Slumber arrived quickly after the extremely long day Clarisse had had, especially resting with the hollow’s arm as a makeshift pillow. She found herself standing in a room with stark white walls and windows at regular intervals. Clean grey tiles lined the floor, trodden on by a menagerie of workers wearing pure white robes cut right above the ankles and carrying a variety of equipment ranging from notepads to medicines to nondescript boxes. It all gave off a rather putrid sense of cleanliness, as if they were operating under quarantine. As usual, she phased right through them as they passed by, paying no heed to her existence.

  Peering out of the windows showed her a series of hallways extending in all directions. Each corridor was lined with either laboratories or prison cells. Clarisse’s chest tightened as she pressed herself against the window, taking in the grim sight – every cell she could see was inhabited by one, or several, children. From just that window, she spotted a salamandrake, a pair of ravens, a few humans, and more in the periphery of her vision. The laboratories all had curtains to close off the outside, but she could guess what was going on inside. She recalled her conversation with PH:OV, he was a lab experiment. So were all of the children she was seeing.

  Clarisse’s realization was interrupted by a loud announcement, one which pierced through the room despite how incoherent it was to her ears. All the workers parted ways, creating a red carpet running through the middle for a cart. A relatively shorter person in a lab coat carted a horizontal sack across the room, one which she recognized immediately.

  Clarisse phased through the crowd, breaking into a run as she followed the researcher as he pushed along a young Nikolas, still stuck in the sack. She could hear the person listening to someone else talk from an arcanic interface on his wrist.

  “Subject 7932, a rather promising one. From the underbelly of Ignisvell,” The voice rambled as the cart crossed various cells and labs without pause. “We have this one to thank for the entire project, actually. A Crimson Tear should make for the perfect test subject. The prerequisite skills and body structure… a higher tolerance for external pathogens… yes. He will be ideal.”

  “Which cell should he be assigned to, Dr. ?” The lab worker asked, not quite keeping up with the voice but following orders anyway.

  “This one… put him in the group cohort. I must study how he interacts with others first.”

  “Yes sir.” The worker kept pushing the cart along, letting Clarisse get an idea of just how massive the facility was. Endless corridors of malnourished, often injured and bandaged test subjects hid in the corners of their cells. Researchers stood by, monitoring their states without the least hint of empathy or shame. Some of them acknowledged the cart pass by, a new addition to the sizable pool of subjects they already had.

  The group cohort was different, however. Clarisse watched as the cart paused next to a large room with no windows, and a translucent door glimmering in red. The worker hovered his wrist next to the door, and the moment its shine changed to green, he threw the sack in and moved on. “Subject delivered, Dr. Arahschel. Returning to my post now…”

  Clarisse peered through the magical gate, watching a few dozen youngsters surround the sack. They were all dressed in identically minimal clothes; simple, loose-fitting robes. The new arrival garnered immediate attention, and before she was even able to phase through the gate, they were investigating him.

  “Hey, HEY! Give ‘im some space to breathe.” One of the children called out. His taller, broader stature as a salamandrake gave him easy leverage over the others. He ripped off the gag and ropes keeping Nikolas tied down, and then backed away just like he told the others to.

  Clarisse let out a gasp as she laid her eyes on the younger Nikolas once again. He looked far more worse for wear than the last time she had seen him, and that sent an unpleasant chill down her spine. Yet, the boy’s debilitation didn’t stop a fight or flight response from taking over as he woke up.

  “Where… Who are you?” Nikolas asked, clumsily slurring his words together. He rubbed his eyes and exercised his jaw to acclimate himself, before jumping to his feet in a sudden motion.

  “Take it easy chum,” The salamandrake approached Nik when the others took a step back. He reached for the boy’s shoulder to support him. “You’re gonna be disorien– GAH!”

  Nik’s retaliation was swift, striking a nerve to make salamandrake reel back in pain. He cast a cursory glance around the room before locking eyes with the arcane barrier which acted as their door, then made a beeline for it, pushing past the other children in his path.

  Clarisse was incidentally also standing in his way, and quickly walked back to the other side of the barrier just in time for Nikolas to land a blow on it.

  “The hell is this–” He cursed after the first strike did nothing to the barrier. He struck again, and then again and again, driving his fists into the unmoving barrier.

  “Hey! Someone stop him!” The salamandrake from before hissed, shaking his asleep arm in an attempt to get any feeling back in it. “Damn fool’s gunna get himself hurt!” Looking around himself though, none of the other prisoners wanted to get close to Nikolas after seeing what had happened to the serpent.

  “I–” Nikolas declared, winding up another strike. “WILL. NOT. BE. IMPRISONED.” Each individual hit from the juvenile did nothing to the barrier, but he wasn’t done. He pushed himself against the thick layer of arcana, garnering the attention of the workers in the hallway outside.

  Clarisse soon found herself joined by several researchers in the corridor, all congregating around the group cohort’s gate. Between muddled chatter, she heard some of them communicate to their higher ups through the apparatus on their wrists.

  “Sir, a subject from the group cohort is attempting to escape–”

  “No, this is a new one. It’s still in its old attire. What should we–”

  Nikolas was only further enraged by the audience of adults who had come to observe him, pushing as hard as he could against the barrier. It seemed all too futile, an immovable object being struck by a meagre force. All too futile, until it wasn’t.

  “Dr. Arahschel! It’s breaking through!! You need to see this!”

  A collective set of gasps echoed through the corridor as Nikolas’s right arm passed through the barrier, all the up to his elbow. It wasn’t a clean break, however, and the barrier wrapped around the part of his arm still in it, beginning to burn him. “Ugh– Gah! RAAAAAAAAAHHHH!” Pain translated into adrenaline as Nikolas growled, pushing himself further through the barrier.

  Clarisse glanced to either side of herself, feeling a revolting reflux rise up her throat at the reaction of the researchers. All manner of species and experiences amongst them, and not one of them went forward to help Nikolas. They could all see the boils rising and bursting his skin open, the barrier slowly ripping into his flesh as it reinstated itself, yet their only volition was to inscribe it, record it on their notepads, take audio logs of the child screaming in pain like an animal before them.

  By now, Nikolas had managed to push his entire right arm and half of his left arm through the barrier, and his shoulders and head gradually followed behind, burning from the barrier’s influence as he tried to break through. “I’LL KILL YOU… ALL OF YOU. THIS WON’T HOLD ME FOR… FOR LONG!” He flailed his free arm in blind fury despite the layers of skin practically tearing off of it. Tears were streaming down his face from the pain and blood seeped from his nostrils, and it was clear that his initial burst of adrenaline wasn’t going to cut it. Nikolas remained adamant in his attempt, perhaps more because he lacked the strength to pull himself back anymore.

  From among the other children, who had so far kept their distance, a brown-haired girl stepped forward. “Sylvester, his hands are stuck. We can pull him back safely.” She suggested, much to the concern of the Salamandrake.

  “Forget it. He’s already lost it.” The scaly reptilian replied, still nursing his arm with an air of regret from his first attempt at reasoning with Nikolas. He was able to move and feel his fingers now, but little else.

  “No, he’s hurting. We need to pull him back!” The girl reiterated, walking up to the door and grabbing his waist. “You need to get back in here!” She called out to Nik, who wasn’t exactly doing well.

  Stuck midway between both worlds, Nikolas still found a way to strike back at the supposed helping hand with his legs. A blind kick missed its initial target, but still threw the girl off balance.

  “Mika! Damn it…” Sylvester grumbled as he rushed to her aid. “Hrothgar! Get your ass here and help!” He called out to another child in the crowd while the rest kept themselves divorced from the strange event.

  Clarisse watched with a hint of hope as a child of much larger stature, even more so than Sylvester, appeared from within the crowd. Despite his abject shyness, the young giant paired with Mika and Sylvester to grab Nikolas by his legs and waist, and yanked back in unison. The first pull failed to make Nikolas budge, but it did kill any momentum he had by keeping him flailing in the air.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Again!” Mika called out for both her larger companions, and they coordinated another pull. This time, they freed Nikolas’s head and shoulders from the barrier. It spawned a fresh puddle of blood from the boy’s orifices, leaking like a faulty faucet.

  Outside the cell, the researchers weren’t too pleased by their efforts. “Dr. It's being tampered with. The other subjects–”

  “Leave them be,” A new voice pierced through the crowd, catching Clarisse’s attention. It sounded young, passionate, almost oratory in nature despite the vocabulary used. “Such is the natural order of things. It is not in our interests to interfere, but only observe.” He declared, locking eyes with Nikolas.

  The man who spoke seemed just like any other – young, dressed in clean white robes, wearing glasses and carrying several notepads with him. However, the way everyone looked at him, the way he immediately captured the attention of every worker away from Nikolas, and his words gave away a tone of earned authority. Clarisse could hear a distinct sliding and gliding noise every time he walked as opposed to footsteps. "This is… quite intriguing. I was unaware that one could safely break through our barriers… you are the new specimen, yes?” He asked Nikolas, who only responded with agony.

  “Yes, Dr. Arahschel… He began trying to break through as soon as he gained consciousness.”

  “Wonderful!” Arahschel smiled, a wide grin that went from ear to ear without any strain. Stepping over to stand barely out of Nik’s reach, he gleefully observed the impromptu rescue attempt in progress.

  “One more time!” The knife-eared girl announced, before the trio yanked Nikolas back through the barrier with a final pull. They all tumbled to the back of the cell in a messy pile, but Arahschel’s sights were fixed only on Nikolas, bleeding out of consciousness as he was.

  “Remus did a good job delivering this one. Remind me to give him a tip next time.” He muttered to his closest subordinate, clapping a few times for the team effort of his test subjects.

  “Good doctor … you already threw that man to the beasts in the third section.”

  “Oh, I did, didn’t I? I must’ve forgotten… Ah, yes. He had the gall to disobey me. Our subjects must not arrive… how was it he described it…? Pre-sampled.” Araschel recalled, with a heavy hint of disgust that Clarisse very much shared in. “I would’ve eaten the dolt myself, but I thought to watch my diet…”

  Inside the cell, the children didn’t seem concerned with Arahschel at the moment. They had their own small victory to celebrate, mostly on Mika’s part.

  “Don’t… hurt yourself like that… okay?” She asked Nikolas, pushing one of his trembling arms off to get up before helping Sylvester and Hrothgar.

  “You’re one scrappy bastard, I’ll give ya that much.” Sylvester commented, rolling Nik off the giant. “Never seen anything like that before…” The salamandrake gazed out at the arcanic gate, then down at his own arms as if to contemplate if he could have managed more.

  “We’ll take care of you… don’t die so soon.” Hrothgar spoke in a soft, compassionate tone as he brushed Nik’s hair aside to get a proper look at his face.

  “I want this one in my office tomorrow. In one piece would be decent. Alive, preferably. Awake, perfection~” Arahschel shrugged whimsically to his subordinates before walking off just as quickly as he had arrived, yet again leaving that strange sliding sound in his wake.

  Standing comfortably by himself, Nikolas opened his eyes. The mindscape was not foreign to him, but usually an unpleasant experience. As his surroundings sketched themselves into existence, he had a hunch that this time would be different.

  A warm home, for a start. He could tell he was standing in a child’s room by the various artistry strewn across the room – pencils, crayons, artworks stuck to the walls and hanging end to end from lines of string. Everything was alive with vivid creativity beget by childlike imagination.

  He caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror attached to a dresser. He was still wearing the mask, still carrying the souls of his predecessors and wearing their flesh. Across the room from him, a man with dashing red hair and a handsome face knelt by the bed.

  “Goodnight, my little firefly…” He tucked in a little girl with similarly red hair, presumably the artist responsible for all the articles decorating the cozy space.

  “Wait, Papa! You have to tell me a story…” Clarisse cooed with an expression that suggested the world would end if he didn’t.

  “Do… you really want me to?” Her father asked, glancing for a split second to someone standing on the other side of the door.

  “You promised!” Clarisse demanded, patting the fluffy blankets with arms that barely made it across the first fold.

  “Fine, I did say I would…” Her father chuckled, returning to sit on the edge. “So, which story should I tell you tonight? The friendly giant, the hungry draco–”

  “The beautiful statue!” Clarisse’s eyes shone with giddy wonder and excitement. “Can you please tell me that one again, it’s your favorite…” she giggled innocently.

  “Ah…” A smug grin spread across the man’s face in acknowledgement. “Alright… here goes…”

  “We were deep in the mountains of Aniera; far far in the east. It was a cold night, and we were forging on in our search for the mystical tome of Erin. Up that high in the mountains, there were phantoms and grues hunting us all around…”

  “But you fought them off, right?” Clarisse asked, all too eager to idolize her father.

  “A few times, yes. We were all experienced adventurers, so we decided to go through the tunnels. It was derelict and dingy in there, and we could hear far-off echoes as if they were right next to us…” He switched to narrating in a raspy whisper to emulate the atmosphere, which made Clarisse look up with her mouth agape in awe.

  “On the way down, we were attacked again! A pack of wargs caught our scent, and soon we were running down the tunnels. That was when I stumbled and fell down a deep, dark pit.”

  “And what happened then?” Despite having heard the story many times, Clarisse was just as excited to hear it again.

  “When I woke up, I found myself in the middle of a hidden temple. It must’ve been centuries old! It must’ve been untouched in all that time, except for one thing…” A smug smile was shared between both father and daughter before he continued.

  “A set of footprints stood out through the dust, and they sure weren’t mine. So, I followed them all the way to the inner sanctum of the temple. And there… I saw her.”

  “Who did you see?”

  He paused for dramatic effect, looking up at the ceiling with dreamy eyes. “The most beautiful sculpture of a woman I had ever seen. She was standing with her hands clasped and serene smile on her face, gazing up into the abyssal ceiling. At that moment, I forgot about our quest and my party, who were all probably searching for me. As I admired her at the altar, all I wanted was for her to be real, so I could spend the rest of my life with her. I was in love…”

  “Papa, you’re being ewwy-”

  “I bet I am… but it was true. And as I tried to console my yearning heart, I noticed a crack in the sculpture. Then another, and another. Wherever I held my flames to illuminate her beauty, the stonework slowly cracked and fell away, revealing the person underneath.”

  “Slowly, steadily, I broke her out of the cast. She was clinging to life faintly, like a candle in a whirlwind… I eventually made it out of the temple with her and we rejoined my party.”

  “And what happened next?”

  “Well, she joined our party. We got to know each other over the years. Every day I spent with her… it only strengthened my love. I kept asking her to marry me…”

  “–Until one day I did.” A sweet tone interrupted the story, speaking from the door. A woman with flowing golden hair and striking red eyes sauntered in, kneeling by the father and daughter. “And then we had the most creative, perfect little girl we could’ve asked for…”

  “Mamaaaa–” Clarisse laughed, hiding herself under the blankets.

  “We did, didn’t we?” The redhead asked his partner with a hint of pride. “And now she’s going to go to sleep because she got her story…”

  “Okayy, I’ll sleep…” came a muffled reply from under the sheets.

  “And you’re coming with me. The night is still young~” the mother replied, much to her husband’s eager yet confused expression.

  “I guess we do… goodnight firefly!”

  Both parents left the room, leaving the door open by barely a sliver. All this while, Nikolas had been left feeling nostalgic for a life he had never lived, standing by with his arms crossed and eyes focusing anywhere but the people in the room.

  “Jealous much?” A voice spoke from beside him, breaking the immersion of the memory. “You should be. Someone like her… she could never understand what it’s like for us.”

  The voice had come from underneath Nikolas, even stranger so, from under the floorboards. Phasing through the marble patterns. PH:OV glared at Nikolas with his head bobbing ever so slightly.

  “I am,” came a curt reply from Nikolas, before dismissing the dream with a wave of his arm. “I don’t expect her to understand… she owes me nothing.”

  As the fathoms of years past faded into a homogenous shadow, the homunculus’s mindscape assumed a clearer form — a patchwork raft floating amidst an ocean, barely large enough to accommodate the masked hollow. His unmasked counterpart waded below the surface, tethered to the driftwood by only a singular rope tied around his neck. There was no mast, nor an oar to guide the wandering vessel through the endless pitch surrounding it, only waves gently pushing it by as time passed.

  “And neither do you owe her,” contemptuous words spilled into the water, floating like an oily impurity in the deep blue abyss. “You already know, there is no salvation for us, no judgement waiting on the other side. If it were up to me, we wouldn’t waste our time chasing the fragments of broken dreams.”

  “If that were true, you wouldn’t have donned the mask again,” Nikolas replied, exhaling in a deep breath of salty air before casting his gaze below. “That young boy still lives on in both of us. It would be amiss of us not to care about that dream. It’s still here, all around us, merely lost in the waves.”

  “And will you drown once more, trying to piece together the same naivete that created us that day?” Disdain and skepticism bubbled to the surface, rocking the raft enough to make the hollow above take caution.

  “No, I never said that,” Nikolas replied with an air of whimsy as he lowered himself to the makeshift planks, steadying the vessel’s lurches. “We cannot change what has already happened. But, we can make our dream from the pieces that we find. I think– No, I know Clarisse will illuminate the path to that dream…”

  The raft found its fragile footing among the waves once more as the hollow underneath eased his efforts to capsize it. Gazing out to the horizon where the abyss met the veiled sky, both prisoners of the sea let themselves be carried by its whims and fancies, onto new waters.

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