Chapter 4:
Autumn Entered a room that resembled someone's private lab that contained many bottles of preserved creatures placed on an open shelf and each one of them was labeled in a language unknown to him. Many glass apparatuses, trays, and burners were placed on the table and they held the appropriate stands dedicated to them.
Frames of scientific diagrams housed the walls while the dried shells of insects were preserved inside a glass display. There was also a closed closet on the corner that was mostly used to hold operating tools, chemicals and important books.
He shivered upon entering, the ambient temperature of the room was far lower than it was outside. He rubbed his arms and looked around to see if someone was inside.
"What are you doing here?"
Autumn jumped and stumble back when he heard a harsh voice behind him. Autumn turned back to look at the person. What he saw was a man, elderly man, dressed in all white with a lab coat over his shoulder and wore thick glasses. He resembled the villains from the old cartoons. He was surprised not at the fact that the man before him looked like an evil scientist from cartoons but at the fact that he was quite tiny, not taller than a 3-year-old baby.
The man was around 500 cm tall and held a smoking opium pipe in his hands.
"Are you Eugene?"
"Eugene is my name." the short elderly man replied and emptied the ash from his pipe into an ashtray after which he placed his opium pipe on a stand.
"I was sent here by the head maid. Apparently, I have some checkups."
He stared at Autumn and raised his brow.
"Oooooo… Why didn't you say so? You must be the traveler."
"I think that might be me."
"Of course it's you," Eugene said to himself and nodded a few times.
"You, Sit." He pointed at a table.
"Okay?" Reluctantly Autumn sat on the table.
Eugene dragged a tall stool near Autumn, climbed the ladder that was built-in into its legs and sat facing Autumn. He held a lamp with a crystal as a light source and shone it over Autumn's face. He pulled his eyelids away from each other using his thumb and forefinger and brought the lamp closer.
His pupils shrunk to adjust the change in brightness. "Light sensitivity is working correctly," Eugene mumbled and wrote it down on a paper.
"Ouch." Autumn wept when Eugene hit his nose. "What are you doing?" he said while holding his nose.
"Pain receptors and tear ducts are working fine."
"scrreeeee…" Eugene took a glass beaker and scratched it with a metal scoop.
"Stop it," Autumn shouted while covering his ears.
"Hearing, Normal."
If it wasn't for the fact that he explained what he did afterward Autumn would have yelled at him and leave the room immediately. Everything was very irritating to Autumn and he hated every moment he was here.
Eugene waved his fingers indicating Autumn to give his hand. He placed his fingers on Autumn's wrist and stared at his pocket watch.
"Pulse? Slightly irregular."
After writing it down Eugene removed his glasses and replaced them with other glasses with slightly thinner lenses. He faced Autumn and asked.
"Tell me are you feeling anything wrong or unusual with your body?"
"Unusual?"
"I mean anything like lightheadedness, nausea, tension, sudden increase of heartbeat, more or less something along the lines."
Suddenly Eugene started to sound more cultured and professional. As if the person before him was entirely someone else.
"What is the meaning of this?"
"I am taking your medical examination." "Is there something wrong with that?"
Autumn wanted to yell at him but he refrained himself and decide to play along.
After a deep sigh, he continued. "I don't feel anything weird, physically."
"Can you explain yourself?"
"I don't feel that anything's wrong with my body but I am suffering from nightmares."
"Nightmares huh," He wrote it down and continued, "Can you tell me about your nightmares."
"Yes, mostly I am having the same nightmare every time. I am walking alone in an empty alley and I hear something following me. I don't turn back at first but after the curiosity the best of me I turn but there is no one there. When I turn straight I am suddenly attacked by a person, a stranger but I know them. After that, I wake up."
To Autumn this scene looked more or less like a therapy session rather than a medical examination but he stopped himself from enquiring.
"You are having this nightmare on a regular basis?"
"Yes ever since I arrive here."
"Ever since he arrived here."
He said to himself and wrote it down on his writing pad.
"There is nothing to worry about. It is just that your memories are trying to come back but your body is having trouble excepting them. This is totally natural. Your body has gone through a lot. Don't worry once your memories recover your nightmares will go away."
"Is there anything that you can do to help me with my nightmares?"
"I don't think that will be a good idea. The process that you are going through is natural and any foreign involvement can disturb your memory recovering process."
Autumn started to sulk.
"Don't be so gloomy it will be all fine. Now before you leave can you tell me everything that you remember?"
…
"That would be all for today. Let's continue this at our next meeting."
"Thank you."
Few minutes after Autumn left the lab door opened and someone entered. The person who came in was an iron giant, he was slightly smaller than regular iron giants but looked far stronger than them. Eugene looked at him as if he was expecting his arrival.
"Welcome Mr. Kairo what can I help you with?" He asked as a formality.
"Did you do as I told you?"
"Of course the report is on the table." He said while pointing at the stack of paper with his opium pipe.
"Thank you for doing this."
"I am just following orders." He shrugged and smoked his pipe puffing out a cloud of clean white smoke.
Kairos glanced at the report and stopped at a certain page. Eugene could not help but smile at his reaction. He read that certain page over and over again until he looked at Eugene and raised his voice, "What is the meaning of this?"
"What do you mean?" He calmly replied.
"This page?" He opened the accused page and lifted it so that Eugene can see it.
He adjusted his glasses, "That page! I am sure everything is written clearly on it."
"Yes, that is exactly why I am asking."
The page Kairo referring to was the one where Eugene wrote his personal thoughts and theories.
He wrote,
"Even though this person was dead for two years he has a large collection of memories but what I found interesting it's the fact that those memories are of something very similar and completely foreign to this world…
He knows a lot about medicine and surgery but lacks basic knowledge of healing magic…
When asked what magic was he replied, "Magics are tricks that use distractions and uncommon knowledge to perform actions that seem impossible on the first glace."…
...
I have concluded that our guest's soul has been traveling through worlds that are similar and completely different from ours before we decided to resurrect him. The reason why I say this is because this man before me has shown knowledge that is difficult to gather in two years and considering the fact that he was dead for these two years it should have been impossible….
I am positively sure that he has lived more lives than one."
Eugene and Kairo stared blankly at each before Eugene decided to break the silence.
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know. Now that you have told me all this I am now surer that he is a danger to our master. My first plan would be to send him as far away from here as I could."
"You are being paranoid Mr. Kairo. I think you are reflecting your past self and you are looking at him through the eyes of bias."
He glared at Eugene.
"Demons are indeed the ones responsible for the near extinction of my race but I am not someone shallow to judge a person on their race. I am only cautious towards him because I sense danger from him."
"Believe whatever you want to but I think you two will be a great friend if you gave him a chance."
"scoff.."
"It's true, seeing it from my eyes he has suffered far more than you have and many times if I may add."
"Thanks for your advice but I don't see any possibilities for that." He placed the reports inside an envelope and said, "I guess my work here is done, Thank you for making this report." and left.
"Youngsters, always in a hurry." He shook his head a few times and continued smoking his pipe.
….