I looked at him without moving or answering, in reality, I didn't know what to do. He knew me but I didn't know about him, which made me feel uncomfortable. I didn't want to go near him anymore, I preferred to let father do it.
But as I got up to go and wash my hands in my bathroom, he held my hand. I turned violently towards him to see him trying to get up.
"Don't...stay down, you're hurt," I said in a small voice.
"Come with me... please." He replied in a hoarse voice.
I opened my mouth to answer when he started coughing violently until he fell with fatigue. I came closer to him, thinking he was dead. But his anarchic breathing confirmed the opposite and to my surprise, I was relieved.
I looked at the time on my clock and noticed that Father was about to arrive. I turned my attention back to this stranger and then to the care equipment. Without thinking too much, I got up and went out to come back only a minute later with a respirator. I installed it then disinfected my utensils and my hands to begin the operation. But before I used a stethoscope to confirm my fears of internal bleeding. This was followed by two long hours of surgery where I lingered on the most serious wounds.
When I was finished, I injected him with painkillers and antibiotics to prevent any infection. Finally, I packed up the equipment to put them away and return to my room.
"What am I going to do with you? If a father sees you all my efforts will have been for nothing because he will kill you for sure. But you won't wake up now so that an escape is not possible."
My head was getting hot so I went downstairs to get a glass of water in the kitchen. On my way, I get through a large corridor that led to the living room, father's bedroom, the front door, and the kitchen. It was before entering the kitchen that someone knocked on the door. Who was it? Father always takes the key with him, doesn't he?
Scared, I didn't make a move until the second round of knocks, this time, followed by a voice.
"Open the door, I know you're in there!"
I didn't know that voice, I looked at the living room clock on my right and noticed that Father was thirty minutes late. Something must have happened to him.
"He died."
My breath stopped, I collapsed to the ground shocked by what I had just heard. Dead? Father is dead? How is it possible? He was supposed to meet a few people to talk about his recent experiments, nothing new.
"Who are you human?"
"You know how to talk to what I ear, you're not like those prototypes. No, you're much better. Open that door, subject 0."
How does he know my number? And how does he know about the prototypes?
I'm not stupid, I know that my father made several prototypes before he created me. But these prototypes have woken up? Did they live? Where are they today?
"It is by disinformation, by hiding the truth, and by teaching a masquerade of life that we manage to manipulate. He did a good job, yet you seem to think, as a human being. This means that you have educated yourself too...That's very annoying."
"Who are you human?"
"You don't need to know, I..."
"Who do you think you are? You probe people's lives to the point where you analyze them through their words but refuse to disclose your identity! Even the one who created you doesn't pretend to hide so much information from his creatures!"
Silence fell and then footsteps from outside came closer to the living room window. I was rushing to close the security shutters when a vase exploded near me after a detonation.
A sticky liquid poured on my cheek after the ball passed by. I was petrified and didn't know what to do or think. I was probably going to die or be taken to a laboratory where I would be tortured to extract knowledge from my father. This house full of memories will end his work as a hosteler, stained with absence and regret. But...
A hand landed on my mouth cutting me off from my morbid thoughts and wrenching a scream of fear out of me. This is the end. Fear was shaking my little body, my legs were demodulating, I thought I was fainting, probably a defense mechanism to protect me from suffering.
"Pull yourself together, it's only me!" He said in a whisper.
I turned my head to look at him. Lord, he's tall, he may be 200 cm! I couldn't take my eyes off his, they were green and surrounded by a multitude of eyelashes that underlined his almond-shaped eyes. His eyebrows were bushy but charming, his nose small but cute, and his mouth pulpy and rosy. His cheeks were hollowed out by no doubt hunger, but his body was not weak, on the contrary, it was finely muscled. I am aware of my extreme concentration during his operation because I hadn't noticed all these details.
"Do you have an emergency exit?"
"Yes, we do."
"Why didn't you go straight there?" He asked angrily.
"I..."
"Don't reply and drive us there."
I nodded my head and we walked slowly towards the corridor. That's when a multitude of bullets went through the bay window, tearing a scream out of me. The boy took my hand and started running with one hand on his left side.
"You have to go through the basement," I shouted under the blasts.
"And which way to go."
"Through my room."
He smiled but kept running. When I got to my room I closed the door behind us and activated the safety mechanism. Then I let go of his hand and walked away from him.
"What do you take me for!"
"You're far too clever for your good."
"The timing was far too perfect, if you want to kidnap a person, do it right."
"And now what are you going to do? Kill me? You're the one who just saved me."
"Even if I kill you, you are too many."
His smile faded as I pressed a button that revealed a dozen cameras filming more than a hundred people.
"You got into the residence not without difficulty but it wasn't for me. No, you planned to destroy the security system and break all the cameras. Thinking you had succeeded, your second plan went off. You had to divert my attention so that your comrades would surround the house. But you didn't plan for me to take care of your wounds for two hours straight."
I took a gun hidden in my drawer, opened it, and took the bullets one by one from my pocket. He opened his mouth but said nothing and searched in his pockets.
"There's a trace of blood on the corner of the table."
"So you figured it all out after you went to get the stuff to disinfect my wounds?"
"No, I understood as soon as I saw your body in the garden."
He smiled, even more, sat down on the bed and put his finger in his ear, and spoke in a language I don't understand, yet. After two minutes he looked at me again and asked me.
"What are you going to do then?"
"Help me to destroy the city."