The gradual deterioration of Krank's body was beginning to take its toll. At times, the stricken pain in his bones made even simple movement debilitating. Like when he had been busy with putting together a new machine, the sudden searing pain in his spine nearly elicited a cry from him as his labors were halted. The others paused. Martha drifted with an air of maternal concern to his side. Krank pretended he was fine, certain he was fooling no one.
He left much of the physical labor to the kids now. They probably thought of him as an indolent tyrant who forced all the hard work on his abused underlings. They wouldn't believe that the growing weariness that plagued him was sapping away whatever strength he formally had. To them, Krank was the sovereign leader of their world, incapable of mortal conditions such as weakness.
If only that were true.
Martha was the only one close to accepting the reality of his impending mortality, with a reassuring "don't worry" attitude in stride. Irving was fully aware, as always. The infernal parasite took great pleasure in reminding Krank of his approaching destruction. As a soulless parody of life, it could hardly be considered a loss. There were even times when Krank kept on just to spite him.
If Krank had his way, that disgusting brain would have been thrown overboard the first day of his life. But as much as he hated to accept it, the dying scientist needed the disembodied mind.
Irving knew that too, all too well.
"Uncle" Irving surely harbored the secret to his salvation, but kept it to himself. His unspoken words were his cards in a game of petulant superiority that Krank did not have the time to play.
Carefully controlled rage simmered beneath the unaffected façade as he thought of the occasions when the brain had taken advantage of his desperation.
When he could no longer deny what was happening to him, Krank reluctantly reached out for help.
The creator was gone (he had seen to that). Martha told him of how Professor Dominic had placed him in the dreaming machine when he was first created, motivated by an unwillingness to wait for his intellectual companion to age naturally. Like with many things, he had been mistaken. But this mistake had malign consequences.
"Irving?" Krank inquired, trying to sound polite and not too helpless, "You know all about feelings. Won't you try to help me? Won't you explain why all those children only have nightmares?" Krank was convinced that only the dreams of the pure beings could banish the deadly dreamlessness that afflicted him.
"Because you are their nightmare. You can persecute all the children in the world, but you will never have dreams, or a soul." The perpetually bored voice droned, restating a cruel fact he was fond of touting.
This struck a painful chord, forced politeness be damned. "You believe you have one? You don't even have a body. The one who created us made us all monsters!" The dying man was so tired of being told time and time again that he was less valid than a human, or a severed part in a fish tank.
"No, you're wrong. You are the only monster here."
"He's the one responsible for all this! I'm innocent!" Krank could not keep his voice or anger steady. Soul or not, he would let this forsaken fate he had been confined to end so soon.
After Uncle Irving had directed him into the dreaming device, to connect himself to the current child test subject, Mishinka heard a slight pop! as he exited the seat.
"What's that?" he asked, starting to dread the sure punishment "A fuse blew!"
"Perfect." The worried clone did not hear Irving's utterance. "Be careful, or someone will hear you. Now, throw this message...uh, bottle into the sea. "
"But what about the-"The uniformed man began
"Never mind that, child! Just do it."
Mishinka did as he was told, removing the extracted dreams that were contained with the large vile. With uncertain obedience, he dropped the heavy jar into the waves beneath the balcony.
"Now go on." With a nodded smile, the worker left the lab.
"May someone find my plea and get it over with..."