Note: This is an excerpt from my 100 Theme Challenge, "100 Little Somethings."
Only human. That phrase had puzzled him all his life. Only human. What did it mean, exactly? If it only meant that it was okay to make mistakes, he didn't agree with it. A mistake could end your life.
He thought there was more to it than that. That it had something to do with emotions as well as mistakes. Emotions were another thing he didn't get. Of course, he felt them, but they terrified him, so he locked them all away in a little box in the back of his mind. It really bothered him when one got out every so often. Like now, as he contemplated his position in the castle.
He was the best minion, of course, and even better than the count. The count had no idea his strings were being ever so carefully pulled. None of them had even the slightest inkling of what was really going on. Was it human to feel the tiniest bit bad about it? Probably. Maybe. It wouldn't stop him. He wasn't going to let it stop him. Sometimes, he wondered if a world all his own was really going to make him feel better. He knew it wouldn't. But he didn't stop.
He watched. He was always watching. The heroes were certain to succeed. He had deciphered both Prognostici long ago, and was carefully guiding them along each step. He watched their interactions, and wondered what inspired the man in red to spend his days rescuing the fair damsel over and over and over again. He wondered how someone hell bent on killing said man could just drop everything and work with him.
It wasn't his place to wonder. It was his task to make sure all the puzzle pieces came together nicely. He knew the Dark Prognosticus was using him. It would leave him in misery, as it had all its other owners, but still, he hoped. He was only human, so he hoped.
It hurt. It truly hurt, the way everyone around here treated him. Never before had he been allowed to stay in someone's company for so long, let alone several someone's. Sure, they thought he was creepy and evil, but they still so foolishly trusted him. And he so foolishly trusted them back. For once, he slept peacefully, confident that nothing worse than a prank would befall him while his guard was down.
And the count. He wanted to like the count, but he feared him. His magic was more powerful than his own, and he had lied. For that transgression he would never be forgiven.
He watched with interest as Nastasia carefully crafted the newest minion, quietly extinguishing all signs of his past life with precision. She didn't know he was there, but he was, and he saw everything. Count Bleck had had to torture him, break his spirit. He cried while he did it. They should have let him do it. He wouldn't have cried. What he did do was provided the slightest little nudge, a tiny push in his loyalties, so that when the time came there would be a set alliance.
He didn't anticipate how it would affect the final product. The mechanic sought him out, wanted to spend time with him. Actually enjoyed his company. He forgot to watch himself around him. There was more than the thin strand of trust he had allowed between him and everyone else. It was more like a rope. Maybe a chain. He was going to have to break it. Both because he couldn't stand it, and because he had to it. So it was written, so it must be done.
But he didn't want to. He didn't want this person who liked him, appreciated him, saw him for who he was, to go away. He told himself he could be brought back. It was a lie. He didn't truly exist in the first place. He was an illusion.
That was the only thought that made him strong enough to do it. As the screams died away, he whispered, "Ciao…Mr. L." He was only human, so he cried. But he didn't stop. He was only human, so he watched the puzzle pieces fall, interlock into ugliness, and, finally, breathed his last. He was only human, so he suffered, wondering what he had done, why he had been made so malformed, so inhuman. All his life, he had reached out his hand, but no one took it.