Ewan rushed for the courtyard, stubbing his pinky toe on the dining table, and screamed as he rocketed out the door. The monkey was already in labor, lying in a pool of watery blood, her stomach wriggling around. She growled, the end of it escaping as a feeble groan, and her eyes regained clarity—her state of self-sedation was over, she would rampage now.
Once he confirmed her situation from a safe distance, as embers sparked around her, Ewan bolted back into the house and ran out with the supplies, zipping the fire suit and clasping the belt. Given his situation with the school and the Astylind, he cooked a plan for the monkey, and it was now time to enact.
The natural delivery without any complications required no external touch for the most part, so Ewan watched her from the side, stepping back until his presence didn't stress the monkey. The storm of fire raged around her, scorching the grass, reddening the cage, and roasting Ewan—his sweat steamed and turned the insides of the suit into a sauna. The sweltering breaths cracked his lips, parched his throat, and singed his chest, but he still stood inside the tempest of fire.
Her vulva had already stretched and swollen and had become flabby; the mucus oozed out and pooled under her. And within the next hour, as the monkey roared with another wave of rioting fire, her second layer of bag burst open. When Ewan came back from replenishing fluid and bent down to level with her, even with the distorted vision, a small head crowned from the vaginal gap to meet his gaze.
With minutes of struggle, with her tortured screams echoing in the yard, and some tongues of fire licking the height of the fence, an ugly and wrinkled baby monkey plopped out with a gush of slimy mucus. It lay silent in the cage, as Ewan's heart was in his mouth, and then twitched and cried. He finally heaved a sigh of relief and slumped down on the scorched earth, the excessive heat scalding his butt. The weary female monkey too let go of the cage with a groan, her hands dropping by her side, and her eyes closed, the barely moving chest proving her life.
Ewan looked at the yard around —the fire still burned whatever remained in the area—and prepared to move on to the next part of his plan. Luckily, his line of work had long numbed his neighbors for any kind of disturbance in his place…
Before he could take out the knife though, the female monkey's stomach squirmed again. And as she moaned in pain and heaved, another baby crowned from the gap. Ewan cursed out loud and dashed for the cage, grabbing the supplies. He sought theories for all sorts of problems he could face, but her having twins wasn't one of them—he wasn't a professional after all. Nevertheless, it didn't change what he had to do, instead the appearance of the second baby might even bolster his plan.
No fire came out of her, she didn't have the strength to even growl at him anymore, but she still strived to push the baby. And his job was to help her. Once he wrapped the first tiny monkey in a soft towel and put it aside safely, minding the fire flickering on his forehead, he moved to confirm the female monkey's condition. Her vulva had dried from the hours of raging fire, so he wetted it with soap water, checked the crowning again and the position of the baby monkey, and helped her in pushing whenever she tried, keeping his hands away when she rested. When she made good progress, he switched to the other side—she pushed, and he pulled.
Drops of sweat seeped into his eyes, but he couldn't scratch the itch; his breath burned his chest, but he couldn't rest for a heave of cold fresh air—his headache hammered him in waves, and his sense of time blurred. Soon, when he counted minutes, but the arc of the sun showed over an hour, the second baby monkey flopped out into his hand and howled to mark its birth.
Its thin and lanky limbs, its emaciated chest, and the bony frame without a hint of meat on it contrasted its older sibling in every way possible. Not only that but even the blob of fire burning on its forehead flickered between blue and orange, dying into an ember then raging beyond its size. And once its breath stabilized and it cried, the fire stayed orange too, with not a hint of blue remaining.
Mutation…
Ewan couldn't confirm what kind it was right now, but it didn't matter—a mutation almost always overshadowed the norm. And he set his eyes on this little one for his plan, the plan he would now eventuate, the plan that would hurt a lot…
The rampage of the fire had calmed down as the female monkey flaked out, but its remnants still came to his waist, scorching the earth till not a hint of moisture remained in that area of the yard. But this amount of damage was far from enough, it would hardly give him any leverage against the customer. At best, she would pay for it; at worst, she would refuse to acknowledge… He needed to do much worse, a level of damage she couldn't ignore even if she wanted to, a level of damage that their colony marked as a punishable crime.
….
With a bucket of iced water on his side, the tongues of fire reaching for him but failing short, he sliced the left sleeve of the fire suit and yanked it off, exposing his hand. His teeth grinded when he clenched his jaws, his chest tightened when he took a deep breath, and as he steeled his mind and intentions, he plunged his hand into the searing fire.
He bellowed, his roar rumbling in the yard, as a life-ending pain assaulted him, yet he didn't pull back. Waves of agony invaded him as his hand sizzled and wafted a foul stench—of burnt skin, singed hair, and charred meat. His face flushed and reddened, his back shivered, and he growled; the torment almost knocked him out cold. He grabbed the blade of the knife, bit his tongue, slapped his face, and when he finally couldn't bear it anymore, he took the hand back and dipped it into the iced water—it fizzled for a second then smoked. Ewan kneeled and panted before the fire, drenched in sweat, his mind barely holding on. His hand was blood-red, covered in blisters, some parts charred black; even a twitch of his fingers overwhelmed him with agony.
When Uncle Thain would find out, he would get another scolding… Ewan chuckled, still heaving and sweating bullets, soaking his collars and shoulders, and drenching his hair. If Nana found out, she might worry too…or perhaps not… He turned to look towards her house, towards her balcony, and his eyes met hers, she was crying…