Incident Report

Stolen property:

One (1) facility storybook

Item description:

The storybook was meant for children, and so was accompanied by many pictures. The book was last noted in a toy bin in the activity room among a collection of similar books given to the children for pleasure reading while waiting to see one of the Station's doctors. It is thought the contents of the book in question are neither revealing nor marring to the Station or its partnerships.

Further Notes:

Station Project Alpha abandoned due to insufficient resources and management. Facility staff terminated.

Usable supplies catalogued and entered into storage.


There once lived a young girl on the side of a mountain with her elderly parents. The young girl was good and kind to her parents, and she did her chores and walked to the nearby spring for water each day. She lived peacefully like this for some time, and her parents loved her dearly.

One day, while walking with a bucket to gather water from the spring, the girl noticed her dæmon had taken on a form she was unfamiliar with.

"Why have you changed, so?" she asked him.

"Because I can. Because I was curious." He answered her.

The girl thought this over while she continued her walk to the spring. But as she approached, the girl saw the pool she meant to fill her bucket from had dried up, and she became saddened.

"If you are still curious, climb to the top of this spring and discover if it has run dry above," and she bade her dæmon to clamber up the rocks above her, formed as a small rodent with a stringy tail.

Her dæmon had not gone far before the girl felt a sudden pull at her heart and called him back.

"Why does it hurt when you climb this hillside?" The girl asked her dæmon, but he did not know the answer. Her dæmon was unable to see the top of the spring for her, but the girl did not want to return without water for her parents.

"Maybe if we go together, it will be possible." Said her dæmon.

The girl agreed and began climbing the rocks with her dæmon to find the source of the spring. As they reached a point nearly halfway up the rocky hillside, she noticed a large rock blocking a hole from which water would flow.

"Surely this is where the water should come from," the girl spoke to her dæmon.

"Perhaps an animal has made its home in this hole and stopped the water inside for itself." He replied.

"Or perhaps there has been an earthquake to block the village from having water," she suggested instead.

The girl pulled and pulled, but was unable to move the rock away.

"Why will this rock not move when I pull on it?" she questioned.

"You are not strong enough alone. Maybe I can help by pushing from the other side." Her dæmon said, and she agreed. He took on another new form, a small insect, and climbed into the hole to get behind the rock. On the other side, he became a large ram and pushed so the girl was able to pull the rock away. Together they freed the water, which began forming a pool again.

"What lovely work we have done together!" The girl rejoiced. And after filling her bucket with water, she and her dæmon returned home to find both their parents smiling happily, ready to receive them home. The girl told her parents of the rock they had moved from the spring and how the water had been allowed to flow again.

"What good you have done for so many!" Her mother rejoiced, "for other people from the village use that well also, and would be saddened and troubled to see it dried up." With great happiness her mother baked good fresh bread and soup for the family and together they dined at their small cottage table.

Life continued again for the family, and the girl was nearly thirteen when she noticed the well dried up again as she went to gather water for the family.

"We know how to fix this, now," the girl's dæmon said confidently and jumped onto her shoulder as a bird. Together they climbed up the rocks to find the water's source once again. However, when they reached the place halfway up the steep hill where they had once before moved a rock, there was a hole but nothing else. The water was not being blocked. And so the girl suggested they climb to the very top.

"Perhaps the source of the water has moved since last we were here." Her dæmon said.

"Or perhaps this is not the true source of the water, but we only thought it to be." The girl replied.

They continued to the top of the hill in silence. When they arrived at the top the girl looked up bidden by a chirp from her dæmon to suddenly notice an enormous bird sitting on the rocks. Underneath the bird, a small pool of water trickled, and the girl realized this was where the water was truly flowing from.

"You should throw a rock at it to make the bird move." Her dæmon advised. But the girl was scared.

The bird was very large and brightly colored with plumes of brilliant red and streaks of violet, like rays of the sunset such as she'd never seen before from her mountain home. She stared at the bird in awe of his beauty, wishing suddenly and instantly that she would have such brightly colored fabrics to sew into dresses. Each feather of the bird's ample plumage ended in a small globule of some bright and eye-catching substance, like a glass tear drop, she thought she would wear upon her wrists as a bangle to reflect and splinter the sun's rays as the bird did. She reasoned that perhaps the bird was a witch's dæmon and knew she should not speak to a creature like that for fear of bringing anger and torment onto her family from the witch he belonged to.

"But I must try something," the girl said, "or else my mother will have no water to heat for soup, and my father will have nothing to drink when he has finished tending to the sheep." The girl stepped bravely forward.

"Bird?" She called, but the bird did not respond.

"He's not a witch's dæmon at all, then," said her dæmon. "We should scare him away so that we may fill our bucket and leave."

"We should not scare him," the girl replied, "rather we should ask him to leave this place so that the water may flow freely for all people to use the well. Without the well, many people will have no water."

"Bird?" The girl called again.

"Let's scare him instead of asking." Her dæmon goaded. "If we scare him away he will fly quickly. And if he flies quickly he will surely leave behind many brightly colored feathers for us to gather"

At his suggestions the girl began to imaginge how beautifully she might look with the gorgeous sun-red feathers in a hat, or adding a broach of the violet plumes to wear with her favorite dress. Then the girl considered how others might admire a hat or broach made of these lovely feathers, and how proud she would feel if others would stare as she walked through the village like this. The girl nodded to her dæmon.

At once her dæmon took on a form she had never before seen, so hideous was he. He stood on four legs and had large claws and a hooked beak for a nose. He slobbered heavily and his skin was ashen and rough to the touch. The girl laughed loudly as her dæmon continued becoming more ugly, puffing out his cheeks into a snarl, he changed again and added webbed wings and spines down his back. As a final gesture he took on a long and pointed tail that ended in a tuft of vicious-looking spikes. His skin became slimy to the touch and the girl clapped her hands in awe of their imagination.

"We will scare the bird now!" She exclaimed. "He will drop so many feathers for us and we will wear them into the village and people will admire how fine we appear!"

Her dæmon agreed and let out a crackling screech that must have been native to the form he took on, so piercing and painful it sounded.

"Should we do it now?" Her dæmon asked and the girl nodded while looking at the bird's feathers with unabashed desire.

Her gargoyle-dæmon took off from her at once, shrieking and flapping and slashing air at the bird, who quickly backed away from his place and took flight. His great beauteous flaring red wings beat the air around them as he flew away with a backward look to the place where he had been sitting, and he cried out remorsefully in a beautiful voice.

The girl and her dæmon stamped their feet together in disappointment, for the bird had left no feathers. But three small rounded eggs remained behind him, immersed in the water of the pooled well source.

"He left no beautiful feathers for us!" The girl said and quickly began crying. She sat down on the ground and waited for her dæmon to come to her with comfort as he often did, formed as a sheep, a familiar reminder of their family. But her dæmon did not come to her.

"Why do you not care for me in my misery?" The girl cried out to him.

"I do care for you," her dæmon replied and came closer to nuzzle her leg, but the girl backed away quickly from his hideous form.

"You must change from that form, just as the bird was scared, so am I."

But her dæmon did not change form, and with sudden realization the girl knew he would change no longer, and for the entirety of their life, as he appeared now before her is how people would see them.

The girl was horrified but thought quickly. "We will gather these eggs the beautiful bird has left behind. They will hatch into more beautiful birds and with those feathers we will disguise you and walk through the town like that. Then people will admire us."

They were saddened, but encouraged to try out this plan, for the feathers were beautiful and three birds of that size could easily provide enough feathers for them to both wear.

But the girl had forgotten her original purpose, and when they had succeeded in moving the sun-colored bird from his roost, the spring had begun to flow again. The girl ran to the pool of water only to realize her mistake. Her dæmon shrieked horribly and she looked up in time to see the three eggs washing together over the side of the rocky hill and down below.

"Quickly! Catch them!" She called to her dæmon, but his wings were put on for show of ugliness and could not carry his form.

And so it was that the girl remorsed by the side of the spring as what had become her only chance at beauty tipped slowly, and fell over the rocks, to be crushed by water and hillside below. The girl began crying again, and her dæmon came close to comfort her again.

"No." The girl said in anger. "You may not touch me again, your ideas have made you as you are now, and your ugliness cannot be disguised. For this we must walk in shame together for the rest of our life."

The girl never returned home to her parents, her shame was so great. She hid in the hills near their village and lived in a cave, where she was contented to never be seen nor see another person. And with only her dæmon, who she hated for his ugliness, the girl grew old and forevermore remained hiding in the cave.


Theft report filed by:

Station Nurse Grace Hudgings

Updates:

Storybook found in possession of Dr.Pahlbod and confiscated from home of said person. Malicious intent not assumed.

Nurse Hudgings will be transferred to current facility construction site.

Dr. Pahlbod currently in courts pending reprimand. Following court actions, doctor is to be briefed and dismissed from further involvement in Station operations.

Court decisions to be filed with report thereafter.

Signed:

MC

See Station blueprints, file 34: Shelf A:12, Files 6-39