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'Dr. Paterson turned around once more and muttered to himself as he shut the door.'
Dr. Robert Patterson
Dr. Paterson sleepily made his way down into the lab. He hadn’t gotten much sleep after bringing all the ‘Santa’ presents out to the Christmas tree. It was rather troublesome that his daughter still so wholeheartedly believed in Santa Clause, it made Christmas so much more complicated than it should when the child was older than ten. He needed to be quick with 13 so he could get back up to the foyer before Kerra woke up and his wife threw a fit. Really troublesome…
There was something wrong, Robert got the feeling the second he stepped off the last step into the basement. He glanced around the hallway and first thing he noticed at that the light to the washroom was on. Turning it off, Robert frowned. Surely that couldn’t have been the only thing… The doors to both the library and lab were open. For obvious reason, Robert rushed into the lab first. 13 wasn’t in its tank. There was no sign of the damned thing anywhere in the lab.
Robert turned sharply on his heels and rushed into the library. At first glance, 13 didn’t seem to be there either, but then the doctor noticed the cushions to his reading chair were missing. His eyes traveled across the room and caught a glimpse of the patterned material squished in the space created by the ends of two bookshelves. Robert practically ran to the spot and felt his face growing hot with rage.
There was 13, curled up peacefully on his favorite chair’s cushions and dead asleep. The thing looked so, so human. There was a faint hint of a smile on its lips and a black eye patch covered his regenerating eye. Lying next to 13 was a children’s book about emotions. Where the hell would it have gotten something like that? The bandage that 13 was supposed to have over his eye was balled up between the wall and cushion.
Not caring just yet if 13 continued to sleep or woke up from his movements, Robert violently pulled the eye patch off of 13’s head. The eyelid closed over his missing eye was indented slightly, going into the hole where the eye should belong. The doctor noticed a flash of blue on the other side of the black material. He flipped it over and realized it was very small handwriting, a note. Robert pulled his glasses out of his shirt pocket, shaking slightly. He placed the spectacles on and leaned against the bookcase to steady himself. That was most definitely his daughter handwriting. Sure enough, the note was signed by his daughter’s name. There was another name in the note though. It was the name of one of Kerra’s video game characters, addressing obviously to 13. She had named the god damned thing! Was history destined to repeat itself?
Robert grabbed 13 by its thin arm and pulled it up and out of the nook it had created. Instantly, the thing’s eyes flew open, one terrifying empty socket and one equally terrifyingly crystal blue eye. Oh how Robert despised that eye of its. It had grown tolerable once the soul left them, but out of malice, the doctor had decided to test whole body part regeneration on its eye. Oh those dreaded eyes. It looked up at Robert, shock, confusion, terror, EMOTIONS were clear as day on its face and in its eye.
All the pieces suddenly clicked together in Robert’s mind. 13’s strange decline in health levels, the feeling that something was different with the specimen, his daughter’s unnatural new sleeping habits, combined with the obvious gifts Kerra had given the thing, everything made sense. Somehow, for some reason, Kerra found her way into the lab. She met 13. She was a kind girl, she probably thought it was human and began visiting and treating it as such. Why? Hadn’t everything been fixed ten years ago? Why?!
13 continued to stare at Robert; unable to move or speak he was so scared. Specimens shouldn’t feel fear! Furiously, Robert struck 13 across the face, dropping it to the floor at the same time. “How could this happen?!” He bellowed furiously.
When 13 said nothing in reply, Robert grabbed it by the arm once more and dragged it into the lab. For as tall as 13 was, it was easy to throw onto the examination table. Robert wasn’t just brains. He was a fit and sturdy man. “Lie down!” He barked at the thing. 13 moved in a daze, but lied down nonetheless.
The doctor threw the eye patch to the ground, realizing he had still been holding it. He moved quickly, both from the need to meet his wife’s dead line and pure anger. Out from under the table Robert produced leather buckles and proceeded to strap 13 down to the table. The thing continued to stare at him in terror and to add even more fuel to Robert’s anger he could swear there was worry in the thing’s eye. Worry. Specimen’s might be able to be shocked, confused, or scared from time to time, but worry?! That was an emotion reserved for humans. No other animal ever worried, no less a science experiment.
“ ‘What better to see than a little message when you can see again, neh?’ “ The doctor said in a mocking tone as he started setting up a large array of surgical tools. “That’s what she said, my daughter, to you, my specimen for scientific study. Ha, close friend too, Roxas. She’s a foolish child. She didn’t see you as a human, no, she saw you as a pet. Just a little experiment of her own! See if she could turn Daddy’s specimen into a human! Well, you’re never going to see her again and you definitely are not going to see that message with that eye in a long, long time Roxas.”
Fury filled its eyes. It was mad at him! How dare it! 13 began to open his mouth to speak, but the doctor quickly gagged the thing. He did not want to listen to it speak about his precious Kerra. Yes, it wasn’t going to see out of its left eye for a long time. It would have anything even resembling a left eye for a while either. Forget the progress it was showing, Robert wanted to destroy it. He wanted to burn it to the ground. But, his research took priority over his desires and the best thing he could get to killing it was hurting it.
An insane, toothy grin spread across the doctor’s face. He picked up a scalpel and held it over the spot where the bone of the skull curved off to create the eye socket. Pure terror was in 13’s blue eye as the doctor began laughing. “Be a good specimen now 13. I can add this eyelid and half developed eye to the jar with the original eye.” And he cut into the skin of the eyelid, cutting past the thin skin to deep within the eye socket.
A muffled scream came from 13 and tears streamed out of his intact eye. Then, silence. The stupid thing had passed out from the pain. Robert shrugged and continued the process of removing all traces of a human eye from 13’s right side of the face. It would be impossible for it to be without something covering his ‘right eye’ until the eyelid re-grew. Even if Kerra somehow found him again, there was no way she could still consider it human for without an eyelid to cover the empty eye socket, it right side of the face would be monstrous.
Robert worked without much care. He wasn’t trying to preserve the part of the eye or anything; he already had the original eye. He just needed to remove as much as he could. Glancing at the wall clock, he judged he had about twenty minutes left. Just enough time. Grinning, Robert looked down at the gaping hole on 13’s face. How scary it looked, it was wonderful. Though, the hole was still bleeding. That wouldn’t do. His specimen couldn’t die on him, especially not from blood loss. The doctor took out a jar of a special blood clotting salve from a draw. He almost filled the whole hole with the stuff, and then stuffed gauze in the remaining space. The doctor took out fresh bandages and wrapped them tightly around 13’s head. Highly pleased with himself, Robert collected a pile of clean bandages and more jars of the salve. He bundled them together and stuffed them in a bag. 13 was going to need to take care of himself for a while.
Slapping the thing awake, Robert pulled 13 to its feet. It was weak and tears started falling once more. Good. It was feeling the pain. It looked over at the bloody pile that was once its healing eye on the table and retched. Though, there was nothing in its stomach and only bile came out. How disgusting. 13 was breathing heavily and sweating profusely, yes, it was definitely feeling the pain. But, Robert could not watch the thing in pain any longer than that. He had a deadline and a distance to walk.
Robert headed out the door, literally dragging 13 behind him. The thing simply did not have the strength to run after the man. He felt a bit of resistance as he was heading out the door. Before he could kick the thing and tell it obey, the resistance was gone. Shrugging, Robert continued into the hallway. He pulled a card out of his pocket and waved it in front of a small hole next to the third door in the wall way. Not even 13 had a clue what was inside this third door. Robert was the only one to have entered it.
The door opened automatically, revealing a tunnel that seemed to go on forever… He began walking…
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Steward
