by Emma Hamm
Bring back one of the beasts, and he would let Simon back into the City. Simon was already on his way out for drunken ramblings and petty thievery. There was no use keeping him unless he provided something to the Doctor in return.
The Doctor had never thought Simon would actually follow through.
Ethan walked back towards the glass, an expression of puzzlement on his face. “The doctor says to sit in the waiting room with what you brought. He’ll be with you in a moment.”
A metal door slid open to the right of the glass, and Simon tipped an imaginary hat towards the other man.
“Much obliged.”
With a jerk upon the rope, he led the goblin into the room that was light brightly with bare bulbs. The light could no longer harm the poor creature who could not see it.
Once inside, Simon took a calming breath as white surrounded them. The doctor liked to ramble on about the effects of color upon the human brain. White, though something humans associated with good things, always seemed to put people on edge. Simon could not believe that in this moment. After so long in the dark of the mines, the bright color was welcome.
A screen flickered to life on the other side of the room with a gaunt face that stared down at Simon. The doctor was an aging man, white hair slicked back upon his skull gave him a skeletal appearance. However, Simon knew all too well how strong the man could be.
“Doc.” He said, then gestured behind him. “I brought it just like you asked.”
The expression upon the doctor’s face was less than excited. Simon’s shoulders squared as he realized the man didn’t think he had delivered.
“I’m hardly going to allow you back in the City with a blanketed person. Reveal your so called creature, Simon. I am not interested in games.”
“With pleasure.” He answered.
Simon turned and grasped the blanket on the goblin’s shoulders. With a theatrical flourish, he whipped the fabric off and revealed the monster beneath.
Sadly, the goblin was far more yellow than they had appeared in the caves. This one was smaller than the bigger creatures he had seen, but Juo still stood heads over Simon. The goblin seemed to understand that it was being scrutinized.
Juo straightened his spine. He was every ounce the proud warrior that his race had raised him to be. He had no idea that he was only helping his captor by appearing more powerful.
There was a soft intake of breath that could be heard through the speakers. The doctor leaned forward to stare at the creature Simon brought. “Fascinating.”
And then disappeared. The doctor was no longer in the screen and Simon started to get nervous.
“Doc?” He asked. “Doc do you want it or not?”
Silence met his question.
“Doc, I ain’t gonna stand here with it all day. I’ll take it back where I found it.”
A sliding door from the other side of the room opened and armed guards walked towards them. They held the guns within their hands lightly as though the weapons were extensions of themselves. Each guard was more than capable of subduing both Simon and the wounded goblin.
“What are you doing?” Simon asked as two guards grabbed each arm of his creature. The goblin jerked, obviously uncomfortable, and then started to struggle.
“Hey!” Simon’s voice raised. “That’s mine! You’re going to break it!”
A masked person in a white jacket walked into the room. A syringe was held in one gloved hand which quickly pressed the needle into the neck of the goblin. Juo, in turn, fell limp in the arms of the guards.
The screen behind Simon flickered to life once more.
“Thank you very much for your contribution, Simon. I will not forget your loyalty.”
Simon turned back to the screen. A red blush was starting to crawl up his neck. Anger always made him foolish.
“And my payment?”
The doctor laughed. “I’ll consider your payment. However, I do believe that my thanks should be enough. You have been a great service to our people. You will not be forgotten.”
“That’s it?” Simon’s enraged shout echoed back upon his ears. “You liar! You cheat!”
He was then left alone with his own emotions, until he had screamed himself exhausted. The door he had entered opened once more, and he stumbled back out into the sands.
7
“Catherine, we’ve got something from the Doc.”
The dark haired woman looked up from her microscope. She was a tiny woman, frail in many ways, but she had been extremely intelligent in her class. That had been what caught the attention of the Doctor. From then on, she had been trained exclusively by him. Perhaps because there was a perverse interest from the older man, but also because she looked remarkably like the daughter he had lost early on in his career.
Catherine was one of the lucky ones. Not many people were given such a prestigious position in the City.
She hated every minute of it.
Her eyes squinted as she tried to see the men before her, and then remembered to place her thick rimmed black glasses back onto her nose.
“What?”
She stood quickly as she saw what the guards were bringing towards her.
“No no.” They paused for a moment but then continued to wheel the stretcher and person strapped down onto it towards her. “No. I don’t handle patients. That would be Clemence. She’s next door.”
“Doc says you deal with this patient.”
Catherine pushed her glasses up her nose firmly. “I don’t deal with any patients. You can turn around and tell him that. He knows that’s the deal. I don’t touch humans.”
The guard sniffed loudly as the others locked the stretchers legs into place in the middle of her lab. “Good. It ain’t human.”
“What?” The guards turned as one and left. She frantically tried to stop them but they simply pushed past her. All she managed to do was become out of breath.
“Damnit.”
The glasses were whipped off of her face as her fingers rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“I don’t deal with humans.” She whispered once more before sighing heavily. She had never been the kind of person that could put up a fight about anything. Catherine did what she was told. That was why she ended up here.
The doctor insisted that she help with his experiments. He said her brilliant mind would be wasted if she didn’t help him find the cure to humanity’s existence. Catherine’s only stipulation was that she would only conduct experiments on animals. She would never touch humans.
It was the way she could make herself feel better about the horrible things that went on behind these white walls.
“Alright. Catherine. You can do this.”
The pep talk did nothing to reassure her, but still managed to walk towards the tall being strapped down onto the metal stretcher.
The closer she got, the more she realized that this was not a human. The yellowed skin, the black claws, the pointed ears. Certainly it was humanoid but she could count extra ribs.
This creature was different from them. Far more different than she ever would have expected to see in her life.
It was probably contaminated. Gods know where it had come from or what it had come into contact with. But still, Catherine couldn’t stop herself from touching what was so different from herself.
Her hand gently touched the top of a foot that was scabbed and swollen from infection. She traveled up the body and her eyes devouring the differences. She was under a false sense of security because the creature was strapped to the table.
“Fourteen ribs.” She whispered. “Semi retractable claws.”
The creature had yet to jerk away from her. Catherine took that to be a sign that it was still sedated. Without taking her eyes off of the hand she now held in hers, she reached behind her and grabbed a small jar of ointment. She kept it on her desk because her fingers were constantly cracked and bleeding from the sterile air.
Helping to heal the wounded fingers was the least she coul
d do. She was good at taking care of others and the soothing motion of her own hands would calm her. Catherine didn’t know what she was going to do with this thing that now took up more room than her desk.
A soft sound made her look up. Her eyes locked upon the creature’s, which were now open wide and staring directly at her.
“White eyes.” She said quietly, and slowly she moved her hand back and forth in front of it. The eyes did not follow her hand, instead they remained locked upon her.
“Blind.” She whispered. Her teeth bit into her bottom lip. “Did you come to me blind or did they do this to you?”
Juo had no way of answering the creature who was touching him. He knew that he could not move. But the higher pitch reminded him of the few times he had heard Ruric’s woman speaking. Perhaps this was a female. Perhaps she was here to take care of him.
After all, that was what females did. They took care of others. The knowledge eased the tension in his body and mind.
“Catherine.”
The voice startled her, and she flinched back from the table before turning towards the screen.
“Doctor.”
“Have you managed to find anything interesting about our newest patient?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t had much time to look it over. But, I believe it is blind.”
There was a part of her that would always want his approval. He had become a fatherly figure, though he would always make her uncomfortable. The doctor was the head of their field in all of the City. She would be crazy to not want to please him. No matter how uncomfortable it made her.
“Blind?”
Catherine cleared her throat. “Considering the size of the ears and the thin layers of skin, I would suggest that perhaps they do not spend much time in the sun. His skin is blistered and he appears thoroughly dehydrated. I would make an educated guess that this species lives underground.”
She watched as the doctor nodded his head. “Good. Very good observations, Catherine.”
The blush upon her cheeks both warmed her and disgusted her. “It is curious that the creature’s eyes are so large, while the rest is obviously suited for underground. Evolution usually makes eyes smaller in dark environments, but perhaps it is some kind of appealing quality. It is humanoid after all.”
The doctor’s hand waved in front of him. “I’m less concerned about their cultural qualities. I sent the creature to you because you have a way with animals. Do not let it confuse you my dear. This is not a human, however much it may look like us. Find out what you can. I want to know its pain levels. How its body functions. I want to know everything.”
Her throat constricted but she nodded. “Of course. It may take me a while.”
“Not a while, Catherine. You have one week.”
The screen turned black once more, and she turned back towards the creature. “One week.”
His head turned so that he could follow her movements. His eyes were never quite on her perfectly, but Catherine knew that he was trying to track her movements.
She walked back to the stretcher once more and her hand ghosted over the edge of his shoulder. “You look remarkably human to me.”
But she had a job to do. A life to live. Catherine needed this job. She was sick, like many people in the City, but she was lucky because she worked here. She was capable of seeking the medical attention that she needed to survive. Her body had never been meant to stay alive in the painful heat of their world. Her lungs couldn’t take it.
“I’m so sorry for what I have to do to you.” This time her hand stroked over the creature’s hair. “I’ll try to make it as painless as possible.”
“Ouch!”
Willow whipped around to glare at the little boy behind her. He was grinning nearly from ear to ear.
“Stop it.” She hissed at him before turning to look back at the front of the room.
As if she didn’t have enough problems as it was. She was here wasn’t she? School. This was where Luther wanted her to go. This was where he sent her as he told her to behave herself.
Don’t make anyone mad, Willow. Sit still, Willow. Wear your hair up in a bun, Willow.
Well that bun wasn’t doing her any good right now, was it? The little boy behind her was insistent upon leaning forward to snag any stray strands of hair and yank them out of her head.
Mere seconds after she turned around, he was yanking once more.
“Stop it!” She said, louder this time.
The teacher paused as she wrote on the board and turned. She was a severe looking woman. Her grey hair was tied back against her scalp and every hair was carefully gelled in place. Her nose was pushed against her face and her jaw was constantly crunching as she grit her teeth.
“Miss Penderghast? Is there a problem?”
Willow shook her head sullenly. She didn’t want to cause trouble for Luther. Again.
She was always getting into trouble in this place. Luther kept repeating that her actions reflected upon him. Even though that didn’t make sense to Willow, she tried to be good.
Unfortunately, the others like to pick on her more than they liked to mind their own business. She was a miner. One of the sand people that came from a dirty place. That meant she was dirty. That she was tainted.
Sometimes when they were at lunch, the girls would tease her by daring the others to touch her. Willow was clean. She knew she was clean because she scrubbed her skin very well every day. But that didn’t stop the other children from shrieking whenever they touched her. They would hold their fingers up high and say that there was dirt on them.
The teacher turned back towards the board and started writing again.
Willow hated it here. She hated everyone that lived here and everything about it. Everything was too shiny. Everything was too pristine. Every time she walked into a new building, she wanted to smudge her hands along the metal walls just to see something other than her own reflection.
The little boy reached forward and yanked another loose strand of hair free from her scalp.
This time she couldn’t control herself. Willow turned with a snarl and slammed her hands down hard onto the table in front of him. He flinched backwards and his eyes widened in fear as the tiny miner girl in front of him bared her teeth like an animal.
“I told you to stop touching me!”
“Miss Penderghast!”
The teacher’s voice was outraged this time. Willow knew that tone. She was going to be marched to the office. There was going to be more shouting, more rules instated.
Something inside her snapped. She was tired of people picking on her. She was tired of the looks, the stares, the giggles. The only way she knew how to stop it was to make a point.
No one else was going to help her but herself it seemed.
“You touch me one more time and I’m going to bite your finger off.”
She could hear the hard clips of the teacher’s heels walking towards them.
“You won’t.” The boy said back. But she could hear the waver in his voice.
“I will.” She said quietly. “I’ll bite your fingers off one by one until there’s nothing left but bloody stubs.” To emphasize her point, she clacked her teeth loudly at him.
The heavy weight of the teacher’s hand landed on her shoulder, and Willow knew her time was up. There would be no more tugging upon her hair but she was going to be in trouble again.
“Miss Penderghast. The office.” And when she hesitated, the teacher added in a much more stern tone saying, “Now.”
She straightened. For only ten years old, she held herself with the grace of a much older woman. Willow was not dirty. She was not useless. And she was damn well better than these children who had been born into luck and wealth.
“Yes, Theresa.” She quipped.
“You will call me Mrs. Jenson!”
As Willow walked towards the door, she yanked her hair out of the pins that held it in a bun. The heavy mass of curly blonde hair fell upon her shoulde
rs like a shield. “Whatever you say, Theresa.”
The outraged shout followed her into the hall. This place was stifling her. It made her want to run, to feel the wind in her hair and the harsh bite of sand again.
At the end of the hall, the front double doors of the school gleamed. There it was. Her freedom.
If only she didn’t have to go to the principal’s office.
But then a thought bubbled into her mind. It skittered just beyond reach, floating through her mind’s eye like a bubble that burst when she heard the first echo of the teacher’s heels striking the hall behind her.
That was her freedom.
She didn’t have to stay here if she didn’t want to. She didn’t have to sit here and take their cold stares and shallow minds. The doors were right there. The light that peeked underneath the edges called to her.
It said, “Willow. It’s time to go.”
Before she had even made up her mind, her feet were flying towards the door.
The teacher’s shout echoed in her ears but the sound did not stop her. There were no chains holding her down now. No one could stop her from leaving this place.
Her shoulder hit the door before anything else. She was shocked to find that it wasn’t locked. Instead, there was very little resistance as she slammed into the metal and then skittered out the door. The sunlight hit her face as she paused. Luther was going to be so angry at her. She had broken so many rules today.
But the shouting behind her reminded Willow that there wasn’t much time. She had already made her choice.
Well, her feet had made the choice for her.
Said feet were then pounding down the grand staircase that led to the school and disappearing into the street full of busy people. Some around her stopped to stare at the little girl whose golden hair streamed behind her like a banner.
But Willow knew how to disappear.
She had grown up in the sands that swirled around a person and swallowed them whole. She had followed in the footsteps of sandcats that disappeared into burrows and were never seen again. She was something wild and free that these people could never understand.