《Dust》 Chapter 1: Infant Men with Poison Dreams First Chapter of my first series! Let me know what you think. Veering towards the strange and macabre. Let''s get spooky~ I''m not entirely sure I''ve nailed my main character''s thoughts yet. I''m currently writing Chapter 3 and I''m already more confident in who he is. I''ll likely be updating this chapter in a few days once I''m sure. --------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1: Infant Men with Poison Dreams Day 1 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I think I am awake. I feel sore, and weak, and it took me what felt like hours to open my eyes. I am not strong enough to move. All I can see is a white ceiling. Strange thoughts of monsters and blood swirl in my head. I see one man in particular more than the others. He is a cruel looking man with a straight nose and big fever bright eyes. I fall in and out of consciousness. I feel moist and too warm. Day 2 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª- It¡¯s been one day since I woke up, and I am strong enough to lift my neck and look around a bit. There are nine bald, naked men in the room with me, and they are all identical. No doors, no windows. Ten of the same bald man. I remember hair. I¡¯m sure I had some before. Or he did maybe. I¡¯m sure we had hair. I see the fever bright dream man in the faces of my roommates. No, not the same man, but maybe siblings? The face is the same, but the eyes are different, less angry. They look as confused as I am. We sit, and we crawl around the room a bit, but our muscles are weak. I remember speaking, and sometimes words and the names of unfamiliar objects come to me; but I lack the motor functions to make the sounds I remember. I don¡¯t think anyone here could answer my questions if I could. A few of the others have tried, and it brings fresh tears to my eyes hearing their attempts at intelligent speech. This whole situation is wrong. I know that I have the body of an adult and memories of a life before this, but it isn¡¯t mine. The dreams are terrible and though I recall them as if I was there, I know that I have never done these things. Day 4 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Food is supplied through a chute along one wall that empties into a large communal bowl, and water is available in a trough running through a pipe along one wall. To one corner there is a thick metal grate that provides our only option for waste removal. Once a day a matching grate on the ceiling opens and showers water down to clean the waste away. The room is bright, but I see no obvious source of light. I was strong enough to approach the trough today. Looking at my reflection, I am identical to the other men here. Several of my fellow selfs have begun forming rudimentary words, and by their choices of subject I gather we share the same memories as well as faces. I am more sure that these memories are not my own. The more I recall, the more sickened I am. I don¡¯t know who the man in my memories is, but I pity him. He was terribly lucid as he did things that cause the other nine of me to cry out as they sleep. As the memories continue to clear I am getting a sinking feeling. I''m worried I might understand our situation, and if I am right our existence may be even crueler than these memories. I weakly grip the hand of another me, and I try not to weep. If I am right I will need to be strong. I have only myself, and even that concept is worth less in here. Day 5 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I suspect I am working through the memories faster than my brothers. Brothers is what I settled on; We are not the same man, though our faces and voices and even our memories say otherwise. Today one of us began humming. Two others joined in, a third grinned while others wept or continued to sleep. I see the differences. Each day we become more unique. I eat more food than I feel comfortable with. I''m still too weak, and I need to be strong. Just in case. Though standing is still beyond me, I sit against a wall and stretch each of my muscles in turn, while untangling the memories as they come to me. Day 8 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I made a friend here. I call him Harper, because he was the first to start humming, and he seems to enjoy working with his voice. He approached me in my corner two days ago, tilting his head to one side questioningly at my exercises. I smiled, maybe for the first time, and attempted the universal ¡°strongman¡± pose to explain my motivation. I haven¡¯t made any attempts at vocalization, but he has progressed quickly and has begun asking simple questions. I shake my head yes or no, or make simple hand gestures. It''s become his routine to sit next to me as I exercise and hum, stopping occasionally to ask questions. I feel awkward being unable to respond properly. I should work on speaking, if only to satisfy my friend. At this point I believe all of us are aware of our shared memories, but he steers clear of them, asking instead why I do each movement, or my opinion on things the others say. I feel more like myself when we are together. He is obviously not the man we have memories of. Harper is kind and inquisitive, warm and funny. He reminds me that I am not that man either, and if I die here without seeing the sun or a face other than my own then that might be enough. Day 10 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª We are not alone in the world. Of course if my memories can be trusted then that was obvious, but now I have seen the proof with my own eyes. The thinnest of us, who I thought of as Stick, refused to eat entirely today. I believe he was trying to die. Harper tried to feed him, but he only looked him in the eyes and shook his head. After that Harper returned to me and sang for the first time. Really sang, though in sounds and tones more than words. A slow sad melody for a brother in need. His voice was deep and sonorous. I feel for Stick, and I would have helped him if I could, but I''m quiet and dark, and can''t provide comfort like Harper. Hours later, Stick still refused to eat. A high frequency sound began, starting at the edge of my hearing and building to a crescendo. It grew until it thundered through my mind. I found myself unable to move, and a red light filled the room. With a titanic effort I managed to turn my eyes to view the others. From the looks in their eyes they were in the same condition. A round, flesh colored ball roughly the size of my head appeared floating in the center of the room, without any obvious entry point, and moved towards Stick in his corner. Every fiber of my being, every ounce of muscle and scrap of will were bent to the task of warning my brother. The best I managed was a low moan, barely more audible than a breath and useless while this noise was everywhere. The ball approached Stick, and a flap opened to reveal an eye. An eye that looked just Like mine. A familiar voice issued from it. Our voice, but colder, like in our memories. A simple ultimatum. ¡°Eat now or feel Pain¡± Stick slowly turned to the sphere. It seems he was not bound like the rest of us, so that he would be able to make his choice. Turning from the sphere, he looked at each of us in turn, slowly, deliberately. Then he turned back to the sphere, and he gave a sad chuckle. It was the first time I heard a sound other than a cry from stick, and it had a hint of madness in it. Stick had made his decision. The ball pulsed pulsed like a flexed muscle, and Sticks body began convulsing. He did not scream. I suspect he was unable to. The sphere disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, and we were able to move once again. Most of us moved towards Stick as quickly as we were able, making sounds of alarm and fright. I reached him first, with Harper shortly behind. We tried for a few minutes to help him, massaging muscles and speaking softly. Next Harper tried to force feed him. He hoped the voice would be lenient if we followed it. The two of us tried to force some slop down his throat, but he just coughed and continued to convulse. I sat in my corner for hours while Harper pleaded with the voice, looking to the ceiling with tears in his eyes until his voice cracked. The others sobbed or looked blankly at the walls, or held each other. Stick finally stopped moving, and after a few hours Harper returned to our corner. He hasn¡¯t sung since then. Stick was gone when we woke up, just another memory. But one that is wholly ours. Day 11 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I believe I am strong enough to stand if I wanted to. I have decided to pretend to be weak as long as possible. At some point my growing muscles will be obvious, but for now it¡¯s best if I don¡¯t stand out. Stick stood out. There is a memory itching at the back of my head. Something important. Something about us, but it¡¯s just out of reach. Day 20 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Harper sticks close to me, and though he hasn¡¯t started singing again, I occasionally catch him humming quietly to himself. Memories continue to straighten themselves out, and I think I¡¯m beginning to understand our situation more. Over the last few days I¡¯ve had a number of memories regarding something called dust. The memories are still incomplete, but I know it¡¯s related to the memories of monsters and horrible mutilations I¡¯ve seen. I think dust changes people. I¡¯ve tried to still my mind and think of these memories, horrible as they may be. I think I need to know more about it. It¡¯s related to us, somehow. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Two of our brothers got into a fight earlier. I didn¡¯t understand why. Most of us still don¡¯t choose to speak, so I may never know. Before I could do anything I heard a cracking noise and a yelp from the hairier of the two. The other immediately retreated and looked shocked and apologetic, but the damage was done. I could see a bit of white and a lot of red. A word came to mind. Radius. Other bones came to me as I tried to staunch the bleeding with my bare hands, while Harper did what he could to calm the man down. I think the man from our memories knew a lot about our bodies. My suspicions grow darker by the day. When we had done what we could, we fell into a heavy sleep, though I don¡¯t remember being tired. When we woke up, the loser of the fight was gone, and there were eight of us. The instigator of the fight looks down and reflects on his actions as Harper sings a wordless dirge. Harper is getting better at the sad songs, and it breaks my heart. Day 22 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª The fighter from before surprised me today by speaking. He approached me and Harper, presumably because of our efforts to save his brother. ¡°We were both angry. It was supposed to be different.¡± Harper gave him a hug and I just nodded sadly. He sat with us throughout the day after that, in companionable silence as Harper hummed softly. I caught him imitating my exercise routine, flexing each muscle group in turn. I nod to him. I fear strength will be necessary soon. Day 24 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª My shared memories fairly fly now, and I know more about the various muscle groups and how to strengthen them. I¡¯ve also learned more about dust. It¡¯s almost intelligent, and can be made to change a body according to the will of the possessor. Changes are permanent, and as often as not detrimental. From what I can gather it exists throughout the environment and in every living creature. The more dust, the more powerful a person can become, if they dare to make changes that could cripple them for life. Having seen the horrible ways dust can change you, I suspect that an understanding of your own biology would be beneficial. I can¡¯t help but think how much we all resemble the man in our memories and I huddle closer to my friends. Day 26 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Each day I train, and the fighter, now called Stretch, quietly joins me. Harper joins sometimes as well, and hums military tunes. We¡¯ve begun to talk a little more, and sheepishly shared our names for one another. Harper was delighted to hear his name, and Stretch seemed pleased to learn I hadn¡¯t named him based on his earlier actions. I asked them what mine was. Harper grinned and tilted his head. ¡°Doc?¡± Stretch just nodded and worked his shoulders. Day 27 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Today I meditated on my memories of dust for most of the day. Stretch and Harper hummed and chatted, but I ignored them. I needed to know more. After several hours, I realized I could visualize the dust in my body. I spent several more hours just watching it in my mind, making sure I wasn¡¯t going insane. There wasn¡¯t a lot, but there was more what I expected given my memories. Granted I was hardly an expert, but there was enough to make a real change if I dared. I was initially excited, until I realized what it meant. My earlier suspicions crystallized and with a sickening feeling I knew what we were and what would become of us. I opened my eyes and gathered my two brothers close. It was time to voice my concerns and make what plans could be made. We are clones, or something similar. The demented man from our memories is using us to explore his own living body for dust research. We were probably given his memories just to make the experiments that much closer to the real thing. Each of us has far too much dust for a slave or simple vivisection subject. The only conclusion is that he means to force various changes on us to determine what works and what doesn¡¯t. He probably would have already done it, but the memories take time to settle and our bodies couldn¡¯t take the strain until they stabilize. Harper sat in the corner after I explained and looked hurt and dazed. He doesn¡¯t want to believe it. I know that I¡¯m right, and he has our intelligence in there somewhere. He just needs time. Stretch looked lost for only a second, then his eyes hardened and he nodded. He¡¯s a strong one. Stronger than me. I¡¯ve had suspicions almost since the beginning, but laying them bare has left me shaken. ¡°What do we need to do Doc?¡± More words than I¡¯ve heard from Stretch since he first joined us. I sat down and started to work my muscles. And with the knowledge that I wasn¡¯t alone, I began to make plans. Day 28 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª After quite a few hours of contemplation, I organized my thoughts. We knew very little about our situation, or how much time we had left. If my assumptions so far were correct, we could be sure of a few things. Each time one of us was removed, we were all asleep for the event. Since the lights are always on and we keep no set schedule, it¡¯s likely that we were drugged, and that someone had to physically enter the room to affect the removal. This last part was a hunch, but if the body could simply disappear, why bother knocking us out? We are being monitored. The ball was proof our captor knew of our actions and could intervene if we went off the rails. We had enough dust to cause a real change in our bodies. It was both our only weapon and a terrifying chance. Stretch and Harper were making sense of memories much slower than me. Right now they knew far to little about the human body to attempt a change with any chance of success. I didn¡¯t know if I could either, but eventually I would have to if we were to have any chance. I asked Harper and Stretch to start looking for any cracks or changes in the wall, in case there really was an opening of some sort. I started meditating on anything regarding sleeping agents, gasses and glowing balls that can disable a man. I only hoped we had enough time to solve our puzzle. Day 30 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª For the last two days I meditated non-stop, learning a lot about medical gasses, the respiratory system and the brain. I simply didn¡¯t know enough to block the gas. It could be one of hundreds of compounds with unique effects. It decided to think of a different way around the problem. How could I avoid breathing it in the first place? After a few more hours, I recalled something that might help. I didn¡¯t tell my companions. It needed to be done, and it would only worry them. After going back and forth forth for several hours I decided to get down to it. Before I had a chance, I fell asleep once more. When I awoke one of the others was gone. I hadn¡¯t even given him a name. I struggled to remember him. He was in the group that cried a lot in their sleep, though not as bad as Stick. He seemed to be getting more active, and had shared short conversations with some of the others.I had caught him looking at our group a lot in the last few days and copying our exercises. Perhaps in time we would have been close. I had to hurry, before any more died. I fell into myself, conceptualizing the dust inside me. I clarified the concept of my intended change in my mind, breaking it into steps and pushing it to the dust. A faint memory from a scholar by a beach, when our captor was much younger. Myoglobin. It¡¯s a protein that binds oxygen to the blood. In most humans it clumps together and is fairly inefficient. In prize divers, and most marine mammals, it¡¯s found in higher quantity, and it carries more of an electrical charge. This repels other myoglobin molecules and stops them from clumping up. It covers blood cells more fully and increases oxygenation radically. If this worked the way I hope it would I¡¯ll only need to breath once every hour or so. Doing my best to explain my idea to the dust, I felt foolish. But no sooner had I finished than I doubled over in pain and awoke from my trance. I didn¡¯t know if it had worked, but my body was definitely changing. I gritted my teeth and held out as best as I could. If I writhed on the ground our creator would notice, and the plan would be over. After an hour of pain, it subsided to a dull thud. Every vein in my body was hammering, but it wasn¡¯t anything I couldn¡¯t handle. Hoping against hope, I took a deep breath, and¡­ nothing. I wasn¡¯t breathing! Two minutes, Five minutes, Ten, no problem. I smiled and thought how strange it was to not hear the steady in and out of my own breath. After forty minutes I took a deep breath. Not as high as I had hoped, but unless our mad doctor was overly cautious it should be enough. Looking inside I saw a third of the dust had gone dark. Two thirds left, enough for probably one more major change. I¡¯d need it all if I wanted to have a chance once it was discovered I was awake. I was still terrified and locked in a cage, but for the first time since I was ¡°born¡± I felt a little hope. Hope for myself, and for my brothers. It was a new feeling, and I liked it. --------------------------------------------------------------- Body mods and Mad scientists. Magic and Mystery! Next Chapter will be posted within a day of the previous weekdays until I run out of stock, then whenever completed. Chapter 2: Stupid Children This one came a bit easier than the first. The changes here weren''t as much fun though. I like creating passives. Next chapter will be ready as soon as it¡¯s edited, and then things get really interesting. --------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2: Stupid Children Day 31 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I wasn¡¯t as clever as I thought. Today I woke up and noticed the veins on my legs and arms are more pronounced. The increase in myoglobin has darkened my blood, making them stand out on my pale skin that¡¯s never seen the sun. I can only hope our surveillance doesn¡¯t pick it up. Harper hums along innocently next to me. He hasn¡¯t noticed. Stretch is more savvy. I can tell he knows something has changed, but he¡¯s smart enough not to voice his thoughts where they could be overheard. I¡¯ve been working on what to use the remaining dust on. I know it has to be a weapon, and I need it to be something completely unexpected. As much as it pains me to admit, our maker and genetic double has years of experience and likely far more dust at his disposal. If it comes to a fight, he¡¯ll have strengthened and altered his body in too many ways to count. My only shot, if I ever get the chance, is to use something subtle that will bypass any defensive measures he¡¯s taken. I considered stealth, but we have no idea where we are, and even if I escape with him behind me I¡¯ll never save my brothers. I need to take him out if I get the chance. Assuming he¡¯s alone. Assuming he¡¯ll appear in person. Too many assumptions. I¡¯ve yet to have a recent memory of him. I suspect the memories he transferred are incomplete. Perhaps saved from when he was younger. It would explain why he is so sure of himself. You¡¯d have to be mad to make ten copies of yourself with all of your memories and skills. If our memories are incomplete, we have no way of knowing how far he¡¯s come in the intervening years. One of the others, a quiet one I haven¡¯t named, doubled over groaning earlier. He stopped shortly. Harper looked concerned, but didn¡¯t move. What could we do? At least it didn¡¯t look serious. I need to name the others. I need to remember them. It would be a miracle if we all survive the next few days, and I¡¯ve seen no reason to believe in miracles. Day 33 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Time to dive once again. I had an idea for my next change. I had no idea if it would work, but without knowing more about him there¡¯s nothing I could do. I visualized the dust once more, and noticed that a few grains that were previously dark are bright once more. Dust can be reused! This is a huge find. My memories had nothing on this. It explains a lot, but causes even more problems. If we assume the enemy has years on us, and we know he has, how much might he have done? With all the dust at his disposal he could be practically indestructible by now. True, the being in our memories looked fairly human, but who knows how long ago that was? I had no time to question myself. One of us could be snatched any moment. I began to visualize my concept. This would be much more complicated than last time by far. I started by imagining a sack in my little finger on my left hand. Very small. I raised the fingernail slightly, created a second nail underneath, and created a small sack between them. In this sack I generated a toxin. Batrachotoxin. A natural poison. Extremely deadly, even in very small doses. Of course it was possible he might have created an immunity, but nothing was for certain and a choice had to be made. batrachotoxin works by binding open sodium channels in nerve cells permanently, causing paralysis as signals cannot be received to move the muscles. I was betting that he hadn¡¯t found a way to completely rewire his entire peripheral nervous system. I also added a second small sack of oily fluid behind the fingernail and allowed it to flow through channels to the pores around my fingertip. The sack would coat my finger in an oily substance, hopefully blocking the effect of my poison on my own skin upon release. Chances must be taken to kill a monster. If even a little of the poison touched unprotected skin, I would die. Simple as that. I added some nerves to allow for control of the process, and tweaked the muscles in my pinky to squeeze the two sacks. I spent nearly an hour going over the changes before committing. If my control wasn¡¯t perfect I¡¯d poison myself or my friends as easily as my target. The pain was much worse this time. I think I was still recovering from the first time. I couldn¡¯t hide it completely, and I gnashed my teeth and moaned as Harper watched on in sympathy. If that eye in the sky saw any of this all of our lives could be forfeit. Or at least mine. Through it all I allowed myself a breath only every fifteen minutes, just in case. At some point in the process I fell asleep. Day 34 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I woke up to Harper shaking me, fear on his face. Stretch was taken while I was out. All the planning, all the work, and I¡¯m sleeping when my brother needed me. I know my sleep was natural, a result of my overexertion from the change. I was so careful. I growl and hit the ground, no tears in my eyes. The anger would burn them away. I need to get out of here. I need to force the issue before Stretch is killed or worse. I raged impotently for a few minutes, clawing at the walls and breathing heavily. After I exhausted myself I sat down next to Harper. He put an arm around my shoulder and hums one of his military tunes, steel in his eyes. Clarity finally returned and I thought harder than I ever had in my short life. What can I use? The room is simple and white. Empty but for my brothers and the food and water fixtures. My brothers, Each with a reservoir of mist to match my own. But only I had the knowledge to use it safely, and as far as I know it¡¯s impossible to use the mist of another. No, two assumptions there. How hadn¡¯t I noticed them before? My eyes flew wide and I turned to Harper. ¡°He has to be able to use it!¡± Harper looked at me questioningly, interrupting his march. The others looked my way. At this point the whole room was staring at me. I was risking the ire of the eye ball that took Stick, but at this point there wasn¡¯t any time. If our evil genetic stock wanted to force transformations on us for research, as I was almost sure he did, he would need a way to direct the change externally without our permission. Yet another reason to use clones. The mist was inside us, ours. However he was doing it, it probably worked much better when you shared the same blood. Which bought me to my second ridiculous assumption. Why did I assume that I was the only one with solid medical knowledge? Sure, we were all different in temperament. Sure, we all made sense of the memories we¡¯d been given at varying rates and with different focuses. Why should that mean that my brothers had nothing to give? We were clones. Hell, I¡¯d barely spoken to most of them. Most of us were naturally quiet, taciturn. Outside of Harper and Stretch I knew almost nothing about them. I burned at my lack of awareness. This situation had been entirely avoidable. I thought I was making all the right moves, when I hadn¡¯t even used the human resources around me. Seven men, with my face, my brain mass, and hopefully my creativity. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Turning to take in Harper and the crowding doubles I showed my teeth. ¡°Who here remembers the bones?¡± Six hands, even Harper. ¡°The muscles?¡± Five hands stay up. I breathe in, though I know it¡¯s not necessary. This next question could very well determine whether we had any chance at all. ¡°Who has seen the dust inside them.¡± One hand stays up, and a second man nods confirmation. The Brother who kept his hand up turns it towards me, a feral grin on his face. I mirror it, and to my surprise he unsheathes claws on four fingers of his left hand. ¡°Wolf¡±, he says. ¡°Doc¡± I say gripping his hand and showing off the dark veins in my forearm. He looks puzzled at my choice of modifications. I turn to the man who nodded. The final man with the knowledge we needed looked almost sheepish, a shyness that was absent in the rest of us. ¡°Have you used it?¡± He shook his head and looked a little ashamed. ¡°Even better, now we have options.¡± Wolf was right. Sure, my skill might help if we were knocked out, and his claws looked like they could handle a lot, but we had no way out of the room. By now I was fairly sure that we were not constantly observed. Still, we needed to act quickly before the eye returned. We shooed the others away and took a corner to discuss our options. I now knew the value in the opinions of my brothers, but right now we needed medical knowledge and decisive action. ¡°Do you have a name?¡± He looks down. I look at Wolf, then back at our new friend. ¡°Rabbit¡± Wolf says definitively. Despite the situation, Rabbit looks like he¡¯s been given the world. He looks so much younger than us and I feel awful about the risks we¡¯re about to push on him. ¡°We need a way out of the room don¡¯t we?¡± he looked at Rabbit as he spoke. I nodded. ¡°You need to change my body.¡± I nodded again, looking apologetic. This is crazy and dangerous every time, and we all know it. We have no formal training, just the mangled memories of a madman to go on. Rabbit looks at Wolf and nods. ¡°Okay, what do I do?¡± I entered meditation. Wolf paused, looking at the wall. ¡°Camouflage, then escape when they come to check on us?¡± Wolf is the first up. ¡°We can¡¯t, if they come to check they¡¯d knock us out. I might be fine, but you two would be out.¡± My voice is already scratchy. This is more than I¡¯ve spoken at one time in my life. ¡°How about the waste grate? We could strengthen his muscles and bones.¡± Wolf seemed to like the idea, but after a moment he shook his head. ¡°No way to be sure he could break it. We need absolutes. We only have this one chance.¡± I nodded and we fell silent again. We stayed like that for longer this time. The rest of our brothers were gathered across the room, waiting anxiously. Harper hummed and fidgeted. Hope for our Friend and brother seemed further and further away with each passing moment. ¡°Acid?¡± Rabbit says every word like a kid talking out of turn. I thought it could work. Wolf grabbed him in a one arm hug and we started working out the details excitedly. We¡¯d need to raise the acidity of his stomach radically, and protect his stomach lining, throat and teeth. It will use up everything that he has. I could only hope that it would be enough. We explained what we know of dust usage to him, and he began the process. I paced, and Rabbit looked like he was about ready to scream. Shortly Rabbit started trembling and we all gathered around, Wolf on my right, Harper to my left. After nearly an hour of worry Rabbit came out of it. Wolf asked how he was, but he just waved him off and stormed towards the grate, wobbling a little on unsteady feet. He emptied the contents of his stomach over as much of the grate as possible and fell over next to it panting. We all gathered around to see whether it would be enough. Soon there was vapor rising from the soaked metal and in five short minutes a finger wide section of bar fell through. Suddenly the red light returned, and a high pitched noise came to my ears. No more time. Wolf and Harper struggled to bring Rabbit to his feet, the change and his empty stomach had left him barely able to open his eyes. We had meant to douse the remaining acid in water from the trough to lessen the effects on our bare skin, but it would take too long. Grimacing at the pain to come I jumped on the weakened grate with all my weight, shouting as I fell. The drop was only four or five feet. I rolled to the side to allow the others to land. The acid was already beginning to burn and I rubbed sewage on myself quickly in an effort to get some of it off. Harper fell next, and Wolf lowered Rabbit down as well as he could. He followed, and another brother came next. The noise was getting louder, and no more of the group followed. With tears and screams we broke away from beneath the grate and ran blindly through the dark. --------------------------------------------------------------- Poor Stretch. For those of you wondering, Doc and his brothers are physically in their early thirties. They were just created, so most of them have one or more attributes of a child where the memories haven¡¯t really connected yet. Harper is overly kind and attached, and fascinated with his voice, Wolf is interested in weapons and fighting, and Rabbit is just overall mentally young. He¡¯s already treating the others like big brothers instead of equals and they¡¯ve only shared one real conversation. Chapter 3: Monsters and Men Final Chapter of this initial rush. I plan to finish one tomorrow and hopefully one for the weekend. I had fun writing this. Lots of fun imagery. -------------------------------------------------------------¡ª Chapter 3: Monsters and Men Day 34 Continued ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª We stumbled through the dark until the group became Winded. I could have gone indefinitely between my frequent workouts and my improved breathing, but I wasn¡¯t about to leave anyone. We¡¯d lost enough for one day. The sounds and lights had remained with our little room, whether because the eye didn¡¯t know where we had gone or because it was busy with Our brother. Our as of yet unnamed friend is in a bad way. Just like we had formed our little group, it seems he was close with the brother we left behind. I understood. We all knew going back would be suicide, if we could have even found the way. None of us had any defense against that debilitating sound. We walked for maybe five more minutes before we came across a vertical wall grate to a rough hewn rock room. I leaned against a wall and my arm reminded me of the burns I had suffered. My arms and legs were in bad shape and I knew the others had them as well. Peaking through the grate I could see a reservoir of some sort, maybe a storage tank or draining area for the sewage. The light in the room was much lower than our prison, but after the tunnels it was plenty to see by. Harper crowded next to me to get a look, and after a few silent minutes we came to the conclusion the room was empty. Looking pale, Rabbit staggered from his position on the tunnel wall and prepared to repeat his performance from the room. We all looked away while he once again suffered for us. The sounds of retching were terrible. We waited for a few minutes and this time we splashed the remains of the grate and the floor underneath with the sewage water underfoot. Our unnamed brother marched through before I could, seemingly unconcerned for his own safety. I¡¯m worried about his mental state. At the other end of the reservoir or drain we came to a stone staircase. The tunnel was rough brick, but this room and the staircase seemed to be natural rock, a cave system of some sort. Wolf handed Rabbit off to me and Harper and took the lead. With his claws I figured it was the right move. Slowly we crept up the stairs until the light began to brighten. Walls smoothed and brightened and we came to the top of the stairs, where the cave walls abruptly stopped in favor of a wall the color of our own former prison. There was a door set in the wall, but no lock. Suddenly our sullen brother seemed to snap, and rushed the door. Bursting through, he turned left and continued running. We were too surprised to stop him, and after a few seconds we heard the familiar tone of an eye in the distance. Resigned, we hugged the wall out of the light of the passage until the sound faded. A weighty silence followed and Harper looked about ready to break. ¡°His name was Roger. Because he was always so agreeable. He had two friends among us. Stick you know. The other was Nod, and we left him in the room.¡± Harper stared daggers at us as he said it, and I fell to a new low. He was our brother, and I had never asked, never tried to something as simple as his name. It was only now that I realized Harper probably knew them all. Only Harper cared to get to know us, even the quite ones. Even me. We sat in silence after that for a long time. I think we all knew we were not going to find Stretch, or Roger, or Nod. It had been too long and all at once we realized how powerless we really were. Roger¡¯s mad run made it obvious that the horror in our room was not alone. Even if we could get to the area where the experiments happened, we had no defense against the Eyes. Roger still had dust, but it would be dangerous to use without personal knowledge, and we had no idea how the Eyes did their trick anyways. No way to protect ourselves. I looked down at my little finger, feeling foolish for thinking we had a chance. If we were to keep those companions we had left, we needed to leave. After a period of bitter mourning for friends we only now acknowledged were truly gone, we slunk into the hallway with Wolf at the front once again. None of us would meet the eyes of the others. Every time we did we saw the face of those we were leaving behind. We continued to walk. This floor didn¡¯t seem overly large, but it was confusing. Each corner we came to we froze, terrified of what might be lurking mere feet away. Suddenly as we approached another identical intersection my friends slowed and staggered, falling to the ground. I had been unconsciously slowing my breathing after weeks of readiness, and avoided the same fate. I caught Rabbit and lightly set him down, and began to secrete oil on my little finger. If this gas came from something living I intended to go out fighting. After maybe a minute something peaked around the corner. Something with a terrible parody of my own face. It was maybe 3 feet tall, with thick legs and arms that dragged on the ground. Shaggy hair covered it¡¯s entire body except it¡¯s head, which was as bare as my own had once been. Its features mirrored my own except for the soulless unblinking eyes, bulging to twice the size of my own and littered with cataracts. It staggered towards us, seemingly unaware of me. I stood tense and dribbled some poison down my nail as it approached Wolf. It grabbed an arm and started to pull him back down the corridor. I ran forward and jabbed my finger at his face, and despite my noise the creature never batted an eye. I slammed into it and worked my finger into its mouth, where the poison would enter the blood quicker. It didn¡¯t bite, it didn¡¯t blink. It just shook a little, dropped Wolf and fell to the ground. I wiped my finger on it¡¯s hair. Seeing the horrid creature with our face had shaken me deeply. I curled up against the wall and shook quietly. I knew the eyes had looked like a bigger version of my own, but I had assumed they were directly linked with the researcher who made us. I now realized we weren¡¯t the first or only time he had used his own DNA. In a very real way, that thing was a brother too. I hoped it hadn¡¯t felt pain. I hoped it was never aware at all. I got up, grabbed it¡¯s arm and pulled it back around the corner. It was so light. When my brothers woke up, I did not want them to see. I looked down at my finger again. It was not what I had made it for, but it had saved my brothers all the same. With a new sense of purpose I guarded them while they slept. After maybe ten minutes Harper woke up, and the others shortly after him. He of course asked what had happened, but I only answered vaguely. ¡°Another monster.¡± Wolf looked at me, but thankfully he must have seen something in my eyes, because he didn¡¯t pursue it. When we passed the corner I took the side closest to the body and did my best to obscure the view as we passed. We continued on until we found another door. I took the lead from Wolf and cautiously opened it. Inside was a simple chair and three blank white walls. On the fourth hung a large mirror. Looking in the mirror, I saw my face for the first time in a quite a while. My hair had grown out to around two inches, a little shorter than the others. What struck my most about my reflection was my eyes. Not dark or emotionless like those in my memories, but still somehow dimmer than before. I hoped I was just in shock. Maybe if we survived long enough to rest, maybe if could listen to Harper sing I could make a face like I did before. So short a life, but it felt like years had passed since Stick left us. I turned to the others and saw they were also taking measured looks at their features. Rabbit looked like he would be sick when he saw his sunken chest and acid chapped lips. I suddenly realized how long we¡¯d been walking, and slumped back in the chair. As soon as my back hit the chair, the lights went out. The formally mirrored surface of the wall revealed itself to be a window into another room. Harper let out a low shout. Eyes wide I took in the sight on the other side of the wall. It was our room! No, the grate was intact, but it was definitely the twin of the area we were raised. Suddenly it was obvious how we were observed when the eyes weren¡¯t around. At first glance it appeared this one was empty. It was a complicated feeling. I wouldn¡¯t wish our life on anyone, but it would have been nice to know we weren¡¯t alone. Just as I had that thought, a face appeared in front of the glass. Just like before it mirrored my own. Could it see us? It tilted its head as if questioning or searching for something. And then I noticed the eyes. It was an almost perfect clone, and this room was darker than ours had been so I hadn¡¯t noticed immediately. Where my brothers and I had soft brown-green eyes, the one before us had compound eyes, like an insect. That would have been horrible enough, but I realized with a shock that rather than an iridescent sheen, every one of the hundreds of tiny photo-receptors was a small version of our own iris. The lower part of its face stretched forward on muscles not meant for a human face, four inches, five inches and it kissed the glass, opening to reveal a tongueless mouth full of fleshy brown needles. Harper was shaking and Wolf stared in horror. How many more of us were there? What other terrible torture had that demon submitted his own flesh and blood to? Shakily I stood up and the lights came back on, returning the wall to its mirror finish. I couldn¡¯t help but notice that as the glass faded to mirror my face was superimposed on the fly man. With another shudder I exited the room, not even waiting for the others to join me. That was enough. I¡¯d had enough. My breathing might keep me walking longer than the rest, but emotionally I was spent. Even if he was an emotionless doll, how could he do something like this? How much must he hate himself? Harper grabbed my shoulder and with a long, raspy sigh I continued down the hallway. This was hell, but at least I wasn¡¯t alone. One of the hallways was twice as wide as those wed come across so far. After a short discussion we decided to follow it. It made sense that a larger corridor would be more likely to lead out. Doors became more frequent, but all looked like the interior doors we¡¯d entered so far. If something came we¡¯d have no choice but to pick one and hide, but after the fly there was no way I¡¯d enter one by choice. We had walked for hours at this point, and though I was becoming more and more confident that this place wasn¡¯t hosting a legion of the eye things, I also knew we wouldn¡¯t be able to sleep until we had left this place. Another hour of walking and I had to support Harper. His burns were as bad as my own and his muscles weren¡¯t nearly as developed. Wolf was doing better, but even he didn¡¯t have my endless oxygen supply and was breathing heavily. We came to a fork in the passageway and as the turn came into view we gasped as one at the sight. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Immediately upon turning the corner the white sanitary walls of the hallway became the jagged obsidian of a cave once again. But where the reservoir room had been merely big, this cavern was enormous. Within a few hundred feet all light died, and we could see neither the walls nor the ceiling. I wondered that there was no door, no security. Was this a dead end? But if nothing else it was dark, and I would feel much safer letting my guard down here than in the brightly lit, enclosed corridors of the facility behind us. Harper needed to sleep. We all did, and it didn¡¯t seem we¡¯d be exiting this place today. I practically dragged him across the uneven ground until the light of the hallway faded from view, and then another couple hundred steps for good measure. I was utterly spent. I backed up to Harper, who was already out cold. After a minute Wolf¡¯s questing hand grabbed my shoulder and he and Rabbit lowered themselves against us as well. Four brothers slept back to back in the endless dark. Day 35 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I woke before the others and stretched a bit, back still against three sleeping bodies. I was worried that if we lost contact I might never find them again. The endless black was maddening. If only I could see. For a second I remembered the fly thing, its horrid eyes superimposed over my own. I shuddered involuntarily and felt Wolf jerk a little against my back before settling again. I thought back again on yesterdays events. On what a man with the same genes as me was capable of. I didn¡¯t even know his name. Why were our implanted memories so vague? I knew many of his skills, his academic knowledge. I knew words and how to walk, I knew more about dust than I was comfortable with. Why couldn¡¯t I remember any names, or family, or cities? I hadn¡¯t so much as an inkling who first kissed the man. Had he had parents? If we ever got outside, what then? I had almost no real societal knowledge. For all I knew what he was doing here was considered normal, and we¡¯d be returned as soon as we entered a town. I brushed this aside as unlikely. I had seen the fear and confusion in his victim¡¯s eyes, and I didn¡¯t think his actions were any more acceptable in the outside world than they were to us. That brought up another unique problem of our situation. We had his face, all four of us. If he was a criminal of some sort, we would be hunted in his place. But all that was for much later. Right now we only had to focus on getting out. Behind me I heard Wolf¡¯s stomach rumble. I sighed lightly. ¡°Are you awake?¡± Wolf asked, whispering to avoid waking Harper and Rabbit. ¡°Yeah.¡± I almost turned to look at him, and then realized how ridiculous it would be in the void. ¡°We¡¯ll need water today. Food too. Harper and Rabbit are in worse shape than us, and they won¡¯t heal without it.¡± I¡¯d been thinking on that. For a second I lamented not making use of the sleep creature¡¯s body, then gagged. I felt guilty for even thinking it. ¡°I still think this cavern is the closest to an exit we¡¯ve seen, and outside our prison we haven¡¯t seen any food. I say we keep going. We can carry Harper and Rabbit when we need to.¡± ¡°Doc, I¡¯ve been thinking. Do you know which way we came from?¡± ¡°50%?¡± We sat silently until Harper woke up. It seemed like an eternity. After filling Harper in on our shaky plans and shaking Rabbit, we stood up and started walking, hands on shoulders to remain in contact. I picked our direction as I felt more sure than the others about where we¡¯d entered the cave. After a while Harper had to rest, and Wolf carried him for the next stretch. We had been at it for an indeterminate amount of time, and we¡¯d yet to even reach a wall. I was lost in my own thoughts and didn¡¯t realize how long Wolf had been shouldering Harper. With a thud I lost contact with them and heard Wolf and Harper shout in pain and Rabbit gasp. Scrambling along the floor I reached out, desperate to regain contact. My knees and arm scraped and bled on the uneven rock surface. ¡°Harper?¡± I heard a groan to my right. ¡°Doc!¡± Harper¡¯s voice, maybe ten steps away. There must have been a drop in the floor where they fell. I slowly slid down until I reached them. Harper and Rabbit seemed alright, but Wolf was now breathing heavily and not answering to his name. I felt something wet around his hairline. We sat there and waited, hoping he¡¯d regain consciousness. This was not good. I had a lot of knowledge about head injuries, and in a well lit area with a clean surface I may have been some help. Here I was just a lost child with three starving and injured brothers. Maybe I could make a change? I would have taken those fly eyes in a heartbeat if it meant a chance to get Wolf to safety. Harper still had a goldmine of dust, but without the knowledge to use it he¡¯d end up maimed or worse. I closed my eyes and looked inward towards my own supply. My Dust was a little brighter, but nowhere near enough to do anything beneficial. I pressed on, knowing there was nothing more to see but unable to give up. As I meditated, a leg brushed against my bloody knee. For an instant my world exploded with lights. ¡°What?!¡± I fell back on my hands from the shock and the lights disappeared. What had happened? Was my dust back? I turned inward again and saw the same pale lights. What had that light been. It couldn¡¯t be skin contact, I¡¯d been sitting next to Harper every time I¡¯d used dust in the past. I sat back up and my hand touched the ground. I winced in pain. I was still bleeding. There was something there. ¡°Harper?¡± ¡°What was that light?¡± There was shock in his voice. ¡°I think I just saw your dust.¡± I heard Rabbit breathe in deep over in Wolf¡¯s direction. ¡°How?¡± I scraped my hand against the ground to break any scabbing and well around for Harper¡¯s upper arm. I worked around it until I felt a scratch, and suddenly I felt the light again. I closed my eyes and could see two lights, one dim, one bright. ¡°This is how he did it. This is how he planned to make us change.¡± How he made the eyes, the sleepers. That terrible bug man. He took his own genetic infants and linked with them, changed them from within their own bodies. It was horrible, to think of being violated like that. To have your own blood used against you. But isn¡¯t that what he was best at? This could save us, but could I do it? Yes. To save Wolf, and Harper, and Rabbit. Or to save myself. If I changed him to suit our needs, was I any different than the monster that put us here? Harper breathed deep, and I heard Rabbit approach us. I felt his hand fumble for my shoulder. ¡°Do it.¡± There was joy in Harper¡¯s voice. ¡°Finally I¡¯m able to help you all. I¡¯ve been nothing but dead weight and it needs to end.¡± ¡°You could die. Do you think I could bear being the one that causes that? We have no idea how this works.¡± I remembered the Sleeper, the Eye. Things with the faces of my friends seemed to fill the shadows. ¡°If you don¡¯t we die here anyways. Please. Let me help.¡± Rabbit gripped my shoulder in agreement. And though I was near frozen with dread I dived into the soul of my closest friend. One chance. I¡¯d had an idea when I was checking my own dust. A change that could allow us to navigate the darkness. The only problem was that I¡¯d never worked on anyone else before. Was the process the same? Just visualize and work through the steps? It was the only lead I had. I began to visualize what I had in mind. A tapetum lucidum. It''s a reflective membrane under the retina seen in many nocturnal animals. A biological mirror, reflecting light back into the eye to effectively double the brightness of low-light environments. I wasn¡¯t sure if there was any light to see here, but it was the smallest change I could think of, and the one I was most sure wouldn¡¯t kill my brother outright. I had first considered echolocation. It didn¡¯t require any light at all to work, but although altering his vocal chords seemed doable, the necessary changes to the brain to interpret the sounds would almost definitely leave him a vegetable. Having picked my poison, I focused on pushing the task to the brighter grouping of dust, but nothing happened. Could I have been wrong? No pressure, no recognition at all. Was I on the wrong track? Maybe blood contact only allowed one to see the dust, but not interact. But no, this had to work. If not then we might as well lie down wait. I thought about what I¡¯d learned of dust. It sits in you, waiting to take conscious direction. Our creator had intended us to undergo whatever changes he chose, and this was likely done with clones because sharing the same genetics made it easier. Maybe genetics wasn¡¯t enough? What if I gave my dust the instructions and pushed it over to his side? I tried again, starting with some of my own dust, and instructing it to merge with the brighter cloud in Harper. It shot off from towards his cloud, and when it hit it the whole cloud pulsed, absorbing it. I tried again, and this time I could feel his cloud listening. It was harder than before, like trying to explain a concept to someone who doesn¡¯t speak the same language, but slowly I got my intended change across. A third of the went dark, and I felt Harper pull away with a sharp intake of breath. Back in the dark, I sat and waited for him to recover. The screaming was terrible, and I cursed myself over and over again as I waited to see the result. After the longest wait of my life, the screams turned to heavy breathes and then to silence. ¡°Anything?¡± Rabbit practically whispers. If I didn¡¯t know better I¡¯d think my friend was half our age. ¡°I haven¡¯t opened my eyes yet.¡± We wait in the dark again. And after a long beat he gasps. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Light.¡± -------------------------------------------------------------¡ª I have to admit, I was so excited to write in the monsters and the mad dash that I completely omitted Rabbit from this chapter initially. Just forgot about him. He sure is a quiet one. I¡¯ll have to have a future chapter about him and Harper as an apology. I think they¡¯d get along well and they haven¡¯t had much of a chance to talk yet. These are fairly long for web novel chapters, how is the length and pacing for you guys so far? This chapter could have logically been split into corridor and cave chapters, do you like the longer format or should I cut it up? Chapter 4: The Obsidian Garden Will today be the day our heroes finally feel the sun on their face? Will the sun have the same face as them? Find out when the exciting adventures of the nudist mystery team continue in: -------------------------------------------------------------¡ª Chapter 4: The Obsidian Garden Day 35 Continued ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª ¡°Light!¡± Harper wandered a few feet away before returning to us, he was so excited. I¡¯m sure we were all grinning like idiots in the dark. Now able to maneuver as long as there was some small amount of light, I took up carrying Wolf as Harper guided us along. We had no idea where we were, but the presence of light, however faint, was encouraging. The stone here seemed to be volcanic, so reflective obsidian might allow light to travel quite far, but light was light. Harper¡¯s ability to see at all meant that somewhere nearby was either an exit or lamp of some kind. Given how far we¡¯d come since leaving the facility, I had to believe it wasn¡¯t just another hallway. Every few minutes we¡¯d take a break. I would rest my back from the weight of carrying Wolf, who had at least as much muscle weight as I did, while Harper would try and pinpoint the direction in which the light was strongest. Rabbit offered to take Wolf every time we stopped, but I declined. He was wasting away after most of two days without food and the painful acid usage. Just walking was enough of an ordeal until we found provisions. These slow periods of start and stop went on for ten or so cycles before I thought I detected some of the light myself. We¡¯d been in the dark so long it was another minute before I was sure I wasn¡¯t hallucinating. Slowly we approached a rock face, glowing gently blue green. Perspective was difficult with only one point of reference. The wall could have been ten feet high and steps away or miles high and a day¡¯s travel. The truth was somewhere in between. After maybe another 3 rest stops we approached a wall maybe twenty times my own height. We were mere feet away before I realized the wall hadn¡¯t been glowing after all. It was obsidian. I knew because as we got close I could see my figure in the natural glass. I could see a green movement within the glass, so subtle I might have missed it if it hadn¡¯t been the first thing I saw all day. I stared entranced, and a moment later Harper squeeked. He had seen it too. ¡°What is it? An animal?¡± Rabbit whispered. ¡°No, the movement is too regular. If I didn¡¯t know better, I¡¯d say¡­¡± ¡°Doc, is that a plant?¡± I was transfixed. I wanted so much to believe it was. But how? Cave plants had no reason to be green, green was the color of the chlorophyll. There hadn¡¯t been sun down here since the dawn of time. I stared again. It certainly did look like a distant plant, or plants. But how could plants exist behind a natural wall of glass? Was this rock wall man made? A barrier of some sort to camouflage the facility? Rabbit approached closer to the wall, reached out to touch it. As he did so, his reflection moved in front of the greenery, and I realized again how young we really were. The answer was obvious. ¡°Turn around.¡± The obsidian wasn¡¯t acting as glass, it was a mirror. We assumed the light was in front of us because we hadn¡¯t seen another source of light as we approached. When we turned, there was an obvious entrance to a cave within the cave, built into the underside of a ridge we¡¯d gone over on our way to the wall. I could feel the excitement of our companions, but as tired and hungry as I was, I held them back from running ahead. ¡°We need to be careful. That area is within the greater cavern, even lower than here, and with another layer of rock above it. That means that that isn¡¯t sunlight we¡¯re seeing. It could be man made, or natural, but it¡¯s not the exit and we can¡¯t assume it¡¯s safe.¡± Harper nodded, and his newly changed eyes reflected the blue green light with a reddish tint. In the dim light his glowing eyes were more than a bit eerie. I had Rabbit carry Wolf for this last stretch. He was in a bad way, but I wanted to have my poison ready in case we found anything hostile, and I couldn¡¯t risk accidentally touching him. With me in the lead now that I could guide myself, we slowly approached the light. The door was only as tall as my outstretched arm, and wide enough that the three of us with Wolf could walk through side by side. The green we saw in the distance was part of a copse of very ordinary looking coniferous bushes or small trees that were planted firmly in a thick blue moss seemed to cover the area. It glowed faintly, and between the moss and the reflective obsidian walls it seemed we had found the source of the light. I didn¡¯t know if it was safe, in fact strange had never been safe so far. But Wolf was out cold, and we needed food and rest or we would die. Maybe there would be berries. I didn¡¯t know how to test for poison if there were. Harper stepped onto the glowing carpet, and I followed. It was sort of warm, like walking on a thick carpet of hair that was still attached to a head. I didn¡¯t want to entertain that thought. We kept moving, and when we were surrounded by bushes I rubbed my poison off on the ground and helped Rabbit set Wolf on the moss. I lay down myself and sighed, happy simply to be still for the moment. Even in this light Harper had to squint a little from his new sensitivity to light. I already had a plan for that, but there was no reason to stress his body before we even found any real light. ¡°Let¡¯s get some sleep.¡± Harper yawned as he said it. I nodded from the floor. This place seemed nice enough, unless it was the end of the world I could care less. It was warm and soft and I was a walking corpse after carrying Wolf all day on an empty stomach. ¡°Your poison killed the moss¡± Rabbit was lying on his back with his head turned towards me. A few feet from him a circle of moss was no longer glowing, and had become a light blue gray. Some distant part of me had something to say about that, but I drifted away before I could make sense of it. Day 36 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Without the sun it could have been minutes or hours before I awoke. I came to with a jolt. Rabbit¡¯s words had finished processing. I whispered to Harper and Rabbit and shook shoulders until they were both looking at me. ¡°Enemy?¡± Harper looked up at me with a shock, while Rabbit¡¯s eyes darted all around. ¡°I don¡¯t know yet.¡± Sure enough, there was a ring of gray where I had wiped my little finger. It had grown to a radius of maybe five feet while we slept. ¡°You said the moss died, and it has. Rabbit, My poison works by preventing nerves from firing.¡± Rabbit looked immediately shaken. Harper on the other hand just looked confused. I tried to whisper while struggling to keep my growing sense of unease from reaching my voice. ¡°Plants don¡¯t have nerves Harper.¡± My voice was shaking. ¡°Remember in the mirror wall, when we first saw this place. What did we see?¡± ¡°The bushes, blowing in the¡­¡± ¡°No wind.¡± Slowly, carefully, we approached Wolf and gathered him up between us. I wanted to scream. This was worse than the cloned horror from the hallway. At least it followed the rules of basic human anatomy. This was so different that it might as well have been from another world. My poison seemed to be effective, but it was limited. There was an awful lot of the moss. We were already in this thing¡¯s stomach. Silently we carried Wolf back towards the entrance¡­ Only to find a new wall of moss blocking the way. The Obsidian walls were half covered as well. I noticed a change in the light and slowly the walls started to pulse brighter and softer, like a heartbeat. ¡°Doc¡­ Is it warmer than it was when we went to sleep?¡± A stomach. And we had just walked right in. Rabbit tripped and grabbed a bush to stabilize himself, then let out a scream. His hand came back bloody, cut on what I had taken to be ordinary pine needles. As we watched, the needles sucked in the blood and became a shade darker. The whole copse started to sway more violently. If we couldn¡¯t get out quickly we¡¯d be bludgeoned to death by the boughs. I wet my finger again and secreted some poison. I was running low, and until I ate food this might be it. I wiped it on the wall where I thought the entrance had been, but even as it turned gray more grew in to fill the gaps. Now that it had us it wasn¡¯t letting go. Maybe Rabbit could have helped, but he hadn¡¯t eaten since the escape. There was nothing in his stomach to support the acid. The temperature was continuing to rise, and the plants were swaying in a frenzy. I heard Rabbit yelp once more, and, was that Wolf? ¡°Yah! Rabbit? Where are we? Doc?¡± So Wolf was awake somewhere out here. I bumped into one of the few walls that was still obsidian and narrowly avoided an incoming branch. The needles were hollow, and they were thirsty. I rolled and dodged, unable to see my friends. I was out of ideas. If this continued we¡¯d be baked in the heat and drained by the forest.I sacrificed a hand to the needles to block my core, and heard a crunch as the weight of the thing crushed some bones. For an instant I saw the core of bush, bone white and segmented. I should have known. Nothing is ever just one thing in this place. Nothing is wholesome or good. I backed against the wall again and prepared to sacrifice my other arm for a few more moments of breathe. The bough descended as if in slow motion, and I put up my hand to stop it. Two fingers were crushed, and it drank up the blood. A needle pierced my arm, and I could actually feel my blood pressure drop. Needles pierced every part of my hand and wrist. The last thing I saw was a bloody red parody of a tree, and I fell unconscious. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Day 37 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I woke up to a hand on my shoulder. I was in terrible pain. How had I survived? ¡°Who?¡± ¡°Wolf. The others are unconscious, but alive. Took me forever to find them.¡± ¡°Why can¡¯t I see?¡± ¡°All the moss is dead. It was the only light.¡± ¡°How did it die?¡± ¡°No idea. I wasn¡¯t awake at the end. I thought we were dead.¡± I looked back on the end of the fight. What could have changed? Obviously Harper and Rabbit were out too, so who could have helped us? Was there someone else here? I turned my head back and forth and got a splitting headache for my trouble. I was low on blood. Could it have been my blood? But no. It looked like a plant, but this thing had been a predator. Extra oxygen in it¡¯s meal would have been an improvement. Then what? I gingerly inspected the damage to my arms and legs. My legs were in pretty good shape, just a scratch here and a prick there. My right arm was savaged, and at least my pointer and ring finger were broken, possibly the thumb too. My left arm was even worse, and the hand felt like a pincushion. There were puncture wounds all up my wrist, and throughout the hands and fingers. Even the pinky. The dumb thing had sucked up all my poison. If the moss was the skin, it had taken my poison and circulated it straight to it¡¯s heart. I just propped myself up against the wall and closed my useless eyes. Saved by accident and left in the dark, dying of starvation, blood loss and blunt trauma. We had bested the dragon and our reward was the abyss. I had been so strong for so long. Almost my whole life so far was spent striving to improve. I needed be able to save myself. I needed to be able to save my brothers. Now all but four of us were dead or worse, and the survivors were bloody and broken in the dead stomach of a carnivorous glen. Life had not been a good experience, but at least it was short. I could hear Wolf moving around somewhere to my right side, but I didn¡¯t speak. I was going into shock. The stress was catching up to me now that I was out of immediate danger and I began to hyperventilate. I tried to enter meditation but it was quite a while before I managed to calm down. If we ever got out of this my mind would be quite the mess. I finally turned on my side and went to sleep. At least the moss was still soft when it was dead. After an indeterminate period I woke to Wolf¡¯s hand once again on my shoulder. ¡°Eat this.¡± He placed a fuzzy substance in my mouth. I had a sinking suspicion I knew what it was. I tried to spit. I grabbed with my hand and felt a lash of pain in my broken fingers. ¡°Wolf! We have no idea what that thing was made of. It could be poisonous.¡± In my mind I added ¡°It could be our brother.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. I tried it hours ago. It¡¯s no different from the food trough. Nothing but fats, protein and blood.¡± If we didn¡¯t eat we would die here. It was that simple. Wolf was still fighting for us. I had been ready to lay down and die. I fought the urge to gag and tried to force some down. It tasted like sweaty, bloody hair. I don¡¯t know what I expected. I ate another bite. Knowing what to expect did not help. The whole area was beginning to smell like a carcass. We would have to leave soon. We all had open wounds and this place was about to become a microbial feast. I swallowed heavily. ¡°Are Rabbit and Harper up yet?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± I heard heavy breathing and the sound of retching to my right.In my mind I coined a new battle cry. ¡°Miserable, terrible, awful, but not alone.¡± We all forced as much of the moss down as we were able. It was the worst experience of my life, including having my bones broken and blood drained. During a pause I briefly meditated, both to separate myself from the reality of the situation and to remember what light looked like for a little while. To my surprise, My Dust had grown by a visible amount. More was lit up, and there was even more of the unusable dark variety. The meal we had forced down our throats was worth it¡¯s weight in gold. I even managed to force some more down after telling the others about my discovery. For the first time in days I was full, and it was awful. When it was clear that any more moss would just lead to us losing our hard won lunch, we got ready to move. My hands were useless, but luckily we no longer had anyone we needed to carry. Unfortunately with the cave dead Harper could no longer see, even with his enhanced vision. The moss really had been the only source of light in the area. After some stumbling we came across the entrance, and came once more into the larger cavern. Working from memory, we found the mirror wall and using it as a guide worked our way to the right along it¡¯s surface. I was still queasy, but my strength was recovering faster now that my stomach was full. My enhanced blood meant that I could operate fairly well even before it had fully recovered. It was a great help to have a wall to follow. Not only did it prevent us from getting lost from one another, it supported us when we grew tired and gave us a sense of direction in the giant space. We made better time than we had since entering the cavern, even better than when Harper had been able to see, because we weren¡¯t carrying Wolf. I was thinking heavily on the moss. I had a suspicion I would be able to affect a change like that and create a source of light for us. I even thought I might have the Dust necessary after our meal earlier. The only problem was our position. We were in a dark, unknown area. We hadn¡¯t seen anything else while in here, but we had kept to the dark and stayed fairly quiet. That forest had been there a while, and it had used light to draw us in. I had to assume it had used it to draw other things before, or it wouldn¡¯t have survived. A chill ran down my spine. Now that I thought about it I was sure I was right. We weren¡¯t alone in here. Whether it was something from the lab or a natural population, this place was alive. I heard Wolf yell from the front of the line, bringing me out of my thoughts. ¡°Wet! The wall is wet ahead.¡± When we got to where he was, I heard a faint dripping. Water? I touched the wall and rubbed it between my fingers. It felt like water. I put it to my tongue and almost moaned. ¡°It tastes clean. Water! Gather as much as you can!¡± I would have cried if my tear ducts weren¡¯t bone dry. We sat there for hours, trying to gather enough to satiate our bottomless thirst. I would have killed for something to catch some in for later. Between this and the meal I felt human for the first time in a while. While we worked at the wall I heard Harper breathe in. ¡°Doc, look up. Light! Golden beautiful light!¡± I couldn¡¯t see it at all, but then I didn¡¯t have his vision. Rabbit thought he could see it, but he wasn¡¯t sure. Maybe I could see something reflecting off Harper¡¯s upturned eyes. I couldn¡¯t be sure. I hoped it was a sign we were closer to the surface, that it signaled better things. I just wanted to eat something that I could be sure didn¡¯t have any of my own DNA in it. I was done killing things that had my face. We drank deeply before moving on. Some time later we leaned against the wall and attempted to sleep. Harper didn¡¯t see the light again that day. -------------------------------------------------------------¡ª Baby-man bros 1, carnivorous spruce juicers 0. Aren¡¯t you glad they didn¡¯t try the berries? I had fun with the descriptions for this creature. And we got to see our unflappable hero let someone else pick him up when he fell. Harper got a lot more play this time which was good. This is an ensemble cast. If you were wondering why the implanted memories seem to have stopped altogether, it¡¯s all the stress they are working through. most of the memories come to them in their dreams, and right now they are working through a lot of other stimuli. Ever have vivid dreams after finals week or a breakup? We¡¯ll get back to their mysterious creator a little later. The next two chapters will act as a bridge into the next story arc. Look forward to more weird creatures and new characters, some of which aren¡¯t even related to our heroes! How refreshing will that be? As always comments are appreciated, and thanks for reading! Chapter 5: Sights Unseen Things are looking up for Harper, but Doc¡¯s hands are broken and bruised. Will Doc ever fulfill his dream to be a concert pianist? The answers to this and more revealed this week on a very special Dust. --------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5: Sights Unseen Day 38 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Again I woke before the others. For the first time in a while I had seen some memories. As usual, the predominant theme was dissection and experimentation. Was that all he did? Or did he only pass a subset of memories to us? Maybe the horror of these makes them shine brighter than the mundane memories. It would be nice to take a nap and see him eat a sandwich or read a book, but I had a feeling it wasn¡¯t likely. I didn¡¯t have any deep revelations this time. but I did see one of his experiments I might repeat on myself if I ever had the opportunity. I tried to flex my ruined fingers. The broken digits were setting at odd angles. I was going to have to re-break them at some point if I wanted to heal correctly. It just wasn¡¯t feasible in the dark. Surprisingly from a touch I could tell that the inflammation had gone down quite a bit, and they were nice and dry. No infection as far as I could tell by touch alone. That might not mean anything, but I had a hunch my over-oxygenated blood was speeding the healing process. I knew from memory that oxygenating an injured limb was often the difference between a cast and amputation. I had no way to be sure, but my rushed change in the facility seemed to be a more impressive choice than I had at first realized. I had already seen it¡¯s usefulness in an active lifestyle. Every day as my brothers massaged their sore legs after hours of hard walking I was able to continue without trouble. Lactic acid build-up in muscles only happens when you outrun your body¡¯s ability to deliver oxygen. If we ever had the luxury to choose our changes based on comfort I¡¯d recommend they all do the same thing. It was amazing how much a good night¡¯s rest and a full stomach could improve my mood. Only yesterday I had been ready to give up if not for a push from Wolf, and now I was planning for a future where we had the luxury to base our actions on comfort. I grinned at the perpetual night around me. And then I heard heavy breathing somewhere off in the dark. I reached to the left and right. Rabbit and Harper were still next to me. I shook them awake. ¡°Rabbit, wake up Wolf. Quietly.¡± I could still faintly hear the breathing, along with what sounded like heavy sniffing. Wolf made a small snort as he came awake and the breathing stopped. Whatever was out there had heard something. ¡°Harper, can you see anything?¡±I was still whispering. It might not know where we were. It was a vain hope, but there was no way we could fight in here. My hands were meat and none of us could see an inch from our faces. ¡°Maybe for a second. I thought I caught a glimmer, but it¡¯s gone now. We should move.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± We put Harper at the front this time. He was our only slim hope at seeing our executioner. We continued along the wall as we had been, stepping softly and breathing only when necessary. The wall was useful to guard our backs, and if we wandered into the open we might never find it again. After quite a long time with no further noise, we began to relax. Still, we now knew for sure there was more in this cave than hungry vegetation. We ran into another stream of water, a little more of a trickle than the last one. Harper was once again able to see a spot of light above us, and this time I thought I could see a faint point of light too. We stayed there for a long time, cleaning wounds and drinking our fill. For my part, I figured if anything was following us, cleaning ourselves a bit couldn¡¯t hurt. From the sounds it made it might be relying on smell or sound more than sight. After all, we already knew the normal nocturnal sight adaptations weren¡¯t of much use down here. Having enough water to clean ourselves was wonderful, though I had to grit my teeth every time I passed over a cut. I used my upper arms for the task since my hands we out of commission. Feeling better and more confident that we had avoided the immediate danger, we kept moving. We passed two more patches of dripping water in short succession, and each time the light above was a little brighter. Our excitement was growing with each pinpoint of light. We were definitely headed in the right direction. Another short walk and the sound of dripping water was constant, and Harper announced that the ambient light was enough for him to make out our outlines when we stuck close. From the edge of our awareness we began to notice a hissing static sound that grew and grew the further we went. Soon we were avoiding puddles and the sound had resolved itself into the roar of rushing water. Harper made out an increase in brightness ahead and to the left. We started moving cautiously again. Harper could see a lot better now, but the sound of the water was drowning out the sound of our footsteps, and it would be difficult to hear any pursuit before it was on us. By the time we were maybe five minutes walk from the hole in the cliff face we could all see the bright spot ahead. It created a bit of a halo off the puddles and on the reflective rock. I lifted a hand to stop, and we all huddled together. I had to speak up to be heard over the rushing water. It seemed to be coming from within the lit area. ¡°We should wait.¡± I don¡¯t think Rabbit heard. Wolf looked frustrated. I empathized, but we¡¯d been through too much grief to rush now. ¡°Why? As soon as we get up there we¡¯ll be much better at defending ourselves. We could see.¡± ¡°We know there are things living in here. If you had to live here, where would you stay? With the water. With the light.¡± We¡¯d been thinking only in terms of of an exit, but any cave exit was by definition a perfect burrow for any number of predatory animals. Especially an cave with an ample supply of fresh water so close. Wolf didn¡¯t look happy, but after considering my words he settled in with Rabbit and we set a watch. The plan became to wait a good long while, and if nothing entered or exited the opening then we¡¯d move in cautiously and take a look. Of course eventually we¡¯d have to make a run for it either way. None of us were chancing another trip through the dark for a second option that might not even exist. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. An hour later we got a bite. Just as I thought Wolf might explode from the strain of sitting still, a silhouette moved from the cavern into the light. From the dim outline we couldn¡¯t tell what it was, only that it was shorter than us and walking upright. ¡°It¡¯s not a person. Or at least it¡¯s not a healthy person.¡± Harper could make out a lot more detail than us in the low light, but we were still quite far away. Even with his vision. ¡°It wasn¡¯t walking right. More like an old man or an ape. It put it¡¯s arm down to support itself a couple of times.¡± That might mean the only thing between us and freedom was an old cripple, but after the life we¡¯d led so far none of us were willing to bet on it. I had a hunch it was our pursuer from early, or maybe another of his kind returning from an unsuccessful hunt. We couldn¡¯t afford to rush into danger, not with both my hands useless and my poison unusable, but we really didn¡¯t have another choice. This was it for us. We moved on slowly, with Harper and Wolf in front as our eyes and claws, and Rabbit at the back keeping an eye behind us in case more things started returning. Not that he¡¯d see them if they were there. We closed on the gash in the wall, and still saw no sign of life. The water was deafening now, maddening. Living here long term would be enough to drive a sane man mad. More good news for us? Through the opening the cave walls condensed to an opening maybe twice our height and twenty feet wide, funneling smaller the further we went and turning a few times. The light visible from the cavern was funneled by the reflective obsidian, not direct. It was still getting brighter with every turn, and I saw Harper stumble as it began to burn his now light sensitive eyes. I had a plan for that, but first we had to reach a safe area. Harper moved to the back as we continued, closing his eyes and gripping my shoulder to find the way. Our feet become dirty with thin wet soil, and after another turn we began to see moss and small mushrooms. Under other circumstances I would have considered stopping for food, but we knew this tunnel was in use. We approached every turn with caution, until we came to a hole barely big enough for us to fit through one at a time. The light was far brighter through this portal, practically doubling on the other side. Wolf brought out his claws with a wince and went through first, followed closely by Rabbit. I was still leading Harper, who was by now functionally blind. Working ourselves through, we were now standing in a proper surface cave. Indirect sunlight pierced through distant leaves and we stood on a thin layer of honest dirt. Not glowing, not pulsing. I had never been happier. I couldn¡¯t wait for Harper to see. Of course it couldn¡¯t last. Looking over for Wolf and Rabbit, I saw Wolf on the ground with a hideous creature holding his neck to the ground. Rabbit was frozen and screaming, but I hadn¡¯t heard him over the rush of water. I charged the thing as it struggled to get at Wolf¡¯s neck. It was shorter than us by a head, but lined with course muscle. Wet matted hair covered it¡¯s deformed legs, which were capped in feet that were hinged and much too large for the rest of it. I could count the vertebrae of it¡¯s back. My body slammed into it and we went down in a pile. Wolf had his leg pinned under the thing and struggled to stab at it with his claws. The whole situation was soundless in the constant din of water falling. Having been startled the thing with my body slam it turned towards me, and I had to fight not to back away. It¡¯s eyes were small atrophied things, obviously unseeing and milky white. It¡¯s nose was huge and wide, and it¡¯s whole lower head extended farther forward than seemed possible. It had no proper chin. Wet, white hair clung in patches here and there. No organized eyebrows or lashes. I slammed my forehead into it¡¯s face and the world spun a bit. Wolf was trying to slash it, but it avoided him quite well for something that couldn¡¯t see. It opened it¡¯s mouth and a long tongue lashed out at my face. I avoided it only to notice it was tipped with bone. It extended further and further towards my stare. We had no way to fight it. This thing was strong, and if Wolf couldn¡¯t get at it we were out of moves. Suddenly The tongue went limp and the thing crumpled. Rabbit stood behind it holding a chunk of black stone and looking like he was about to faint. I jumped away, staying out of reach until we confirmed it was really done for. Wolf got out from under it with some effort and slashed at the neck. Then he took Rabbit¡¯s rock and gave it a hit for good measure. Turning the thing over we took a good look, but we couldn¡¯t really learn anything that hadn¡¯t been obvious. The tongue barb looked nasty. It might have been another one of the creatures from the facility, or something else entirely. It had a human face of a sort, but it was too far changed to see any resemblance there might have been to our own. I was beyond those thoughts at this point anyways. If it fought us it would die. I wasn¡¯t going to lose anyone else over a family resemblance. We gathered up Harper, who had no idea anything had happened, and moved further towards the sounds of water and the distant trees. Wolf hugged the wall and collapsed. That fight had taken a lot out of us. Now that we knew the inhabitants were blind I felt more secure. Hearing wouldn¡¯t help them this close to the water, and we could mask our scent by rubbing dirt onto ourselves. We did just that, and despite my confidence in our preparations we decided to set a sentry before resting. Rabbit offered to take the first watch, and we fell asleep in the dirt, in sight of trees and light for the first time in our lives. -------------------------------------------------------------¡ª So there it is. They¡¯re out of the dark and Rabbit got his moment in the sun (pun intended) This chapter didn¡¯t get a ton of action, but I got to set up some additional properties of Doc¡¯s Blood (all true!)and set up some of the next arc. I¡¯ll probably take Saturday Off, and return with a new chapter Sunday. Going river tubing. Up next expect our first interactions with truly intelligent life, as well as further body mods and of course more action. Chapter 6: Into the Woods Took off the weekend to drink and play pinball like a modern day Bacchus. New Stern Kiss machine is neater than I expected. And now without further ado, the brothers we¡¯ve all got a genetic predisposition for: The Super experiment bros super show. --------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 6: Into the Woods Day 39 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª When We woke up The sun was just rising somewhere to our left. Moving as a group we moved towards the well lit cave exit. The energy was palpable. Finally we would get our first view of the honest to goodness natural world, instead of the manipulated hell we¡¯d lived in to date. There was no dividing line, with each step the grass became bushes became trees, and before we¡¯d even left the cave we were deep in a forest. Here too I suspected dust had a hand in the growth. Most of the vegetation was healthy green, but occasionally a bright blue or red tree might appear, or something with extremities that resembled arms far too much for comfort. We might be in the wild now, but we couldn¡¯t relax our guard. Now that we were under thick growth, we could stop supporting Harper. The light was weak enough here that he could see as long as he looked down and squinted. Barely an hour later we happened across a watering hole. Water emerged from a rock face. I guessed this was coming from the same source as the thundering falls we¡¯d heard for so long. We still hadn¡¯t seen the source, but we were getting further away. Harper approached and smell tested it before giving us the OK. We all drank, while at least one of us stood guard. A creature approached the water and we all stood at attention. It looked like a donkey or small horse, but with toes instead of hooves and large, sad blue eyes that looked warily at us. It had long, curly hair. I wondered whether there was another mad researcher out there or if at some point a man had desired to be a horse. Or maybe a horse had wanted to be a man? It was unsettling to look at, but after a brief staring contest it moved to the pond and took a drink. I realized that it was the first creature we¡¯d met outside of our brothers that didn¡¯t want to kill us on sight. Weird though it may be, the outside world was already proving nicer than the cave. After we¡¯d drank our fill, I looked over to see Rabbit only a few feet from the horse thing. It wasn¡¯t moving, just looking at him closely. He reached out his hand- ¡°Rabbit, what are you doing!¡± Wolf had extended his claws. The horse thing sprinted away and some birds flew out from the surrounding trees. ¡°I thought it might let me touch it¡­¡± Rabbit once again took on the aspect of a chastised child. I agreed with Wolf, but it really would have been interesting to make contact with friendly natives. Though ones that could speak would be more to my liking. ¡°We need to start looking for food¡± Harper chimed in. He wanted to end the argument. I did too, but more because of the noise it was causing. We wandered further, with Harper and I checking the various trees and bushes for any fruits or nuts we could find. We found a handful or black berries to start, and after offering to test them Rabbit grinned and we all took our share. After that we didn¡¯t see anything for quite a while. Strange growls and chirps could be heard periodically, and once we saw some sort of land-bound octopus up a tree. It had a scaly underbelly and could blend in, so that it was only a lucky break that we noticed the thing before going directly beneath it. It flashed bright colors when we looked up, and we hurried to put some distance between us. After a few hours we came to a large tree with brightly colored bark that ranged from a red-brown to a yellow-green. It looked a bit like a willow, except that each branch ended with a group of coconut sized nuts. We harvested a few before another creature appeared before us. It was the size of a cat, but had the features of a squirrel. It had well developed hands and a coat that matched the tree we were invading. Getting the idea, we ran away with our prize just as a few more appeared higher up in the tree. We ran maybe ten minutes before we felt we had lost them. Keeping watch in case they followed we found a large rock and proceeded to open our prizes. After a few hits we got one open, and a sickly sweet aroma came out along with a think liquid. In the center of the ¡°nut¡± was a small squishy mass. ¡°I think we just stoled their children.¡± Rabbit lost it, Harper looked close. My eyes were grim. I was no vegetarian but I hadn¡¯t meant to do this. Until we had a better feel for what was food and what was sentient life I had wanted to avoid meat. With our appetites ruined for the moment we left the other squirrel eggs behind and continued to walk. Maybe the parents would come for them. I hoped so. Some time later we came to an opening in the trees and saw a small hill rising to the tree line. Climbing to the top I got my first view of the forest as a whole. We were in a crater or depression of some sort between obsidian cliff faces. Almost all around were imposing rises with jagged black tips. To the west I saw the only possible pass, an area where two cliffs broke and it was possible there might be a path hidden by the trees. If the facility was truly more dangerous than the outside world, we would want to put some distance between us and the entrance as quickly as possible. We decided to rest for the evening on this hill, and continue to the breach in the rocks tomorrow. We sat down in the afternoon sun. The climate was sweltering, but after days in the cave we welcomed it. Harper and I sat on a rock towards the middle of the hill. I was trying to memorize the landscape and Harper was once more blinded by the light. He sang lowly as we basked in the warmth. I noticed that while there were no trees around us, there were periodic holes in the ground that might have belonged to gophers or moles of some sort. I made a mental note to keep watch for snakes. Off behind us somewhere were Rabbit and Wolf. They had found some more chips of Obsidian, and were trying to chip them into daggers. Rabbit had reminded us all that biological weapons were not our only option, and we would be foolish to continue without at least a simple cutting edge. Tools were mankind¡¯s greatest evolutionary advantage after all. Wolf¡¯s claws were great, but every attack with a weapon was one that saved our bodies for more dire situations. I looked inside myself, and discovered yet more dust had brightened since yesterday. I wish I could better quantify the amount usable. I knew from my memory that tools for measuring dust existed, but it wasn¡¯t a natural skill. The best I could do is to guess that about half was glowing, and that my pool had roughly doubled since I made my first changes in the room. Judging by that, It should be about time to pick another change. I sighed and looked at my miserable hands. It would be nice to gather energy from the sun, or sprout wings, but my injuries would have to take priority. Luckily this was an area where my memories could help. A large portion of the experiments I had seen had revolved around regeneration. Dust was not magic, or at least not all powerful. To my knowledge there was no way to regenerate from a single cell, or prolong life indefinitely. However, there were many natural examples of regrowing limbs, and speeding healing. I picked one that I thought might be useful beyond this single use, and began preparations. I asked Wolf, still working on the obsidian, to find some nice straight sticks. Then I took the obsidian that was closest to a blade and asked Harper to cut my hair. He cut as close as he dared with the crude tool, and I asked him to tie thin groups of it together so that when I was done I would be able to fashion a splint. With the preparations complete, I once more dove into myself. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Looking down at my golden dust supply, I focused on what I knew of my intended technique. A lot of the healing a human is capable of is facilitated by the splitting of adult stem cells spread throughout most of the bodies systems. Musculoskeletal, cardiovascular and neurological systems all rely on the use of these cells for healing. When an injury occurs, they split and the resulting stem cells become the new specialized cells to replace the damage. As we age these cells regenerate less, and healing is impeded. I had to be careful playing around here. If I simply caused these cells to grow unchecked, it would be no different from giving myself cancer. Luckily, nature had already solved my problem. There is a class of proteins that is naturally produced for the purpose of causing these cells to split. These Wnt proteins are delivered to injury sites when the body detects damage, where they cause increased stem cell production and speed healing. Naturally in humans this is fairly limited, but in certain animals, like the zebrafish and most flatworms, they occur in much greater quantity. This allows these animals to heal much faster and more completely from injuries. I found the pathways that would normally signal the generation of Wnt3a, the specific Wnt protein I needed. This was the tricky part. I needed to increase the amount produced, but only when my body detected damage. This turned out to be easier than I thought. Since it was something my body produced naturally, it was much easier to get across to the dust than my poison had been. I simply told it to increase what was produced under certain stimuli. If I had gotten the amount right, I should expect healing to occur 3-4 times faster in bones, and a good increase in general healing as well. The increase in production would probably mean I get hungry faster while healing, but since the proteins were only created when I was healing, it shouldn¡¯t have much of an effect the rest of the time. I¡¯d want to avoid getting injured too often since use could eventually lead to mutations and cancer, but then who didn¡¯t want to avoid getting hurt? I would just have to be careful In the future. My dust had dulled, but not as much as expected. I probably had half of my previous amount. As I stared at the glow, my eyes jolted open and the pain of the change began. It wasn¡¯t too bad this time, the physical change was small. However, this protein was produced by cells all over my body, so I felt as though my whole body was on pins and needles for a good half hour. By the time it stopped the sun was setting over the mountains. I wanted to re-break my fingers and set them before we lost the light. I had Harper ready the splints, and Wolf do the honors. Rabbit looked at my with pitying eyes, and then avoided looking my way for the duration, keeping watch with his new knife. Wolf grabbed my right hand, and I put a stick in my mouth as a gag. Snap. One down. Snap. Two. Both broken fingers were set, and tied to the finger next to them. It wasn¡¯t unbearable, but I¡¯m not ashamed to say if it hadn¡¯t been for the stick I may have bit my tongue crying out. Hot tears ran down my face as Harper finished wrapping the splints. Now the left. All five fingers and the hand itself had been broken, and the hand would be harder to set than the fingers were. Again I readied myself, and nodded to Wolf to continue. Snap. I heard a scream, and realized I wasn¡¯t chewing on the stick anymore. Snap. I saw a vignette around the edges of my vision. Snap. My eyes were open, but I could swear I was seeing the glow of my dust superimposed over the forest. Snap. The last thing I remember is Harper¡¯s hands on my back, holding me upright. Day 40 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª It was the middle of the night when I woke up to Harper yelling and Wolf and Rabbit grabbing my upper arms. Still groggy, I was lifted to a standing position and made to run down the hill with the others. After a minute I was awake enough to run unaided, though the pain in my arms slowed me down somewhat. I looked behind us, and in the moonlight the hill seemed to shimmer like water. ¡°What is it?¡± I asked, still groggy. ¡°Bugs. They must have been nocturnal. The whole hill was a nest.¡± I looked back as I ran, and managed to pick out a few individuals from the horde. We erached the tree line and hurdled through the dark. Running through a forest at night is dangerous, even if you discount the possible wildlife. Roots stick up, branches reach down and holes can trip you from under vegetation. Several times One of us fell. I was extremely careful. One fall could mean having to reset my bones again tomorrow. The others helped each other up and we continued through the trees for hours. When we couldn¡¯t hear the rustling of grass or the chattering of mandibles we climbed one of the normal looking trees (I was lifted by my armpits) and rested. My myoglobin-rich blood was once again proving it¡¯s worth. I felt like I had gone for a light jog, though my arms were still screaming at me after pumping so much blood and Adrenalin to the injuries. We huddled in the tree, intent on waiting out the night. After only a few minutes the insects approached. There weren¡¯t as many, they had spread out as they chased us. Still, we spent hours kicking them down as they climbed up the tree after us. The things were as long as my finger, and seemed to be some sort of hive-based beetle. They had fierce looking jaws, but at least they didn¡¯t seem to be able to fly. We all got bit once or twice, but thankfully they weren¡¯t poisonous. Finally around the time the sun crested the mountains they lost interest and turned back to the nest. I was starving from my advanced healing, and the rest of the group was falling down on their feet after the run and short night. We walked as the light returned, hoping to find a meal and a safe place to rest. I used the position of the sun to orient us towards the pass in the mountains, and we slowly started our day, checking each plant for anything edible and overreacting whenever an insect was found. -------------------------------------------------------------¡ª So there you have it. There¡¯s a reason mankind started clearing the forest to make villages. Forests are terrifying places where everything tries to kill you. Trees are pretty, but they¡¯re just trying to distract you from the wasp nest and the bears. This second arc marks a turning point in the story. From now on far fewer of the things they encounter will have human features. Of course there will still be man-creatures, but we now have the entirety of nature at our disposal. For the science minded among you, Wnt based healing - https://www.cirm.ca.gov/our-progress/awards/enhancing-healing-wnt-protein-mediated-activation-endogenous-stem-cells Chapter 7: Gluttony and Sloth Lucky number seven. Having never written before I¡¯m surprised I¡¯ve made it this far this quickly. It¡¯s been one week and seven chapters! Going forward I can¡¯t promise that pace, but you can look forward to at least four per week for the foreseeable future. So sit back, relax, and prepare for more genetic therapy in the continuing saga of the Original Organic Origami brothers: folding flesh for freedom since 9/3/15. --------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 7: Gluttony and Sloth Day 40 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª We continued throughout the morning, eating the few berries we found and raiding a low tree that grew nuts of some sort. The relief was palpable when we cracked one to find a genuine nut instead of a fetus or eye. My healing was undoubtedly working, I was insatiable. I ate everything we came across, and yet I felt hungrier than I had been in the Cavern. This was dangerous. I should have built in an off switch, but that would mean dealing with the brain, and I wasn¡¯t ready to try that. Whatever the man our memories had done, I had no memories of ever having been a neurosurgeon. Stomach growling and the sun beating down on us through the trees, we continued in the direction of the pass. The thundering water could be heard again, off to our left. It got closer as we walked and I wondered if we might finally get a glimpse of the falls. We saw another two of the squirrel trees, but we gave them a wide berth. As good as a little meat sounded right now, I was in no condition to fight, and I still wasn¡¯t convinced the over-sized animals might not be intelligent. It seemed like quite a few of the animals out here had human DNA somewhere in their makeup, and I wasn¡¯t ready to make that leap if I could help it. An hour or two before noon we came to the end of the forest. Ahead of us was a rushing river, maybe twenty feet wide. Rocks jutted from the water, and it swirled and crashed with some force. The noise was nowhere near what it had been at the cave entrance, but it still made conversing difficult. We backed up to the woods and discussed our next move. ¡°We should head right, away from the cave. The falls seem to be there and the river will only rush more the closer we get.¡± Wolf was the first to speak. ¡°Plus, the cave might have more like the thing we killed when we came out.¡± Rabbit agreed with Wolf as usual. Still, they were right. We couldn¡¯t expect a bridge, so we had no choice but to find a place where the river was either thinner or slower. But first I had another thought. ¡°Wait a minute. Before we head out, let me spend an hour or two on Harper¡¯s eyes. I have an idea to reverse his blindness.¡± Wolf just nodded. Rabbit looked to him for advice, and Harper himself grinned. ¡°Finally.¡± To be honest I was apprehensive to dive into my friend again, but I was responsible for his current blindness, and I couldn¡¯t leave him alone to be led by the arm every day when I had it in me to fix the situation. My hands were still useless so I had Wolf lightly cut my wrist, and Harper did the same. We pressed them together and I felt myself sinking inward. Just as before, two small suns appeared before me, Harper¡¯s dimmer and further away. It didn¡¯t look like his dust recovered nearly as quickly as mine seemed to. I wondered why? We had been through almost all of the same things, eaten the same foods. Was it just a matter of affinity or knowledge? That didn¡¯t seem right. Everything about dust made sense. If it was magic, it was a magic that followed very specific rules. Everything I knew about it suggested it needed a host life to function. No sentient rocks or mutating dirt. It seemed likely that the difference in recovery had to do with our bodies. I would leave that little mystery for later. Right now I had to work on Harper. Turning towards him and sending a little dust his way, I took a look at the changes I had made previously. The tapetum lucidum I placed under his retinas was there, somehow more obvious than the existing genetic material. I wondered if my will was pointing it out, or if the dust was somehow helping direct me. Yet another mystery to look into when I had the time. I got to work on the ring of muscles in Harper¡¯s eye. The eye has two types of muscles that control the amount of light that enters. The first is a ring that squeezes and contracts the pupil constrict for bright environments. The second is a group of dilator muscles to dilate it again when it gets darker again. My plan was simple. Increase the strength of both groups to allow the eyes to further constrict, allowing in less light and correcting the balance. The only catch was that I would have to slow down the response, or his eyes would damage themselves by constricting too quickly. What this meant was that every time Harper left a low light environment it would be a few minutes before he could see properly. Still, it was much better than being blind, and it allowed him to keep his night vision intact. I made the change, and was once again thrown out of my trance as Harper clutched at his eyes. Twenty five breathless minutes later he stopped panting and opened his new eyes. At first he looked no different, but slowly his pupils became smaller and smaller until they were a mere pinprick of black. The effect with a little bit unsettling, but he pumped the air and let out a long laugh. He might look a little strange now, but my brother is able to see. We sat around for a few more minutes as he adjusted to his new sight, then headed right down the riverbank. After another hour of walking, we found an area where the forest continued to the bank and off to the other side. It wasn¡¯t as thick as the forest proper, but it was a lucky break. If we were fortunate we might find a fallen log to use as a bridge. We searched for hours and found a few likely candidates, dragging them to the shore, where Wolf used the one of the knives to chop at errant branches until they were smooth. Rabbit found an area where the river was only around ten feet across some ways further, and the three of us with functional hands moved the makeshift bridge into place. Rabbit volunteered to go first, and swiftly made it across, followed shortly by Wolf. I went next, which was the real challenge. I couldn¡¯t inch across because I couldn¡¯t grip the wood, so balancing was key. I worked slowly, and had made it about three quarters of the way when something hit my face and I tumbled into the water. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. I was under before I knew what happened, and I realized I had no memories of swimming. I felt a rock hit my naked torso, sucking the air out of me. With my blood I¡¯d be able to survive much longer than most, but I certainly didn¡¯t feel lucky as another rock left a bruise on my upper arm. I tumbled through the river for an unknown amount of time, accumulating scrapes and bruises. I focused on protecting my hands and face, and took a breath during the brief moments my mouth found air. Just when I thought I might finally go unconscious from the damage to my body, I came to a stop on rough black sand. I pulled myself from the water after a few minutes to catch my breath, and looked around. I found myself in a sort of natural cove on the far side of the river. I saw looking behind me that I had gone over a small falls, maybe a ten foot drop. My brothers were nowhere to be seen. I was truly alone for the first time in my life. I sighed, feeling every cut and scrape on my body as mist from the falls beat down on me. After a moment of self pity, I looked further inland. Within the cover there was a sea of small scraggly bushes, all of the same type. It almost looked like they¡¯d been planted that way. I approached them, and my sadness turned to surprise when I saw the large red berries growing from them. I picked one and gave it a squeeze. It was a normal berry! Well, it might have been poisonous, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. I was starving and injured and alone, and if I couldn¡¯t have company I would at least die with a full stomach. Taking a taste, I groaned involuntary. These red berries tasted better than anything I¡¯d ever eaten. Fresh, plump and sweet, I had run through three bushes before I noticed. Gathering them was tough with my fingers in such a state, and soon I was bent over pulling them from the branch with my teeth like an animal. When I noticed this I made a sound like the squirrels had, then giggled. I had gone through ten bushes before I allowed myself to slump down sated on the black sand bank. I needed to find my brothers, but happily it seemed the best solution to the problem was to stay by the berries. They undoubtedly knew I had been sent downriver, and would follow the bank until they found me. I had no idea how far I¡¯d traveled, but it had seemed quite a ways. The only way to ensure that we found each other was to hug the bank and wait for them. And have a few more berries. Were my arms always this long? They seemed miles away. Night fell after another round of ravenous berry picking. What my body really needed was protein, but strangely no animals seemed to be coming for these berries. The trees were dancing on the far bank, and I waved at them for the fifth time in an hour. Why had I been worried about my hands? Sure two of them were purple, but I had so many spares! The world spun into a bush, and I decided it was an excellent time for more berries. Midnight came and went, and still I ate. At this point I was fairly sure I was eating as many leaves as berries, but then I needed fiber didn¡¯t I? Mouthful of leaves, berries and at least one worm, I looked up at the moon and watched it as it flew towards me. This had been the best day ever. I only wished my friends were here. Harper would have loved the dancing trees. He was always the social one. Leaves fell from my open mouth as my eyes closed, and one lucky worm wiggled free from between my teeth. Day 41 (Doc) ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I was awoken by a sharp pain in my side. I spit out some foul tasting leaves and opened my eyes. Immediately the brightness of the sun caused me to go blind. My head flashed in pain and there was another jab to my side. I got on my knees and struggled to stand, but was forced back down by something dull and hard. Slowly my eyes cleared and I was able to make out shadows in front of me. ¡°Brothers?¡± My guess must have been off the mark, because I felt another sharp pain and then there was a clawed hand around my mouth. Leaves were pushed against my lips. I now knew the danger of these bushes, and I closed my mouth and refused to breathe in. There was deep laughter from one of the steadily focusing shadows. They thought to simply wait until I took a breathe. I fought to keep from giggling. Two minutes in and I heard impatient growls. Two minutes later and the group was in a fervor. My vision had cleared enough to make out basic human forms, but the proportions were all off. They were tall, with long, thin arms and short legs. Big black eyes looked at me with uncertainty and intelligence. The mouths were too wide. ¡°Tooo wide.¡± I point. What am I doing? Must still be the berries. Those in front of me backed away when I spoke, then hunched a bit closer. I think I raided their pharmacy, or their drug stash. I tried to feel some remorse, or at least fear. I just felt dizzy. The one behind me finally got tired of waiting for me to breath, and made a high pitched whining sound. It was clearly some sort of speech rather than the sounds of an animal. Maybe I could communicate? ¡°I-¡± Bang. The one in front of me lashed out, and I breathed in deep as the air left my lungs. The world went hazy, and I was once again asleep. My final view was of the big one that had hit me looking down with impossibly round, empathetic eyes. -------------------------------------------------------------¡ª Psychedelics and our first new intelligent life! We¡¯ve had some time to develop the MC, and now he¡¯s all alone. Next chapter will be from Harper¡¯s perspective. It¡¯s time once again for our secondary characters to shine. By the way, I hope you all caught the hint as to what the new guys are genetically mixed with. I really like the way they look in my mind. I will be working on some artwork for this story as it continues. No promise when or how much, but please look forward to it. And as always, keep the conversation going in the comments! See you tomorrow, your humble zookeeper. Chapter 8: Harper, I barely know her! Eight, and a new POV. I won¡¯t be doing this often, but occasionally things need to be shown that our MC can¡¯t have seen. Harper has a dad joke sense of humor, but he¡¯s definitely the den mother of the group. And now, we rejoin our starry-eyed minstrel for the season finale of ¡°Harper¡¯s got talent.¡± --------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 8: Harper, I barely know her! Day 40 (Harper) ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª ¡°Doc!¡± I watched his body fall towards the water in shock. Some sort of giant bird? A pelican, but with a jaw like a pterasaur. A bird? How could Doc be taken out by a bird? He fought a man-eating forest and won! Who charged at a raving rat man with two broken fists! I mean he¡¯s healed the blind! I had just watched that Doc get defeated by a bird. I grabbed one of the sticks Wolf had clipped off our bridge and took a swing at the hateful thing. ¡°You-Terrible-ugh-Stupid-ugh-BIRD!¡± Whap. The bird falls into the water as well. Well, at least there¡¯s that. Unless I just sent a potential threat to my best friend. Well, we just have to catch up to him before that! ¡°So, now we follow the river.¡± Wolf looks at the stick in my hand, then downriver, and he nods. Rabbit looks like he¡¯s still in shock at the whole situation. I start walking. Fast. I¡¯m trying to take charge, to do what Doc would do. If only he wasn¡¯t so quiet, I could have asked him how he does it. Because I am not calm, and I am not collected. I look over to Rabbit, who seems to have excepted the new reality. Wolf is unflappable as always, though he¡¯s kept his claws drawn. So, he feels something after all. I am strung to high. Time to sing. ¡°~Harper of the brothers, set out to slay a bird. He raised his trusty tree limb, no one could say a word! Their breath was gone, was carried on, Upon the raging torrent; But Harper brave with wooden glaive, He knew he could restore it.¡± I could swear I heard Wolf groan. Come on! I was on the spot and that was pure gold. You just can¡¯t rhyme anything with Pelican. I guess there is just no accounting for taste. Having sung a bit, I felt restored. There was nothing for it but to simply keep on walking until we reached Doc. ¡°You know¡­¡± Rabbit looks sheepish. ¡°The river is fast. He might not be¡­¡± Snap. Oh, I squeezed the stick too tight. ¡°Doc is going to be fine. He heals fast, he can breathe underwater, and he is impossible to kill. Even for a pelican.¡± Rabbit looks less sure than I was going for. I pick up another stick off the ground and we keep walking. ¡°Do either of you know how to swim?¡± Snap. I¡¯m going through too many sticks. I start to hum. In my mind I hear my dust reply with it¡¯s own thrumming beat. It¡¯s always been like this. It calms me down a little. Doc will be fine. Doc will be fine. Doc will be fine. Just keep on singing until it¡¯s true! After hours of following the river we came to some rapids. I was beginning to doubt Doc had come this far. Had we missed him? Was he on the other bank? I hoped he would have the sense to sit still and wait for us. We decided to continue at least until the end of the rapids. Rabbit seemed to remember more about this sort of thing, and he assured us that rapids often end in whirlpools or areas of stagnation where jetsam often floats ashore. With an increasing sense of unease we got on our way. The end of the rapids couldn¡¯t come soon enough. As we moved, the gradual slope of the ground leveled out until we were on almost flat ground, and the soil turn to rocks which gradually increased in size. Late afternoon rolled around and still we moved, through boulders bigger than us, and I hummed nervously along with the pounding of the current. As the sun began to set, the rush of water increased and we found the end of the rapids, a waterfall that seemed to me to be terrifyingly tall. How could Doc have survived? I almost flung myself off before remembering that I couldn¡¯t swim any better than he could. Coming up to the edge we saw a sheer rock cliff maybe twenty feet high. There weren¡¯t many hand holds, and nothing in my memories to suggest I could rock climb. Rabbit suggested we take a rest at the top of the falls while we consider our options. Unfortunately, even if I wanted to have Wolf make a change to me so I could scale the cliffs, Doc had exhausted my dust in the effort to fix my eyes. It would be a while before I would be growing any wings. After a few minutes of companionable silence, Wolf clapped his hands. ¡°I will change.¡± I wanted to stop him. We really shouldn¡¯t be making changes based on single situations now that we were out of the cavern, but Doc was in danger and I was once again useless. As frustrating as it was, Wolf really was our only trump card. Sure, Rabbit could probably do something, but I honestly couldn¡¯t see him scaling a cliff and rescuing our friend alone. As I watched, Wolf assumed a cross legged pose and closed his eyes. I had seen changes several times now, but it always astounded me. Doc would close his eyes, assume a meditative pose, and just drool for long periods of time. Then, all of a sudden, sweat, and convulsions, and miracles. In a very real way we are like young gods. Sure, we have years of memories and the bodies of men, but we¡¯re only a month or two old! How much could by the time we are three? Already Doc can run for hours without break, and heal broken bones in days. I¡¯ve wondered since I first saw Doc use his dust in the cell, but can this be normal in this world? Doc tells me that most people don¡¯t have as much dust as us; That we were given a lot for the purposes of research. I wouldn¡¯t know. I remember almost nothing of dust. I can¡¯t grow claws or change my blood. Mine just sings duets with me on occasion and obliges Doc when he needs me to step up. I know he feels bad every time he needs to change me, but I wish he wouldn¡¯t. Without his help I would just be dead weight to the group. We wouldn¡¯t be here if Rabbit hadn¡¯t gotten us out of the cell, and Wolf is an all around powerhouse. I can¡¯t really do anything without their help, except sing my little tunes and try my best to keep them smiling. I even think I got Wolf to smile, once. I look up to the sky and sigh. I¡¯ve got to do better. For my brothers, my other selves. We can be gods, but first we have to have a birthday. Lowering my gaze, I catch something near the canopy of the trees. A man? So tall though¡­ What is- My gaze snaps down as Wolf cries out. The change is beginning. I call to Rabbit, who is playing Sentry, and we careful lower him to the ground. He is sweating, and I hear bones creaking and muscles snapping. What did he do to himself? This is crazier than anything we¡¯ve seen yet. His Claws extend, and begin to thicken until they join. He now has one big blunt hook extending from the first digit of each finger. Still his arms writhe, and over the next hour his arms thicken and lengthen. Not bulky muscle but long, whipcord muscles. Eventually the changes slow, and he lays there panting for a long time. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. What did you do?¡± Rabbit is pacing. I¡¯ve never seen him this frantic. He has always looked up to Wolf, like I do Doc. No, probably more so. More than any of us, Rabbit is a child. I hope we can protect that for a while. Wolf sits up and groans. His stretched limbs hang like wet noodles by his sides. He looks down, and slowly tenses each muscle group, as if testing them. Then he goes over each hand¡¯s claw slowly with a finger, feeling the weight of them. They were deadly before, but with the added thickness¡­ There has to be a pound of bone over each hand! He puts a hand on Rabbits head and grins a feral grin. ¡°Almost ready. You watch Rabbit.¡± Wolf turned towards the Cliff. I want to stop him, but he¡¯s Wolf. You don¡¯t stop Wolf without a good reason. Back in the cell, I noticed Wolf well before Doc ever did. He never approached our corner, but every time Doc started exercising, I would see Wolf do the same. Even when Doc would stop, Wolf kept going. All of which means that when Wolf says he¡¯s going, I say ¡°Come back soon!¡± With a pat on the head for Rabbit and a tight turn, Wolf lowered a leg over the edge and began his descent. I couldn¡¯t make myself watch. The cliff wasn¡¯t without handholds, but it was exceptionally bare for someone without experience climbing. I hoped his new limbs would be enough to see him down safely. I curled up on the ground and watched the moon, humming a tune for safety and brotherly love. Rabbit watched him as long as he could, but before he reached the bottom night fell and he was lost to his view. He begged me to check on him, but if I looked over the edge and saw a puddle of Wolf at the bottom I might go mad, so I stared upwards and pretended not to hear. Even after Doc fixed my eyes, I still see better in the dark, and I sat up for a long time that night watching the trees. I hadn¡¯t forgotten what I had seen earlier in the treetops, and now that it was just me and Rabbit I would be damned if I let us be taken in the night. A few times I thought I saw movement, only to question my sanity when nothing appeared for another hour. Day 41 (Harper) ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Past midnight, and I was continuing my vigil. I was looking at the canopy when I saw a pair of reflective eyes looking back at me. I reached to wake Rabbit and then froze. The face behind the eyes mesmerized me. Big, round eyes. Impossibly big lips, and a smooth face with framed by long hair. It was a girl! The first I¡¯d ever seen! Not human, but clearly not a monster either. She looked surprised to see that I¡¯d seen her, and she quickly ducked behind a tree and moved upstream. I almost followed before I remembered Rabbit. I would love to follow after her, but brotherhood came first. I¡¯m glad I didn¡¯t rush over, because almost immediately a much larger shadow followed behind hers, reflective eyes a full two feet further from the ground focused on me for a second as it passed. ¡°¡­must be a brother of hers. Definitely.¡± and so our intrepid bard discovered love at first sight. A shame we didn¡¯t speak, but I¡¯m going to write one heck of a ballad. Not that Rabbit will be able to appreciate it. I¡¯ll have to save it for Doc. He¡¯s no patron of the arts, but he puts up with me much more readily than the others. And I spent the rest of the night thinking of flowery prose, and trying not to remember the danger my two friends were in. Rabbit rose before dawn, and we approached the cliff. No one lay prone at the bottom, so it seems Wolf made it down alright. We both sighed in relief, and Rabbit leaned against my shoulder. I was having trouble staying awake. We scrounged around the tree line for food and found some moss and nuts. Not enough, but they would do for the day. It¡¯s odd to think that Rabbit and I share a face. His features are always so animated, fear foremost at the moment as we search through the brush. Every time we find something new his eyes shine and he starts to examine it. It would be adorable in a less muscular toddler. Sitting down, I decided that if I am going to babysit, I will take the time to learn more about my charge. I didn¡¯t know how to deal with kids. ¡°How about we play a game?¡± stupid, stupid. He¡¯s the same age as you. ¡°Okay!¡± his eyes lit up. Damn, I guess it really is that easy! We sat near the cliff, playing a game of memories. I would bring up a fact or concept, and he would fill in the gaps if he could. Then he would bring up something he knew, and I would try to do the same. It was fun, but he started clobbering me as soon as he realized how few medical memories I had. After an hour of solid losses I fell back to grass and sighed. ¡°Rabbit, can you keep watch for a bit? I didn¡¯t sleep last night. Wake me up if you hear or see anything.¡± He nods and I relaxed into the soft earth. Maybe if I was lucky I¡¯d wake up to the return of my brothers¡­ or her. I woke up to leaves being shoved into my mouth and held there. The taste was pungent and medicinal. I mouthed a scream and opened my eyes to see Rabbit slumped unconscious in long hairy arms. Looking further up I saw my captor. Her. Giant black globes of eyes reflected my face back at me. There was no anger, only empathy. Her face seemed to say ¡°shhhh, just go back to sleep¡±. I wasn¡¯t convinced, but neither did I have much of a choice. In addition to her hands over my mouth, a taller creature had my arms pinned. This one was a male and didn¡¯t have the smiling eyes of the woman. I felt the power go out of my limbs as I tried my best to scream. I was worried for Rabbit, worried for Doc and Wolf, but I had no power. No claws, no blood to stop me drawing in the poison. I felt my dust hum in sympathy. I almost smiled at that. I looked up again with heavy lidded eyes, the reflection of my nocturnal eyes bounced off her own. As I fell into a dreamless sleep, my last conscious thought was ¡°pretty, but hairy.¡± --------------------------------------------------------------- So there it is! Misguided crushes, bad parenting and Wolf makes some friends in low places (presumably). As always, comments welcome. Character portrait 1: Bright Eyes Character portrait 1: Bright Eyes ------- Below is my first real piece of art for this series. As I continue, I''ll be making portraits of characters whenever the mood strikes me. I plan to post these independent of chapters, but I might occasionally go back and add portraits to important scenes as they are finished. Our first candidate is the as of yet unnamed creature that both Doc and Harper have had run-ins with the last few chapters. In case you didn''t get the chapter title hint, She''s a sloth girl! I''m trying to keep her cute while going full alien in appearance, and avoiding a furry look as much as possible. I am not unhappy with the result. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Like her? Want to meet her? get hyped. If you''re wondering why I didn''t go with the obvious candidates, I will! But right now the brothers look too similar. I decided to let the weird traits accumulate a bit before tackling them. After that, I expect I''ll update the portraits as people change. Also, it''s not a high priority, but once I have my look for the brothers nailed down, I really want to go back and work on a mock-up of the creatures from the facility. I could have some real fun with the bug man or the eyeballs. Chapter 9: Jailhouse Education And we¡¯re back to Doc¡¯s perspective. This was a fun chapter to write, and I got to write some very strange dialog. There will not be an overabundance of non-human speech going forward, but I felt it was necessary for this portion. Stick around, and find out why the caged Doc sings in the next exciting installment of Rosetta Stone: Genetic Abomination-ese. --------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 9: Jailhouse Education Day 42 (Doc) ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I woke to a slicing pain in my head. The berry bushes really did a number on me. Before my vision had even cleared, I was aware that I was no longer in the clearing at the base of the waterfall. My hands and legs weren¡¯t bound. That was the first good news in a while. I was outside, and all around me I saw the trunks of trees in a perfect circle¡­ No, not trees, they were too close. Bars? Yes. I was in a wooden cage of some sort. I could feel a swaying movement under me. Was I being transported? But the distant forest didn¡¯t seem to shift as I moved. My view was mostly clear now, so I approached the edge of my cage. Not movement. I¡¯m being suspended. What I felt was the swaying of the cage. I was something like fifty feet above the floor of the forest. I sighed. I had a feeling I was being captured, but I had hoped they¡¯d put me in a traditional cell. I had experience with those. This was much harder to deal with. Looking above, I saw that the cage was hung by a rope rather than a chain. Even the bars were wood. I suppose when escaping means falling to one¡¯s death there isn¡¯t a need for strong bars. What surprised me more is that they hadn¡¯t just killed me. They didn¡¯t seem evil, and I had been eating from their field. It¡¯s just that in a world where every inmate can slowly adapt their body for escape, what is the purpose of cells? Given enough time I¡¯d be able to grow wings or a spinneret. Maybe this society wasn¡¯t familiar with the powers of dust? But then how were they all hybrids? I looked down once more to see if I could make out any of my captors. Staring down at the forest floor, I didn¡¯t see anything move. No, Looking closer, I thought I saw a shadow shift; but when I looked at the area above it there was nothing there. Had I been abandoned here? That would be crueler than simply killing me! But no, I can¡¯t imagine the owners of those big, round eyes would be so cruel. Maybe I was going about this wrong. What did I know about the beings that had captured me? Round eyes, long arms. Long thick fingernails. And short hair all over the body. They were all heavily modified in a uniform manner to resemble animals¡­ Monkeys? But no, the fingernails were wrong, and they didn¡¯t have tails, as far as I could see. A combination of animals? Either way, from their bodies I could learn a lot about the way they lived. The long arms suggested climbing, so they probably lived in caves or trees. Of course! I turned my eyes back towards the canopies and once again checked for movement among the leaves. I was confident of my guess, but it was still a good ten minutes before I caught any movement. One of them was hanging upside down on a branch maybe fifty feet out, watching me and clutching a rope. After meeting his eyes, I followed the course of the rope up above my cage. Was he holding the cage up? That shouldn¡¯t be possible. Then I saw a glint of obsidian above me, and a stick and rope contraption rigged next to my hanging cage. So that was their game. If he released the rope, an obsidian shard would swing down and sever my rope, ending any thoughts of escape. No matter what change I made, the rope would be cut well before I regained consciousness. This was a fairly sophisticated trap, perfectly suited for prisoners with command of dust. I could now confirm that these people weren¡¯t savages. I would need to convince them I wasn¡¯t a threat, or I might die up here. ¡°Hey! Hey you!¡± I shouted at my guard, but he only blinked slowly and continued to watch me. After a few repetitions of my call the most I was able to produce was a yawn. I sat down in the middle of the cage and decided to meditate. In my mind, I visualized my dust, and saw that I hadn¡¯t recovered too much. In a day or two I might be able to effect a change, so long as I got regular food. Still, without a change in scenery I¡¯d never get the opportunity. It was several hours before anything changed. The guard was where he had always been, hanging from the tree and watching me like a somnolent statue. Suddenly another rope dropped a few feet from the edge of the cave. I crawled over to the closest wall and looked up. Ever so slowly another of the creatures was making it¡¯s way down towards me, head first. This one was more lithe than the bulky guard, more curvy. A woman. I think she may have been in the group that captured me, but I couldn¡¯t be sure. Her short trip down the rope took an agonizingly long time, but after maybe five minutes she reached the point closest to the bars, and we looked at each other for a good long beat. She, like the others, had a wide face and black button nose. Thin hair covered her face and body, with an almost red head of more human-like hair on her scalp. A wide dark mouth and thick lips. What really stood out was her eyes. The pupils were almost invisible, and the rich red-brown color seemed to almost glow. I couldn¡¯t tell if it was a tapetum lucidum like I had given Harper or something else, but they seemed brighter than the others of her species I had seen so far. She wore the hide of some sort of beast over her lower body like a pair of rough shorts, and a wrap for her upper body. Despite her alien appearance she maintained a very human charm. In a different situation I might have been entranced. She was, after all, the first member of the opposite sex I had encountered. At the moment however all I could feel was intrigue and relief. Her eyes looked curious and intelligent, and this cage and her clothes were proof that her people maintained human intelligence. If we could communicate I might be able to explain my situation. ¡°Waaah wah waaaaaaah¡± She points one clawed finger at me and makes it immediately clear that there is a language barrier. This will be difficult. It seems that these people have changed their vocal chords as well. There is a lot of meaning in the sounds, clearly a full language, but I¡¯m unsure if my own voice box will be able to reproduce them. I point to my self. ¡°I am Doc.¡± I realize she likely won¡¯t understand, but at the very least I have to establish that I am intelligent and rational. Pointing at herself, she lets out a short, higher pitched ¡°Waah nii¡± I tried to repeat it back, pointing at her. The result was a quizzically turned head and a slight grin. From her shorts she produced a branch of the bush I had been dosed with the previous day, and slowly pointed at me. I was concerned she would dose me again, and it must have shown on my face, because she slowly shook her head in the negative. Great! At least some of our nonverbal communication was global then. She pointed at the branch again and back to me. This time I had the good sense to look sheepish and bowed my head, doing my best apologetic face. With that, she nodded and reached back into her shorts. She produced some small fruits and leaves and set them at the edge of the gave, gave me a final ¡°Waaah¡± and started her way back up the rope, moving even slower this time. When she was a ways up, I moved to the food she had left and took a good long look at it. It seemed unlikely they would try and drug me again now that I was in their power, but given the physiology they all had it was possible food they deemed safe might be poisonous to me. Still, I was trapped, and unlikely to receive anything else, so I picked up a fruit and took a bite. Delicious! Not as good as the berries, but then it didn¡¯t seem to come with a hangover either. I had wondered at the lack of water provided, but these fruits were so water rich there would be no problem there. I wolfed down the fruit, and tried the leaves as well. Not as good as the fruit, but they didn¡¯t taste medicinal, so I ate them as well. Then I returned to the middle of the cage and decided to think more on how I could better communicate with my new acquaintance when and if she returned. I started on a mental list of gestures and facial expressions that I thought of as fairly universal in humans. Smile, frown, head tilting, pointing. I knew these seemed to be constant based on our earlier exchange. What about open palms, shrugs, crying, laughing? I thought it best to stay non-verbal for now, or to try and ape their language if possible. Laughing could sound aggressive if you didn¡¯t understand the meaning, and anyways I didn¡¯t have a reason to laugh at the moment. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Next I thought back to her appearance. I thought I had discovered the source of their genetics finally. They had all changed themselves to more closely resemble sloths. It matched with the claws and long limbs, and the slow movements I had seen from them so far. Of course they weren¡¯t really sloths, they had just appropriated some features, so I couldn¡¯t be sure of their capabilities from what I knew. It was good to feel a little more sure of my situation, but I was becoming more and more sure I was safe here. They had acted to terminate a threat to their land, but since I¡¯d been captured I¡¯d been treated fairly civilly. My primary fear at the moment was for my brothers. Had they been captured as well? What if it had been a predator that had pushed me into the river? I had no way of knowing whether I¡¯d ever see them again. I hoped they were safe. I once again began my exercise regimen, working each muscle group. After all the sleep I¡¯d gotten recently I was feeling restless, and although the cage had enough room to move about I was nervous to stand in the seemingly fragile construction lest it start to swing. Looking over to my guard I realized he had closed his eyes, still holding the rope. That was terrifying. What if in his sleep it slipped from his hands? ¡°Hey! Hey, wake up you!¡± Slowly he opened one eye and then shut it again. Well, It was nerve-wracking, but there seemed to be nothing I could do about it. If he really was asleep, at least I might have opportunities to make changes if I had to in the coming days. I once more started on my exercises and spent the remainder of the day thinking on my brothers and the mysterious sloth girl I had met. I was committed to better expressing myself when next we met. When night fell, with nothing better to do, I went to sleep. Day 43 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª When I woke in the pre-dawn light My mysterious visitor was already hanging next to the cage watching me. I jumped back a bit when I saw the big round eyes watching my sleeping form. ¡°Waaah haw Waaah Ni!¡± she tilted her head again and looked down, where she had already placed another bundle of food, the same as yesterday. I nodded my head and brought my hands together in a gesture of thanks. I tried my hand at her name again with a ¡°Waah¡± But I¡¯m sure I was nearly unintelligible. I approached the edge of the cage slowly and reached for the bundle. As I did this, she reached forward and touched my short hair with one clawed finger, then pulled away. Her eyes were wide, like a child touching an animal for the first time. Then she began her ascent back up to the canopy. She returned in the evening with dinner, and again I tried to get her to speak as much as possible. I noticed the first vocalization ¡°Waaah haw¡± was always the same, and I took it to be a greeting. I continued my exercises and watched my guards as they switched out twice, trying with each new arrival to initiate communication to no avail. When night fell I once again curled up in the center of the cage and fell into an uneasy sleep, thinking of my brothers and their ultimate fate. If they had been captured they would have been placed nearby, right? Day 44 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª When I woke up Waah was once again looking at me, although she looked up as soon as she noticed my eyes were open. ¡°Waaah haw, Waah¡± I parroted, combining the greeting with her name a I understood it. She blinked and looked a little startled, then strung together a long string of sounds I couldn¡¯t catch. Again the food, and again she reached to touch my head, but pulled back before she reached the bars. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the guard was attentively watching our exchange. She followed my gaze, then let out a string of language in the direction of the guard, who looked away. She started back up the tree, but I was puzzled at what had happened. It looked like she had a lot of authority for a young woman. I would have to make sure to stay on her good side. The rest of the day proceeded as the previous, and once more I drifted off hoping for the safety of my strange little family. Day 45 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Today I woke up with some more memories. Most of them as usual were of genetics and various animals and mutations, but I also got a healthy dose of language this time. I now knew that in time I would understand snippets of several human languages, although whether they were even still spoken was an open exception. The Latin I had taken in made sense of many previous memories on evolution and species names. More importantly, the fundamentals of language I had gathered showed the similarities between all languages, and might be of use in communicating with the sloths. I stared at the ceiling for a while as I took everything in, and when I turned my head Waah was watching as always. Her eyes looked inquisitive and I could tell she knew something was different today. I greeted her, and tried to absorb every bit of language I could as we had our usual short conversation. I thought I¡¯d try a bit more today, so I pointed at the food and tried a lower sound I¡¯d heard used several times while she was placing my meals. She seemed to grasp the idea and shook her head before issuing a shorter ¡°Ni¡± sound and pointing at the bundle. I continued this for a few minutes, pointing at objects in our field of view and trying to repeat after her as she named them. After a while, I pointed back to myself and repeated my name a few times. With sparkling eyes she tried her hand. It was a challenge, but eventually we got to something like ¡°Naw¡±. Day 46 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I continued my vocabulary game with Waah today, and worked on picking up linking words and sentence structure from any complete sentences that passed between us. When she had left after our morning routine, I turned inward and took a look at my dust. It had brightened a fair amount over the last few days. The fruit I was eating didn¡¯t seem to contain much, so the overall reserves weren¡¯t noticeably larger, but much of my depleted portion was once again shining brightly. After a few minutes of watching it, I noticed it seemed to pulse faintly in an ever-changing pattern of slow and quick bursts. I spent most of the day just watching it, trying little experiments with breathing, heart rate and state of mind to see if I could find a pattern to the pulses, but my physical state seemed not to effect it in any meaningful way. In the evening Waah returned and we continued my language education. Day 50 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I¡¯ve continued my education over the last few days, and diligently researched the pulses in my dust. I¡¯ve noticed similarities to language theory in the pulses, something like a code. I can¡¯t begin to make sense of it, and I can only assume I¡¯m over-thinking things. How could the dust communicate? Likely I was seeing patterns where there weren¡¯t any because I¡¯ve been spending all day on language training lately. Last night I had a dream where my brothers were stolen from me by a giant bird with razor teeth and a giant mouth. I watched as it pushed me from the bridge before slowly devouring them one at a time. I awoke screaming and Waah almost let go of her rope in surprise. I apologized and she looked questioningly at me. I did my best to explain the situation to her, but the concept was difficult to get across. I hadn¡¯t yet found a way to communicate the concept of my brothers to her without one present to point at. I finally managed to get across that I was worried for others that looked like me, and that there were very few of us, using my fingers to count us out. She looked thoughtful, and then gripped my hand through the cage. She had a resolute look in her eyes. And with that she turned and climbed back into the tree. I can¡¯t pretend to know what decision had been reached, but she seemed sympathetic. It was a one in a million shot that Harper and the others would ever come across this tribe in the expansive forest, but with any luck I now had an ally in seeking them out. I fervently hoped it wouldn¡¯t be too late when they were found. --------------------------------------------------------------- And Waah joins the cast properly. It will be nice to have someone to write that doesn¡¯t have a tortured past. She¡¯s a smart little sloth person, and you can expect a lot more of her tribe before Doc and co part ways with the forest. What¡¯s going on with Dust? Why does it pulse, why does it hum? Why sloth people? Lots of mysteries, few answers, but we¡¯ll get there. As always, comments and ratings are welcome, and criticism encouraged. See you next time! Chapter 10: A Civilized Abomination Get ready, we¡¯re ramping up once more for the dark side of things. Insert pithy intro here, I¡¯m tired. --------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 10: A Civilized Abomination Day 51 ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª When I woke up this morning Waah was there as usual, but she didn¡¯t greet me as enthusiastically as on previous days. I did my puzzled routine and did my best to convey concern, though I was still unclear how much of my pidgin sloth was getting across. Then she pulled an obsidian dagger from her pocket. It was one of ours! I didn¡¯t have one on me when I was caught. She had found them! ¡°Naw¡­¡± she started, hesitantly. ¡°Where?¡± The following conversation was intense and painfully long. I didn¡¯t know half the necessary words, and it was hours before Waah managed to convey the necessary vocab to get the meaning across. Basically, my brothers were split up, and they were being held prisoner, but not by the Sloth tribe. Waah had personally found both me and a group of two, that sounded like Harper and Rabbit, but while they were in the process of transporting them back to be caged they were ambushed by a rival tribe. The details were unclear, but one terrible fact could be discerned. Waah pointed at my face. ¡°They look like I do.¡± She nods. No wonder I was locked in a cage when I was found. Nothing indicated Waah¡¯s people were anything but generous and kind, yet for berry theft I was locked in a cage for a week. Now it made sense. There was another tribe hostile to this one in the area, and they shared my genetics. When I was found, the Sloths assumed I was an enemy that had unwittingly weakened myself on berries. The fact that I wasn¡¯t killed on the spot was a miracle in itself. Tears ran down my face. This was worse than anything I had dreamed in my long hours in the cage. If they were with creatures made in the facility they could be returning my brothers to their cell as we spoke. I know all four of us would rather die than go back to that place. Waah put an arm on my shoulder through the bars. She said something about returning shortly and made her retreat. I sat there to the sounds of birds and leaves rustling, and I wept. Here I had been playing the amateur linguist while my two most defenseless companions, my blood brothers, were being reduced to lab rats by a nightmare horde that had already been dealt the same hand. Things had seemed so light recently, hanging in the forest, chatting with Waah. I had forgotten the reality of this world. Waah was nice, and I enjoyed her company, but in my thirst for knowledge and my joy in meeting other benign intelligent life, I had ignored those few friends that made my life bearable. Harper, Rabbit, Wolf. My family and my heart. I started thinking furiously on a change that would allow me to escape. I was flustered. I couldn¡¯t stay here, not for a moment longer. I looked inside, and the lights were blinking wildly, more agitated than I had seen them yet. ¡°I don¡¯t know what the light show means, but if you have any pity in that glow of yours, you will help me save my brothers.¡± I couldn¡¯t be sure if the pattern responded. I think it lit up once. Just as I dove into myself and readied to affect a grotesque change that would make me a human parachute, the rope jerked. Shit, they had noticed my actions, and were cutting the cord! I opened my eyes wide and looked at the guard. He had tied the rope around a branch and was glaring at me. Second ticked by, and I didn¡¯t plummet to my death. After a long breathe, I felt another tug, and slowly, my cage began a descent to the ground. Waah was letting me out. I sat down in the center, as I had for so many days, and I cried. I sobbed and sobbed until I was out of tears. After maybe an hour the cage settled on the grass, and Waah crawled down a nearby trunk to open the cage. As she approached, thirty or more of her people emerged from behind branches and out of bushes. I was slowly, warily surrounded by the group of wide eyed tribesman. They saw my tears, and many looked visibly shocked. I suppose the last thing they expected from the abominations of the facility was a display of emotion. Waah approached and wrapped her arms around me. She was so small, so light. Many of the men in the group tensed as she approached, and several spears were leveled at me. ¡°Thank you¡± I said, in my best imitation of their language. Reactions were mixed, but most once again seemed surprised to see me display this level of intelligence. Over the next hour me and Waah sat amongst her kin, discussing in our broken way the location of the other tribe and the place where my brothers were taken from them. It seemed to have been right around the time I was captured, and I felt fresh tears coming when she mentioned that they had been almost to the berry garden when they were found, following me. After getting the full story, I asked if I was free to go. Waah looked at me with her impossibly big eyes and nodded slowly. She handed me my brother¡¯s dagger and pointed in the direction we had worked out as being the rough direction of the other tribe. The others made an opening for me, and I gave Waah another light hug before turning to leave. When I was maybe fifty feet from them, I turned around once more. The group was watching. In their language I tried my best to convey my thanks, and my sorrow over the grief my facility cousins had caused them. I don¡¯t know how much was understood, but it was the best I could do. Before leaving, I turned once more to look at Waah, and gave my best ¡°¡°Waaah nii, Waah¡± See you later, Wah. As I stepped into the brush, I heard her corresponding ¡°Waaah nii, Naw¡±. And with that promise, I felt my eyes harden. I had a mission to accomplish, and family to protect. I ran headlong until I reached the river, and this time I didn¡¯t wait to build a bridge. Relying on sheer breathing ability and my continually strengthened muscles I dove in head first and flailed towards the far bank. I hit several rocks, and my nonexistent swimming skills meant the short forty foot trip took an agonizingly long time, but I was a man possessed. Eventually I flopped down on the far bank a good half mile from where I had started and barreled into the undergrowth. I used moss and the sun to orient myself and blindly charged through the thick forest. I had to fight off several large insects and a large rodent of some sort, but in my single minded pursuit I felt no fear, and slashed blindly with the obsidian knife until whatever was slowing me down stopped moving. After hours of running, I came to the end of the forest. I looked through, and was dumbfounded by the site ahead. Giant white cubes of stone and brick were built into the obsidian walls of the canyon. I could hear the waterfall off to my right, signaling that I was somewhere near the entrance to the cavern. Was this the main door to the facility? If so, it was bigger than I had ever imagined. The exit to the cavern was a solid day of walking, and we had been kept further still inside. Though the sight was dazzling, I couldn¡¯t help but fall into despair at the thought of trying to find my brothers in this place. Waiting in the brush, I watched for movement. This was the facility after all, and I knew the creatures that had taken my brothers could do the same to me. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I was surprised by how easy it was to find the things. After maybe fifteen minutes of waiting, a group of four broke from the forest a few minutes walk to my left. It was obvious immediately that the sloths never stood a chance. These weren¡¯t like the frail, specialized things we had encountered during our escape. No, these were hunters, built for life on the surface. They stood a good seven feet tall, with lithe, condensed muscles and long limbs. Their hands and feet were abnormally big, and their skin glistened in a pattern I took to be scaling or other biological armor. The leader, the tallest of the group looked around, scanning for threats. This too was a difference from those we¡¯d seen before. There was intent in his eyes. I had no way of gauging their intelligence from this brief display, but at the very least they weren¡¯t single-use tools like the eye or the shaggy thing had been. These were vanguards, scouts. They needed to be able to judge and act as a group. This was going to be difficult, and time was against me. I had a plan, having seen the defenses, but it might kill me. It would be a full body transformation, and I wasn¡¯t sure I¡¯d survive the attempt. I searched the area for a few minutes before I found a hollow tree that seemed to be unoccupied. I¡¯d need hours to make the necessary changes, and being interrupted would likely cost me my life. With a last look at the facility, I crawled into the tree and got to work. My dust was still riled up, pulsing erratically, even brighter than before, like it was excited to be of use. I was growing increasingly accustomed to ascribing emotions and meaning to it. I reminded myself it was a mysterious catalyst, not a living thing. Thinking of it as alive would only lead to misconceptions, and this was delicate work. I looked inward and thought of the epic task ahead. I wasn¡¯t sure if my body could take the strain, and I wasn¡¯t sure I knew enough to make it work. Still, time was ticking and I¡¯d already wasted too much. I began to meditate on my chosen change, an adaptation used by some of the most mysterious creatures on the planet, at least those not changed by dust. I intended to be the mysterious one tonight. I didn¡¯t know if these things could feel fear, but we were about to find out or die trying. First change, chromatophores. All across my body, I instructed the glow to begin work on these specialized cells right under the surface of my skin. This was the part I was most sure of. Each cell contained pigments all across the rainbow. In addition to those found in natural chromatophores, which include black, brown, red and yellow, I added a white pigment and a combination of the other hues to approach natural skin color. I was on a vendetta, but I¡¯d prefer to be able to look human if I made it through the night alive. I sat shaking as the change occurred, and when it was done I looked down in the dim light to see my skin was almost completely black. Only a dusting of the skin layer covering my new cells betrayed my former look. Now for the hard part. I dove back into my mind, alarmed by how quickly my dust had been depleted. I could only hope that it lasted until the job was done, or I would be even worse off than I had been, standing out as a black outline against the white buildings. Now that I had my paints, I needed a brush. I directed my will towards constructing a dense grid of thin muscle fibers in between the chromatophores, like a mesh. When tensed at various levels, the pressure in the cells would shift and the different colors would become visible. The muscles were very thin, but they might also provide some level of protection since I had formed them like a natural web over my blood vessels and organs. Next I attached nerves to these muscle groups, and directed them to grow right to the base of my brain stem without connecting. The pain began almost immediately, and it was much more intense than before. This was the first time I had made changes sequentially, and it seemed each would be worst than the last. I was putting my body through a lot of stress. More than an hour passed as I spasmed helplessly, knocking against the inside of the tree multiple times in my delirium. When the spasms finally passed I dove back in, anxious to see if I would have enough to complete the job. What I saw was worrying. The dust had stopped pulsing noticeably, and was as dim as it had been in quite some time. There was no going back now though. This last part was what I had been worried about, and it would either kill me or complete the change. Returned to my body, and thought hard on what I would need to do. In order to use my new ability, I would need control of these new muscles. That meant fiddling with my brain to connect the nerves in a way my brain could interpret. The worst part is that it was avoidable. If I had more time, I could simply connect the nerves and grow the necessary pathways in the brain naturally over a course of months. It had been done in laboratory settings before, and with the crutch of dust I was sure it would work. I didn¡¯t have months though, only tonight, and that meant relying on unknown magics to give myself brain surgery in a hollow tree. It would be funny if I wasn¡¯t so sure I was about to kill myself and my entire family through my death. At least Wolf might be safe, I reminded myself. I took some small comfort in that, and decided it was now or never. I fell into a half-conscious state, somewhere between my body and my mind. I thought very hard about color, and muscles for a few minutes, focusing on the movements of muscles and the desired effect to try and feel out where in my mind those pathways rested. I was far from convinced when I felt I had learned all I could. Breathing deeply of the musty interior of a rotting tree, I went once more into my own mind, and began my vandalism to the very organ that made me me. I connected the nerves, and watched where my brain lit up as a result of the new connection. Then I worked to create new neural pathways between the areas I needed, thoughts on color, skin and muscle reactions. I knew it wouldn¡¯t be enough. It wasn¡¯t right, I could tell immediately. I felt my soul shudder from the ultimate knowledge of my own impending death. As the pain started, I thought I could make out a faint pulsing, and something in my brain was changed, clicking into place. Then there was only blackness and cold, and a headache that felt like the sun. -------------------------------------------------------------¡ª I won¡¯t say much about the next chapter. Know that we¡¯ll be seeing more action than we have in a while, and look forward to seeing what our hero can really do when you hurt his friends.