"STEPHAN HE'S AWAKE!!"
Despite the scream, the man she was calling for never showed up. Instead, the woman approached the boy and pulled a chair beside him. They stared at each other in silence for quite a while.
She had long blond hair tied in a frivoled bun with streaks of white and black. Her eyes were a deep warm grey. Her outfit was that of a maid...a nurse but with a theme of black and white, opposite to the warm colors usually worn by such professions. Her hands were not of…flesh but instead metallic prosthetics and quite the expensive kind of copper and brass fitted with leather. It was not his first time seeing replaced limbs, but he was still surprised when he saw the mask.
She wore a cracked porcelain mask that covered her entire face except the eyes. He'd seen those masks only worn by sanctioned witches. They were always pristine and elaborate but hers was barely holding together.
The woman seemed more like a broken doll than a human.
"Ugh…fine you win. It's rather rude to make a lady introduce herself first." Her voice finally broke the silence. The mask didn't impede the warmth she conveyed with her words but still gave her an alien feeling.
"My name is Clara and yours is…?" The boy never answered and continued to stare with a blank face. He wanted to jump out of this bed and make a run for it, but his body winced at the slightest tug. He was bandaged from top to bottom again and forced to listen to this lady's attempts at deceiving him.
"Did that pervert do something to you? You can rest easy now, You're in safe-ish hands." She clapped her metal hands and laughed trying to clear the air with a joke but to no avail.
After a few more moments of silence, she sighed and leaned back in her chair. "You know, the silent treatment won't get you anywhere. I've had my fair share of patients who thought they could outlast me."
He didn't budge or soften but instead flashed a predatory look at her. The gaze of a wounded beast facing a predator. His deep grey eyes only made the attempt at intimidation fiercer.
Clara didn't flinch at the intensity of the boy's gaze. From what Stephan cared to divulge she expected this treatment. She withdrew her hand slowly, maintaining eye contact, and leaned forward...closer to the boy.
"You're a tough nut to crack, aren't you?" she remarked lightly, though her eyes showed concern. "But I've dealt with tougher scabs than you."
The boy's expression remained stoic, but something softened in his eyes as Clara continued to speak in a gentle tone.
"I know it's hard to trust right now," Clara said softly, "but you're safe here. Stephan may not show it, but he's… well, he's Stephan. You'll get used to him."
"I've got to set up shop, Stephan should be here any…" Just as she uttered his name the man burst through the door with a confident stride and a wide smile.
"Out Clara…I need to have a few words with the puppy."
He remembered this man…This Stephan. He couldn't forget those blue eyes hidden behind the round glasses framed in a sheen of silver. Just looking at him sparked the taste of the ichor...the despair. This was the man responsible for the horrid experiments.
Stephan was quite tall and slender. He wore a long black coat over a white silky shirt. His brown hair was tied into a short lazy knot. His most striking feature was that smile. It was obnoxious but strangely reassuring. It held many emotions and none at all. It was hard to describe yet merely staring at it sent shivers down the boy's spine.
"Manners Stephan! Manners!" Clara chided with an annoyed voice, but she didn't argue with Stephan. She flashed the boy a nod and promptly left him with the enigma she called Stephan.
"Well little puppy…I bet you have many questions!" The boy flashed him with the same hatred he flashed Clara with, but it didn't perturb Stephan but instead made his smile widen.
"No questions…none at all?…well it's not like I was planning to answer." Stephan laughed before grabbing the boy by the head and leaning in to look him straight in the eyes. "You know when puppies misbehave you have to teach them manners...you must know that riiight?."
They stayed in that position for a few seconds, the grip on the boy's head tightening before Stephan leaned back. He flashed the boy a brighter smile and tapped him on the nose, before getting comfortable in the chair Clara was sitting in. As for the boy, he whimpered backward as he stared at the man with apprehension.
"Clara might have given you the wrong impression of your stay here but She was right about one thing. You're free to leave whenever you want. In fact, I'm surprised you're still here at all after the little tussle you had with my pet."
The boy fell short of breath. He felt that this was a test of some kind but with Stephan sitting there and waving at him to leave, the boy decided to risk it despite his injured body dissuading him with pain.
He scrambled for the door but the moment he left the wooden frame the pain turned feral, forcing him to clutch his chest and stumble to his knees. He began to cough and cough till ichor gushed in force from all his eyes, his nose, his ears, and his mouth.
It didn't stop there the ichor...it moved back and slithered into the boy's throat, choking him. Just as he was about to lose consciousness a cyan hand materialized and grabbed the boy from the scruff of his patient's cloth.
The hand promptly dragged him back inside the room and once inside the pain died down. The boy cuffed the last bits of ichor and caught his breath. It was only for a moment but his body was so tired...his eyes began to close and...
"This won't do…the fun was just getting started...I didn't even get to tell you the fun parts...Wake up puppy" Stephan laughed as the cyan hand pinched the boy's nose till he couldn't breathe, jolting him awake.
"Now now...don't be like that, who said leaving would be that easy." He flashed a sadistic smile at the boy who was breathing deeply. His peculiar condition returned to normal after a few moments.
"What you just experienced was not of the physical kind per se but of the soul. You haven't fed your seed in quite a while and last night's injuries drove it to its limit." The boy remained silent while Stephan studied him.
'Don't talk...nothing good comes out of talking...Don't talk...Don't talk... it's all Lies!' Fear spoke up before the boy could respond. He didn't like the boyish voice but it was right when it mattered. He knew it was better to listen to it but the pain he felt when he walked out shook the boy to his very core. It was not something he wanted to experience again.
"What…Seed?" Between pained huffs, he voiced his question. The question left Stephan silent. His mood seemed to sour a bit, but the plastered smile made it hard to tell what was going on in his mind.
"IT SPEAKS! And they said I would make a terrible father!" Stephan laughed as the cyan hand clapped only to stop in place as the man looked at the boy. "Let's cut to the chase. You signed a verbatim." Seeing the confused look on the boy's face, Stephan sighed and reiterated. "You're going to die."
The way he said was so nonchalant that it took the boy a moment to grasp what was spoken. Whatever nausea that was assaulting his senses stopped. The world was never as clear. Whether they were real or not...hearing them made his heart skip a beat.
As much as the boy craved an end to the suffering he faced thus far both physical and mental...dying was the only thing he couldn't allow. He had to repent first.
Seeing the shock...the confusion...and whatever else was swirling in those yellow eyes. It made Stephan elated. Now that he got a kick out of it he continued.
"You...my dear puppy made a pact with something beyond words and had the audacity not to live up to it."
"To tell you the truth I'm surprised you're alive. When seeds usually bloom, they have a factor to filter the chaotic malaize in order to feed yet yours remained empty for an extended period. It's been feeding on your sheer tenacity until now."
Snapped out of his shock by another slap by the cyan hand, the boy digested what Stephan had said. He understood most of it. The boy was tested before. He was no Canite. He didn't inherit the factor from his disappointed father. Even if he did, he was 12 and seeds bloomed mostly at 16 and 14 in rare cases.
"Have you had a recent look in the mirror my little puppy?"
Hearing the remark the boy unconsciously looked at a long mirror stand to his right. Both his face and limbs looked frail and thin barely wearing the white patient garb. His once long disheveled black hair was streaked with white from the crown to the very strands. As for his skin, it was sickly pale almost ghostly.
"Now you could get back to wherever you came from...granted you'll experience a horrible-horrible death. Luckily our esteemed benefactor has taken matters into its own hands and deposited you into my own." Stephan sighed remembering the events a few nights ago.
"Why?" The boy questioned in a weak voice. He didn't ask for this. He didn't want anything to do with it. He just wanted to live in silence or what silence the voices gave him between their outbursts.
"Frankly…I don't know how your other half knows about me but I'm to assume it contacted me to train you. I personally have no plans in taking someone unwilling."
"The ichor I fed you should last you a while but if you don't learn to control the seed and find a factor it's only a matter of time before you croak." The cyan hand dragged itself across Stephan's neck, imitating a death sign.
"You can have a few days to decide...till then don't cause any trouble." He walked over to the boy and placed his hand on top of his head. Cyan flames slowly gathered at his fingertips as energy began to seep into the boy's body.
"There…Your body should stabilize in a few minutes…enough to leave at least. Being a Canite is not as dandy as we and books make it out to be. You'd be choosing the easy way out."
Saying these words Stephan made his way out and walked past the boy. The Cyan hand waved at the boy before following behind its master.
As for the boy, he stayed still on the ground. He remained motionless for a couple of minutes before gathering some strength to move to the window. Whatever this place was...it was two stories high and closer to the upper parts of the city than the slums.
He was clearly still in the capital. He recognized the streets of Lethica. They'd been his unwelcoming home for the last six months. From Clara's and Stephan's clothes, he gathered that it could be a licensed apothecary or mortuary with some underground ties judging from the lab and coffins he experienced below. Quite the well-off one to afford electricity considering this room's bulbs and tailored furnishings.
"Trying to distract yourself!" Fear spoke up again with the usual boyish harshness.
"Always finding trouble. Always making others responsible. Always being useless." Regret took its turn to jibe at him, but the last remark made him lose his temper. He grabbed the vase and smashed it into the wall. The impact sent shards slashing him across the arm.
He fell to his knees. This time he was covered with water instead of ichor. The boy shuddered as he grabbed his hand which flinched with pain. He watched the blood cascade down drop by drop.
He was going to die unless he succumbed to the deal he made not so long ago. He promised himself not to. Not again.
Defeated, his eyes welled up in tears as his two companions began to laugh loudly in his mind. He began to gather the shards of the broken vase and just as he grabbed one, Clara walked back into the room.
Once she noticed the blood she rushed to the boy's side. She kneeled next to him and grabbed his bandaged arm to check for injuries despite the boy's sluggish struggle.
"You should be more careful." That was all she said. She didn't berate him. She just asked him to be more careful and turned her back to a nearby drawer to grab a new bandage.
"DO IT!" Fear screamed as the boy grabbed the shard which felt very heavy in his hands. He gritted his teeth and tightly familiarized himself with the piece of clay till blood began to spill from his other hand.
"DO IT!" Fear screamed again and the world became silent. It was him, a voice he'd rather forget, and memories of blood. He almost vomited but the pain in his hand brought him back to a reality where the memories were just that memories.
"Yes...go on...repeat the same mistakes again." Regret was the one to speak this time.
"DO IT!" Fear shouted a third time and the boy obliged with a swift dash towards Clara. He stabbed her in the waist and made his escape.