable and ordered us all some food – somehow managing to pick exactly what we were both craving at the time without even asking us.

On and I didn't know what to make of this guy, as we exchanged bewildered glances across the table while he chattered on and on happily about the food there being remarkable for a mere diner in a shitty part of town, but he preferred that area anyway, even with all the bars and low-brow clubs and lost souls seeking a guiding light. He felt, he said, more at home there, felt it was full of more life than the rest of Maerd gave it credit for. If just a bit of a spark were to ignite it, he insisted passionately, even that downtrodden abyss in the southwest of Maerd could become a creative mecca.

After all that babble, he shook our hands firmly and said to call him Enoll, and that we should come to stay at his home for the night – no tricks or schemes, he promised, as he had "friends" (more like guards or hired help) to watch him like a hawk. His parents weren't very strict, he assured us as he paid our meals and over-tipped the waitress (who shared a secret smile with him on his way out) and ushered us into a waiting car outside.

On and I were holding hands by then, nervous, startled, frightened – but as Enoll chattered on to us about his house and the ridiculous amount of guest rooms that could be of some use to us, and the silent robed men in the front seat remained silent (and, thankfully, robed), the boy's jovial, hyperactive tone and easiness began to seep into us somehow. We'd not spoken a word, until he finally paused and blurted, "But, by the gods, you two look so alike I'd think you were twins!"

Onyx – always a bit faster at recover and more level-headed than me – tried to confirm this, but at her first syllable Enoll waved a hand and said, "I know, but I've never seen fraternal twins looks so alike. Strong genes, I assume. What are your names?"

And that was how we first met Enollamai – the most powerful (not to mention radical, non-traditional, and maybe even craziest) Omcompan Utar that ever existed.

Lucky for us – he was also a pretty damn cool bloke, too.

The house was enormous, and with only parents, one (very wild) child, and a few "friends" (guards, servants, what have you) living there, there were, as Enoll had said, plenty of extra rooms to be used. And to our surprise, some already were.

We each got our own, but Enoll made sure they were not only next to each other, but adjacent as well – a shared bathroom connected our bedrooms. As he led us there himself (while one robed "friend" followed behind, carrying our meager belongings, and the driver of the car departed to inform the actual owners of the house that two more guests were arriving), a few various others passed us in the wide corridors, all smiling and waving, even calling a cheerful greeting to our host.

I managed to grasp enough sense to sneak glimpses when I could, and was surprised – though pleasantly – to find both Humans and Utars among those being swept into this flurry of unbridled charity.

Even as the robed "friend" dispensed our items to us and left, and Onyx and I looked around our respective rooms in fascination, Enoll flitted back and forth between us via the connecting bathroom to chatter away about various objects and books we'd find decorating the spaces. Most, of course, were Utarian by source, but there were a few select pieces which dated back centuries – from Earth.

The commentary provided with these were always ended by, "...given to me by Louis."

That made both of us freeze – we didn't have to ask, despite the casual nature to his tone when he said it. We just knew.

Louis. Louis Shepherd.

On and I caught each others' gazes between the rooms in astonishment.

This Utar, this grace from some twisted but generous god, this oddball boy – was, unknown to us then in detail, but only by instinct and surrounding evidence, very important. And he knew Louis Shepherd. Seemed quite close, in fact, if the flippant manner in which he spoke of the famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) Human suggested he wasn't merely name-dropping, but mentioning someone genuinely familiar.

The Louis Shepherd. The first Human able to unite the races, to an extent, and turn Maerd into a safe haven for anyone and everyone who wasn't a complete Purist (or, at least, didn't act on their beliefs). Maerd was generally a place people wanted to be, those with minds able to handle the mixed brew of cultures and individuals there. And he'd had a hand in creating that, had drawn the Utars out of their shells and convinced them not all Humans were there to take over, but to learn and blend with them – in kindness, in relation... and even in family. The father of the first Halfie.

And Enoll knew him.

Enoll – who spent his days in the darker streets of Maerd, lifting spirits and encouraging the hopeless, and his nights harboring those lost souls willing to accompany him to his home. Just a soft place to land from a high fall. With no questions, no pretense, no somber insistence that he hear their story.

Because, what we didn't know then was, he already knew our stories. Not from news reports or papers, not from word of mouth, not even entirely from the now common, however tragic, occurrences which brought people like us to that area.

But from one glance. Our filthy faces? Our torn clothes? Our clouded eyes and bedraggled demeanors? Our obvious adult shock, tearing us from childhood innocence?

All of that was plausible, whether it was regular Human intuition or the more keen Utarian sense. But it wasn't this either. His one glance told him more.

Enoll could read our minds – in short. And that was only one among countless abilities he possessed – powers and abilities both Utarian and – well –Human. No wonder Louis was his friend.

But we weren't aware of those things then. We just knew the charming, altruistic chatterbox was the nicest anyone had been to us – perhaps more than even Auntie and Uncle – besides our own parents. And for once in what felt like ages... we were grateful. At peace, in a way. Of course it's difficult to get over losing so many loved ones in one fell swoop, certainly would take us a long time to even feel halfway to "normal" again – if we ever managed to get there after all.

But this strange creature who had literally pounced into our lives with such an attitude as he possessed... He puzzled us, threw us off enough that we were too distracted to concentrate and dwell on our losses for very long – before he would be right there again to assure our security and smile wide enough for us to see his crooked teeth. So for now, at least, we felt safe. Like I said – at peace.

On and I both slept that night, fully and deeply, as we hadn't been able to for countless nights beforehand. We'd just been passing out at different intervals, and only for an hour or so at a time, before being shocked awake by some horrid vision or distorted memory. But that night, we slept.

And I dreamed of Enollamai riding a magnificent dragon, miles above the city – which had somehow, from that perspective, turned into a beautifully decadent but artistic mural of streets and buildings and lively people continuing to build the place into something worth speaking of. Onyx and I both clutched him around the waist protectively – not fearful of him, or of ourselves falling off – but for him – and yet, his warm arms around us and his bright smile made that urge to shield him from danger... not an obligation or a source of paranoia, but a heartfelt caring to make sure he stayed with us.

Years later, after things happened and people came and went, eons passed... I told him about the dream I'd had the first night I'd met him. I'd never mentioned it to him before, but now I felt the urge to.

He only smiled that same smile he'd had as a "boy" and remarked, "Like I've always said, Syd, you have to be a prophet. Even at thirteen, you were foretelling your own future. I knew the second I saw you – and you know I mean those words literally, the second I saw you – we would be in this together. All the way."

And I replied, without a trace of my characteristic cynicism or an inkling of my by-then well-known insanity, "And quite happily, too."

Stories of Syd and On (4/4)

Onyx

Sydney hadn't always been crazy. He'd actually grown up to be a bright, talented young boy. He'd been very outgoing while selling his caricatures and goading people to buy his and our parents' stuff on the streets. But he changed dramatically in a short time. I don't doubt witnessing the senseless slaughter of our community – particularly, of course, our parent and surrogate family – had a detrimental effect on his psyche. To put it mildly.

But people – of all races – ave always been made differently. Despite our striking resemblance – not just being twins, but the mere family genetics strong on our mother's side to give us our dark eyes and black, wild hair, even our small, rake-like builds – we were simply different from each other on the inside, chemically, I believe. I saw all the same things he did, and though I grieved and mourned and had my moments of hatred, I never completely lost it like he did. I suppose my coping mechanisms were stronger, and his... well, non-existent.

There was an immediate change just after our ordeal which eventually landed us in the safety of Enollamai's "family," but nothing so drastic as to lead me to a conclusion as him ending up in an asylum at the age of seventeen. Two years we spent with Enoll, and the following two we struck out on our own, though always keeping in contact – as Enoll and Syd had come to agree that the plagued-soul neighborhood he'd originally found us in (which we returned to, to live, because it was what we could afford on the savings we'd kept from our parents, Auntie and Uncle, and continued to contribute to while living with Enoll), could become as great as the visions in their equally frantic but brilliant minds.

Unfortunately, Syd had developed a dangerously rebellious nature, especially toward Regime-related individuals (understandable), but also toward many ordinary Humans as well – our own "kind," so to speak. He embraced the Utar history and nuances as he would his own precious family – which was not bad; he wanted and needed something to hold onto, some belief, comfort. And that's where he found it.

I'm not saying I rejected it myself, but I was always a more balanced personality, releasing blanket judgments and preferring our father's own penchant for pacifism. Though I joined him in some juvenile antics, I only participated for the satisfaction of acting on teenage rebellion and indignation.

Syd, on the other hand, even with his odd smile – which had become more and more crooked over the years, despite retaining its charm – acted on pure resentment. The hatred he harbored reached far beyond my own scope, and his daring grew out of control.

I would never suggest Enoll encouraged him in a violent direction – he was always quite the pacifist himself. But he did indulge Syd's fascination and love for the native race; perhaps too much.

He tried several times to discourage Syd from certain actions, yes – but he also did not believe in interfering with a man's pure and heartfelt intent and conviction. Honest to a fault, he couldn't help but admit to my overzealous brother the wrongs that were being carried out – even in and around Maerd. Which only fueled the fire in my twin's gradually cracking psyche. Despite knowing what these truths could lead Syd to, Enoll couldn't sugar-coat the facts, what he knew, felt, sensed – and once we had learned his true position and abilities, his responsibilities of an Omcompan, we simply couldn't doubt his words.

Words which saddened me – and made Syd furious with a desire to be as much of a nuisance to the Regime as possible.

And he managed to get away with it – with numerous individually created and carried-out missions to tear them down – for two years.

And then his mind tore apart, in the middle of one of these schemes, and he was caught.

We could only be grateful that Enoll was on his side, and that side happened to favor Maerd, where Quanaar and Regime laws didn't affect his trial. But the outcome still deduced: the child was broken, and only a secure facility could even hope to "fix" him... Though Enoll and I really both knew it was merely a sentence to keep a disturbed individual, whose perception was inexplicably twisted – yet somehow too close to the truth – off the streets. For the safety of others, and his own.

Governments have their flaws, yes; but in this case, I felt them to be more compassionate than usual. Perhaps his age was a factor, or his clearly paranoid, delusional, malfunctioning brain. (Or, as Enoll suggested, his ability to see beyond what our own government could see to something scarier than they could cope with.) But I also suspected, though never spoke of it, Enoll's powers of persuasion and ability to enter others' minds had a little something to do with the "lighter" sentence. Though if that were the case, his choice to be subtle was wise, as his presence at the trial alone could have been a dead giveaway as to the reason behind such leniency (luckily, he informed me later, he tended to keep his purpose in life and his true Omcompan identity a secret even from those in power; hardly anyone knew his face who wasn't a truant, or wino, or someone in power that "mattered" anymore).

Despite all the questions, hints, minor interferences – and despite my eternal love for my brother – there was still no denying it in my mind, whether he had killed people or not: Syd was a bona fide loon by then, the way he acted and ranted without a care of who he was speaking to – or at. At least Enoll had the sense to – not abandon him, but – sway the judges into believing rehabilitation was the best way to go, rather than prison, banishment, or execution.

Bottom line: he knew his friend had gone beyond the point of even his own lunacy. He knew Syd needed help – more help than what we (or a prison) could give him,

And once again, the merciful Balancer saved us both from a worse fate.

Despite my fluctuating brother being kept in that asylum, and the stress that mere fact put on my emotional state, I continued on in my own way. Had a regular job at an unstable art gallery in a nicer part of town, but still lived in the same broken-down tenements Syd and I had moved into after leaving Enoll's house. It was dirty and dangerous, even just walking through the rooms, but it was cheap and, compared to other places we'd "lived," much more secure.

Enoll constantly checked in on me, took me out with other friends I didn't know, asked after my brother since I stayed in constant contact with him – though I hesitated to show him all of Syd's letters, as many would trail off into disturbing rants and tales from his own mind. But then, as Enoll pointed out when catching one of these more downbeat messages, was Syd really as off the mark as he sounded? True, he was locked away from the outside world – yet he still seemed to know how bad the war was becoming. Wise words I should have taken to heart sooner.

Only one month did I go without writing to Syd – and that was only because of the destruction which hit the city, the gates apparently being less sturdy than we'd all thought as the war breached them. Wreckage and carnage practically ruined the whole section of SouthWestern Maerd, including the "nicer" places. The gallery was utterly destroyed, the tenements literally collapsed from the inside, even Enoll's house was struck with disaster.

Thankfully, my guardian angel came to sweep me away with two others I'd met before, but had not been well-acquainted with. Obviously, though Enoll loved the whole city and most of its inhabitants, the three (well, four, including the child I'd never met before) of us were his top priority. He sheltered us from the rampaging war, in a bunker he'd built on his own estate for just such an incident, with his parents, staff, and anyone who had been staying at the house at the time. When we dared to saunter outside after the dust settled days later, we found the once giant house to be almost in pieces, and the city hadn't fared as well as that.

So for that month, he and I, along with the other more determined spirits among us, began to rebuild. It was long and arduous, but we managed to make parts of the town – through Utar magic and physical labor, not to mention Human hope – seem livable again.

That letter to Syd was the hardest to write. But I picked up my regular communication with him as soon as I could, even during the days of reconstruction. And I apologized for him for ever considering his "premonitions" or "intuitions," however absurd they'd sounded at the time, to be pure babble of a psycho. Which he'd never suspected of me before, but thanked me for in responding letters.

Though Enoll extended the invitation to let me, Vel, his wife Senja and their daughter Emmy stay with him, we politely declined – he still had his aging parents, staff, and local strays to look after, while the rest of us may have had little to go on ourselves, but were determined to stay on our own feet. So while he helped restore his family and home and surrounding areas, the three adults in our new group got to work on our former homes.

It took me a while, through the chaos and change, to connect the dots in my head to realize who these other two were – mainly Vel, or Velfrin as his famous father had named him. Louis Shepherd's only child, the first Halfie to be born between Human and Utar. It would have been more of a shock and honor to make his acquaintance, had I known his origins sooner, even before the disaster struck and we'd "hung out" together as mutual friends of Enoll. But when I finally made the connection and figured out who he was, we were all too worn out and overtaken by the shock to care about bloodlines.

Unfortunately, Vel and Senja's home was beyond repair: utter rubble, ashes, not even their combined Utar powers could help.

So I asked what they could do with my own inverted tenements. And I knew their home must have been as bad as they described, as they were able to rescue the unsteady structure with little effort. More physical labor made it better than it had been when Syd and I had first moved in, but it was still just a rundown slumhouse overall.

But I adored it. It was my home, my home. Not borrowing tents or hiding under trees, not crashing a few nights at a friend's home or communing with trailer park Utars, not giving into the generosity of a wealthy but giving person of secret vitality to the entire Utar race – but mine. Mine and Syd's.

And when many of the other previous tenants were too afraid to return, I invited the small family now by my side to share the whole first floor with me. Our home.

Two years later, our home had truly become a family – we'd become accustomed to each others' quirks and tendencies, laughed at things we should (and shouldn't) have, supported each other through emotional, tearful nights. We recounted our pasts and told each other details of our earlier lives. Emmy was like my own niece, and we played together in the back alleys and on the streets like kids (but being an adult, I was much more careful than any ten year old, so Senja wasn't worried when the two of us went out for a walk to be silly together).

Syd was glad to read I was safe, and that I'd started a different art gallery on my own tenacity and shrewd business sense, and it was beginning to reap the success of my hard work – amazing even to me, considering it was but a block away from our rusted old row home, as opposed to that much nicer, safer area the previous gallery had been in.

Senja and Vel helped in my endeavor, of course (mostly Senja, as Vel preferred having wild nights on the town after Emmy was put to bed and Senja and I stayed up to hash out new ideas for work and possibilities, costs and contributions and whatnot), but the gallery was officially, legally, mine. (Though I secretly made a confirmation with contractors that if anything should happen to me, the responsibility to either keep it going or sell and use the money received should go to Senja.) Naturally I employed my new "sister," and with Enoll's contributions and help with word of mouth, business picked up to a decent level. I was strongly encouraged when he insisted he barely used any of his powers to convince buyers to come down and have a look, or artists to contribute – he may have been lying, but I doubt he ever knew how to properly pull off that kind of trickery. (Still, my issues with trust and skepticism made me think otherwise, but my more laid-back side insisted on taking his word at face value.)

So things were starting to look up.

And then the war continued to move south, and I became more and more anxious as reports came in over radio and tv news of battles being waged near to where the asylum was located – big, empty, desolate spaces where less civilians would be involved. Which was positive in one respect, but... Perhaps neither side considered a loony bin a valid place for "civilians," despite "civilians" working there, or just the fact that these patients were actual people who simply needed help.

It was pure luck that Enoll was there to comfort me when the news came in that the asylum was, indeed, caught in the crossfire. I simply had a meltdown, had to be held back physically from grabbing the keys to my barely-living, gas-guzzling, over-used auto I'd scrounged for less than a year before, to go down there myself and find him.

But Enoll stopped me. Assuring me in that way of his that he would know if Sydney was in danger. He made me promise to wait for a week before doing anything rash, and to contact him before making any decisions – not so he could stop me, but so he could aid in my journey.

In other words, if Sydney didn't appear to us in one way or another during that following week, Enoll was coming with me to find his friend.

Before the third day, I was a wreck.

The fourth, I'd convinced myself he was dead.

The fifth, I was past caring. So disillusioned that I hardly fluttered an eyelash when Emmy tried to play "Spin The Monkey" with me.

And on the sixth day, after the four of us made rounds to salvage something like "groceries" from the various surviving mom-and-pop stores and the cleaner trash bins we knew about, we walked into the tenement to find a dark-haired, horrid-smelling, patchy-clothed heap of frail bones collapsed on our fourth-hand sofa.

As the others took our findings into the kitchen area to sort through, I stood in the doorway to the living room, hand on my hip, and cut into Syd's vague sleep with a sharp, "Well, it's about bloody time you got here, you filthy wanker. Only been waiting for five years."

As he sat up – slowly, painfully, crookedly – he showed me his teeth and quipped, "Sorry, love – seemed to have gotten bad directions from some Regime-loving bastard along the way. But don't worry – I got back on track after I killed him."

I wasn't sure whether he was serious or not – given his past actions, it could very well have been true. And whether he did or not mattered little – the authorities, if they paid attention and cared enough, would eventually try to find him and return him to some kind of lock-up, now that the asylum was destroyed – if they hadn't fixed it up by then. But I suspected, with everything else going on, one missing loony who would wind up back with his protective sister and a very powerful friend wasn't worth that much effort to find. As long as we kept him in line and he didn't go around killing anymore, and kept his antics to a minimum, his whereabouts would dissolve into the background, forgotten by anyone who mattered.

I scrunched my nose at him and ordered sternly, "Go take a shower, I can smell your stench from here. I'll bring you better clothes then. And leave the heap of crap you're barely wearing outside the bathroom – I'll burn them in the backyard later."

He finally reached a full sitting position, and as he eyed me up, there was so much love and gratefulness in those eyes that I nearly caved and gave him a genuine smile myself – but I resorted to a cheeky smirk and wink to assure him I was still his same old On. So he smiled instead.

As frightening as that smile still was to me then, I remembered that he'd had the same one even before everything that led up to the asylum. So if I was the same old On, then he was the same old Syd. For better or worse. I felt whole again. Syd was back. That's all I cared about.

War Children: Book Two

Sydney – A Beautiful and Strange Mind

There are wars going on all around us. Race Wars, big wars, family wars, tiny wars. From the HCR and Utar Purists, to the couple across the street who scream at each other late at night over who goes more housework, to the mice in the alley out back who fight over our discarded scraps and crumbs.

But here in Onyx's home, there is peace and tranquility. Well, sometimes. Vel has a knack for coming home in the wee hours drunk or high on pills. Emmy likes hanging off anyone's outstretched hands to play "Flip the Midget." And On can yell over the phone to an employee to quit being so damn stingy and just sell the damned painting to the highest bidder, even if it's two hundred dollars below the ticketed price.

I have yet to hear Senja raise her voice, though, and most of the time I'll find her sitting in front of the couch I laze around on, meditating. Or communing with dead ancestors. Or conversing with a passing Utar spirit who doesn't mind a friendly chat.

I can't see the Bubbles, but I know they're there. I can't speak to them like she can, but sometimes I'll toss in a crude joke to pass on which makes her giggle. There are brief moments when I think I could fall in love with her, but I'd never do that to her or Vel. She's more like an older sister than a potential lover; and I'm sure I'm more to her like a deviant little brother she likes to play along with.

But nobody ever questions her speaking aloud to seemingly no one – because she is a Utar, and all Utars know about the spirits of the physically dead. Some can only sense them; some can only see them; some, like Senja, can communicate with them. Whenever I do that rambling to no physical presence in the room, people just say I'm hallucinating. Could be true. I don't see spirits, but I feel them, like my mother could sense danger before it approached. I enviously wonder if Humans will one day adapt to this planet enough to evolve that ability Senja has always had.

On is a much more secular creature, but we won't hold that against her. Because, even if she's not as sensitive to these things herself, she believes and accepts them as an everyday occurrence. If Senja says her ancestor advises not to trust a certain art seller because his family has taught him wicked ways of other arts (such as cons), then Onyx will refuse to accept his offerings into her gallery. And Senja's ancestors have never been wrong so far as I've been around to witness these exchanges. Said con-man was later arrested by local law enforcement for selling faux prints of a famous dead Utar's work at expected prices of originals.

And here the government had me proclaimed insane, while every-day "gentlemen" go around defacing the pride of their own Utarian culture. At least the bastard didn't get away with it. And he wasn't judged "insane"; just "greedy."

Well, maybe there's a bit of a difference between demolishing government buildings and trying to pass off fake paintings as real. But that's neither here nor there.

All is fair in art and war, I suppose.

I'm not able to get a job myself. I'm barely allowed out of the house, according to my twin. I oblige her paranoia – I know she's merely worried that I'll be "caught" if I draw attention, and she's convinced that wherever I go, whatever I do, I have a knack for doing just that. (And this sibling sentencing comes even before she's ready to accept my rather flippant remark the first day I was here about killing a soldier... Right now, I'm not sure I want to assure her that I may do dirty things, but lying isn't one I make a habit of.)

So I laze around on the couch, help Senja with housework in between studying her spiritual rituals; I play innocent games with Emmy, indoors or in the backyard – tag, hide and seek, "Spin the Monkey" and "Flip the Midget"; I talk to Vel about what's going on in town, if people I used to know are still around, or discuss serious subjects like the random battles cropping up here and there throughout Ysatnaf.

Sometimes Enoll will drop by with candies for Emmy and wine for the rest of us, and he and Vel will talk about Louis and Vel's mother, who are still alive and kicking. (Apparently kicking mostly each other out of sheer amusement.)

If he gets me alone, Enoll bangs on to me about my mental state, questions how I'm doing, worries over my well-being. One of these days he'll realize I'm probably as insane as everyone thinks, but I can still keep up with so-called "rational" thought. Someday he'll know how perceptive I can be. Maybe he already does – of course he does, he's the Omcompan – but he won't give away how aware he is of it until... Until I'm more functional, I suppose. More believable to others, as even my own twin is skeptical of me still.

But my days can become tedious and boring sometimes. So I draw. On finds discarded canvases and paints and brushes, brings them home for me to use. Eventually she starts selling my paintings in her gallery; they don't fetch as much as others', but it helps me feel like I'm contributing to the household if I get a hundred dollar sale – she doesn't deduct a finder's fee or anything for the gallery, as it would all come back around to her anyway.

She encourages me to keep at it, and I encourage her to keep pushing my visions-turned-physical onto the weird freaks who will pay money to keep a slab of canvas with my nonsense brain droppings nailed to their walls.

The painting is the best therapy I've had – more than all those years of psychobabble and meds in the loony bin. Gets out the raw demons from my mind, until I reach a place where a piece comes out rather lovely and touching even to my own eyes.

On sells them all – except one, which she keeps in her bedroom, on the ceiling so she can fall asleep staring at it every night. A pair of dark twins, mirror images, watching each other through glass as their fingers barely touch, while an abstract cloud of vivid but soft colors hovers above them; she says she can find patterns of our parents in the unformed shapes – I say it's the most creative thinking she's done in years. I made the thing and can't see them, but I suppose it was a subconscious endeavor. One which escaped my mind before being fully imagined, and my literal "other half" makes up for that missing space I couldn't quite grasp.

Or maybe her own insanity is just more subtle than mine.

And when Enoll finds some paintings I've done that she plans to take to the gallery the next day, he studies them with the attention of a statue containing a Utarian soul. No one can tell what he's thinking. For an hour, he goes through them, only three pieces, but stares at them at different angles.

Finally, he offers a grand for all three. Before On can answer, I accept for her.

And before he leaves with his "prizes," he stops both of us and gives her an important look, telling her, "Don't let him stop. He's special, your brother. He can see the future."

Rubbish, we both think – but if he wants to pay over three hundred for one piece of junk, he's welcome to it.

But that night as I lay on the couch and can't sleep, I wonder just what our elusive Omcompan friend means. Knowing who he is – and how he's rarely ever wrong – I start to get chills at the remembrance of his eyes as he spoke those words. And for once, I pray to not have any dreams that night.

Onyx finally lets me out of the house more now, since Velfrin – and even Enoll – kept nagging her to let me experience city life again. I don't feel anxious at all about it, which is what I discover was her true fear for me: that I would be so used to being cramped up indoors that I would go into culture shock, or panic attacks, if brought out into "the real world" again.

Not me. Senja steps in and calms Vel down with a firm "no" when he thinks he has a new drinking buddy, but assures him that I'll reach that point eventually. "Slowly and carefully," she warns in her motherly manner. Funny, but I guess just being allowed this much freedom compared to the asylum is what keeps me from being non-compliant with my surrogate nurses. On and Sen are much more trustworthy than any of those old hens had been, so I follow their orders cooperatively and keep myself in line. Helps, too, that instead of shoving mind-numbing pills down my throat, they shove paint brushes into my hands and canvases in front of my face as a way to get out any of those "bad feelings" or "evil thoughts" that still plague me. I feel more relief, and productive at the same time. But before On takes any to the gallery to sell, Enoll insists on being alerted first so he can come over and take more long hours studying them.

Even if a piece comes out frightening to my own eyes, I know it's gone from my head then, and I can let it go. Even if Enoll wants to drink it in later – that's his business.

Vel makes the comment one day that perhaps I'm developing Avaraura abilities – but Enoll, who happens to be there at the same time, only smiles and says, "The talent, yes – but the magic that comes with it, no. His is a different power. But it's probably a good thing he's not an Avaraura – he's exorcising his own inner demons, and somehow displaying signs of what I suspect will come to be in his own way. If someone actually felt what he paints, as a true Avaraura's powers do, Onyx wouldn't sell one piece of his... Well, except to me."

Though disappointed by these words, of Enoll telling me point-blank that I'm simply not a Utar, I focus instead on his positive views: I have the artistic talent of that particular Utar, and maybe something in my work is important – to his eyes or whatever he may see in them. Having the talent anyway is, to me, practically like being one. My ego soars – and when I play "Spin the Monkey" a little too eagerly later with Emmy, I accidentally change it to "Fling the Monkey." Into the wall of the house outside. Luckily, Senja heals the bruises quickly, and since there are no wails of pain or tears from the little girl, mother only smiles at my carelessness with her daughter and gives a light warning.

Unfortunately, typical child, Emmy runs straight back up to me just after being fixed and demands, "Do it again!"

And people say I'm crazy.

