"Daddy, I'm scared. What's going on?" but his father was nowhere to be seen. His hair was platinum blonde, almost white, with fresh streaks of red in it. He was standing over something that was clearly alive at one point, but was now a dark red pulp saturating the concrete floors with blood. "My hands hurt! Why are they all crumply and weird?"
The boy's name was Kaos Nova, son of the mad Professor Desty Nova. But the professor wasn't anywhere to be found. Terrified, crying, and in pain, Kaos started walking through the labyrinth of hallways that composed his home. His father called this place the Granite Inn. Unlike the boy, the Granite Inn was big and dark and Kaos frequently got lost within its confines. However, his dad had built a number of doors labeled "Home" that would lead straight back to the labs. After wandering for about an hour, he found one of the doors and followed it back to his father.
"Ah, Kaos. Where have you been? Wandering it seems. Oh ho! It seems as though you've broken your wrists, and your hands. I'll have that patched up in no time! RESTORERS!" he cried out. A swarm of glittering lights descended onto Kaos' ruined arms. The lights faded and Kaos' unbroken wrists came into view. "I really must upgrade those things. That light show is extremely irritating. Hmm? You're still here? Go away you insolent whelp, I'm busy."
Kaos crawled through the lonely corridors until he reached the space that his father had told him was where he was to sleep. He lay down on the pieces of cardboard thrown about the room. Why can't I remember what happened today? But the darkness of sleep soon overtook him. When he awoke, the memories of the previous day's events were too blurry to remember. Many years passed. Occasionally, Kaos would blank out and when he regained consciousness, his hands would be covered in blood. However, there was never a body to be found or any wounds on his body.
When he was 10, Kaos walked over to his in the laboratory dad and asked "What is it like in the outside world?"
"The outside world? Why is that important? You're far too frail to go outside. You'd die in an instant. Anyway, if you want to know, go read some books in the library. I'm sure there are some in there," his father said back to him.
So Kaos walked over to the library and pulled out a book with some people on the cover. It was a story about a group of people who were shipwrecked on a desert island. He read and read until he finished the book. Then, he got up and grabbed another one. He spent years reading his father's books. He read about tales of the sea, of dangerous forests, of grassy plains, and of huge and densely populated cities. He wanted to go outside of the walls of the Granite Inn so badly, but his father forbade him to leave the premises. He didn't attempt to escape out of love for his father and fear of the punishment he would receive. Once or twice, he even started devising an escape route, but the Inn was as impenetrable as the stone for which it was named.
On Kaos' 17th birthday, he was touring the Granite Inn for the hundredth time when he felt something strange. It felt like he was being pulled down into a pit of darkness. What's happening to me? He tried to fight his way out, but the force pulling him down was too strong and he let the darkness engulf him. He lay floating in this limbo for years, or was it seconds? After a while, he felt a force pulling him up and out of the darkness. He opened his eyes and found himself strapped to a table. Kaos turned his head and saw the grinning face of his father standing at his bedside.
"You wouldn't believe what you did! It was absolutely exquisite!"
He pulled a screen over and adjusted it for him to see. The video looked like a normal day at the lab. His father was working in his lab with his assistant, Bazarld. Bazarld was a hulking brute of a man, the result of one of the professor's experiments. He was 8 feet tall, 300 kilos, and steadfastly loyal to his creator. There was a rustling noise in the background, and a man suddenly burst from a doorway just off-screen. "Oh, Kaos, you're back! Hmm, something's off about you. Is something wrong?" said the professor.
Kaos ripped a lead pipe from the wall and started walking menacingly towards the professor and the assistant. Bazarld leapt towards him, but Kaos swiftly dodged the charge and smashed the pipe across Bazarld's skull. Bazarld collapsed to the ground. Kaos stepped over him and drove the sharp end of the pipe through Bazarld's skull. Blood exploded from the wound along with little bits of bone and brain. Kaos wrenched the pipe from the gaping hole. He tossed in the air and caught the sharp end in his hand end, soaking it in blood and creating a mosaic of red droplets on his white shirt. He then walked over to the professor and shoved the blunt end of the pipe into the professor's stomach. The professor doubled over in pain and Kaos swung the pipe upwards into Nova's face. Nova reeled back and collapsed.
"Y-you're not Kaos, are you?" sputtered the professor through a mouth full of blood and broken teeth.
"I'm nothing like that pathetic weakling! My name is-" His answer was not heard as whatever its name is was cut off by the end of the video.
Kaos tried to speak but found that no sound was coming out of his mouth. Instead, his voice came through the speakers of his father's radio.
"What the hell is going on?" he asked.
"Hmm, it seems as though the operation has removed your ability to speak at an audible frequency and you can only speak in radio waves. My guess is that your vision will slowly fade to infrared frequencies as well. I'm just wondering, have you noticed your chest yet?" said the professor.
Kaos looked down at his chest and saw a large metal plate covering the left side of his chest. He felt disgusted and violated.
"Yes, that. You see; to stop you I had to shoot you. So to keep you from dying, I installed that artificial heart. Do you like it?"
The shock of everything he had just seen was too much for Kaos' frail body and mind. Sobs racked his body and he passed out a few minutes later. When he awoke, the straps were gone and he had been moved. He realized that he was in his room, lying on his bed.
"It must have been a dream. A damn vivid one, but a dream nonetheless," he mumbled to himself. He opened his eyes and noticed that the colors in his vision were noticeably darker. He reached up to his chest and felt cold, smooth metal. He could see his father's grinning face floating over him. Taunting him about his new body. He did the only thing he felt he could do. He screamed. He screamed long and hard. When he was done screaming, he looked frantically at his room. He grabbed a bag from the wall and threw his possessions into it. He sprinted out of his room and up the stairs, past his father's laboratories, and through the twisted amusement park that was the entrance of the Granite Inn. As he ran, he noticed that his vision continued to darken and that he could only see the heat waves surrounding objects.
As he was running, his hand brushed a pole on the merry-go-round that used real horses. He felt strange. In his mind, he saw thousands of horses circling around him, growing older, and dying.
"What is this?" he said to himself, "I'll need to try this again later."
He continued running and made it outside a few minutes later. It was the first time he had seen the outside world with his own eyes. He had expected a bustling city, a vibrant rainforest, or a huge desert with golden sand, just like in all of the books he had read. He was greeted with a vast expanse of brown dirt.
"No. This can't be it. It just can't," he said as his vision completely faded to the infrared scale. "This world is so ugly. There must be beauty in the world and I'm going to find it, even if I have to walk for a hundred years. But if I am going to find it, I need to take the first step."
He raised his leg and stepped forward. His foot hit the ground with a solid thunk.