3.
It has been too long since the day of his departure, since the day of the call. Too many tears have been denied, too much pain has been suppressed… for this heart shattered widow was forced to hid her torments by the peculiar circumstances of her established livelihood. This façade she felt necessary was slowly consuming her now visibly aged features; no one either knew or could imagine what was like living like this… with a perpetual, maternal, fake smile printed on her face, without anyone to confess her true bleeding feelings. As she found herself lost in her current Hong Kong express of thoughts, a platter fell from her hand while she was setting the table for lunch, shattering its frail form to the marble floor. The falling process of such item was registered in her mind in an ominous slow-motion, as if she witnessed the rotting crushing of her own life. Metaphorically speaking, it was just that.
Her husband, the father of her daughter, left for the army… and never returned; and yet, despite the devouring sensation of tearful crisis right at the edge of her eyes, she once again forced herself to neglect this emotional freedom, for the sake of her role, for the sake of her innocent, little girl. She would do anything for her and this, in her mind, was just a small prize to pay for keeping her happy. Such woman was Elmyra, growing frail each day as she feigned strength, a human being too selfless for her own good… and, ironically, too egotistical for the same reason.
While absorbed in the act of picking up the platter's rests from the ground, she accidentally cut her finger… or maybe, it wasn't accidental. Maybe, just maybe, she did it on purpose, perhaps in the attempt to distract herself from her non-physical pain… it was her only accessible escape from reality. As if on cue, Reality made its rather loud presence noticed through the high perched voice of her precious daughter.
Marlene entered her house at lightning speed, clearly and openly distressed by some recent event; as soon as her blurry figure made its way towards the kitchen, her mother cleverly hid her finger behind her back in order to protect her child from yet another possible threat at her innocence.
Such was Elmyra… just human.
A last kiss. A last goodbye. A last glance. Then pure voidness. She cried, long and hard, cried at the leaving train, cried at his vanishing, greeting form, cried her way home… only to stop, right before entering. Her baby was still sleeping and she didn't want to wake her… not now, not ever. Her daughter needed to remain blissful, happy, ignorant… she would have never cried again.
Several years, she would eventually receive news about her husband's death… she didn't cry, she kept everything inside, she let the pain consume her…
Her child remained blissful.
As the hurtful memory died down in his twistingly aching chest, he slowly managed to recover a half standing position; tears purring out from his red (and reddened) eyes.
Long contained sorrows were the worst to digest for the unwilling green ruler of said emotions and this one in particular almost made him coughing blood, such was the stubborn rejection from its distressed owner… an owner he acknowledged as the Queen of Questions' mother.
Motherhood… a peculiar concept he's been instructed on by Dr. Crescent, the only scientist he had a positive relationship with.
As far as he could understand, this Elmyra person strictly denied his torments because, in her opinion, building a fort of lies around her child, was the only way to protect her from this world's sufferance. Such foolishness, such preposterous ignorance towards the undeniable importance of truthful emotions like the most vital one, was what made the King angry… or at least, wanting to be. This recent soul reading definitely helped him clarify the Marlene's mystery: she was sorrow-less because of a simple façade… but façades, as we know, are meant to be uncovered and when that would happen, the little girl wouldn' t have been able to resist the shock. Humans were such weird creatures, full of issues and issues made by other issues, even self-made… and all because, for some reason, they failed to express their inner feelings and kept everything inside. Marlene was different, Marlene could manifest her true self at will, she was free of any form of hypocrisy all the adults couldn't help but live with. But now, due to her mother's involuntary sins, she would have been ruined… like anyone else.
The King of Sorrow sat on a rock beside a small lake, entranced by the troubles-free beauty of the liquid mineral and once again bothered by his lack of worries, which was an issue per se (meta-emotionally speaking), and still feeling distraught because of that recent experience with that girl's friends… thus denying the previous statement about his lack of worries. Without a precise reason, not that he needed one, he let one of his fingerless feet touch the warm water of the lake, causing so a disturbance in its tranquil harmony.
Even here, Sorrow wasn't welcomed.
"Please… show yourself, now." He slowly but convincingly stated, all of a sudden, to no apparent individual. "I sensed your presence a long time ago… Dr. Valentine." He added, clarifying our doubts.
Grimoire was a man of few words, few emotions, few everything… except for his intelligence. He knew all too well that, when it came to this kid, hiding was perfectly useless but yet, it was still part of his nature… one of the few things he couldn't fight against. The black and red dressed scientist eventually decided to abandon the relative security of the woods for a more in-your-face approach with the so-called Experiment. KoS turned his round head to gaze his supposed-to-be captor in the eyes… which happened to be as red as his. The two of them stood there for a few seconds, staring at each other in a distorted form of curiosity that neither of them could clearly explain. As far as KoS could remember, the doctor and himself had always had a strange relationship; unlike Dr. Crescent, who felt sympathy for him, and Dr. Hojo, who was a gunning sadist, Dr. Valentine always kept himself distant from him, never, even once, uttering a word or a greet. Despite the fact that the small manmade wonder could read his deepest sorrows like an open book, Grimoire was still a mystery even for him.
"You're here to bring me back home." It wasn't a question, it was a statement the one pronounced by the alien bunny. "And even though you feel bad for me… you can't disobey Hojo's orders because he threatened your son's life." A small cringe of hurtfulness could be registered in the usually emotionless tone of the boy, due to the well-known awful level of his unwilling empathy.
Grimoire closed his eyes and took a long breath, as if ready to answer his interlocutor, when his PHS began ringing. He took the noisy device and, without diverting his glacial gaze from the kid's, answered it. By the hardly noticeable change in his facial expression, KoS could easily guess who was lying on the other side of the line…
After a few seconds of silence, the improvised "genetic experiments' patroller" spoke back.
"Yes, professor Hojo." He said coldly, right before interrupting the communication; eyes still fixed on the prey. Then, he just went away without uttering a single word or a greet, as always.
If he could, he would have probably felt confused for the hunter's sudden retreat… instead, the suffering child just watched him go, without even bothering to feel preoccupation, or bothering for feeling bothered by preoccupation, and so on and on…
It didn't take too long for a certain someone else to appear out of nowhere, almost immediately after.
"Excuse me? Are you… the Prince of Soho?" An adult, female voice asked in painfully obvious shyness.
The Prince of Soho… I wish I'd know how to make a sarcastic reply. Thought the object of the scornful misspelling, right before turning his gaze towards the owner of said voice… a middle aged, humble dressed woman he immediately recognized.
"You're… Marlene's mother." He stated, rather than asked, with an abnormal amount of pain in his tone, right before collapsing on the ground with both his hands grabbing his heart.
Maternal instincts kicked in as the woman immediately darted towards the seemingly helpless and shaking body of the poor child, not even wondering why he was dressed in that weird furry costume since it wasn't Halloween yet.
Needless to say, she'll eventually find out the truth about his peculiar "masquerade"… and, maybe, just maybe, about herself too.
They say there's no rest for the wicked… in Hojo's case, such litany seemed to find a proper placement. It's been uncounted years since the scientist's latest full night of sleep, a peculiar condition that was probably pushed towards its utter implosion due to his maniacal dedication over his work. Over the past few solar cycles, ever since the Experiment's initial tests, Hojo has been studying… trying to find an explanation, either logical or not, over the unpredictable developments of the project. At first, he searched the solution in his beloved science, only to miserably fail as he realized that his own matter couldn't find the wanted answer. Then, he tried with religion, but it was even more worthless, it only inflated his ego to Godlike standards. Finally, out of pure frustration, he began reading thousands and thousands of philosophy's books… until his enhanced attention span eventually fell on a very interesting term that the Epicureans used to consider a synonymous for pure happiness. Ataraxia signified the detached and balanced state of mind by which a person could transcend the material world for the sake of a superior comfortableness. Needless to say, when his brain managed to swallow this overwhelming concept, his both scientific and human curiosities began tilting like a pinball; it sounded like the perfect solution, simple and complex at the same time. Now he knew exactly what went wrong with the Experiment… it was neither the Mako energy nor the original DNA specimen, it was a complex emotional matter. Currently absorbed in his latest mental analysis, beak nose glued on a book, Hojo couldn't help but chuckle in genuine amusement. A chuckle that almost immediately turned into more shaped laughs, until it finally broke into the purest form of maniacal laughter a man could possibly muster.
The unmistakable solution to this age old charade was at hand's reach… all he needed now, was just a confirmation.
Dr. Lucrecia Crescent entered the poorly cleaned library the good old crazed professor used to spend grand part of his time in; she was as pale as a ghost, probably due to the man's over manifested good mood.
"Aaaah, Lucrecia… My dear lab assistant, I was just about to summon you on my regal presence. I have some outstanding news!" Hojo amusingly muttered from the villainous half darkness of his seat. He closed his book with added emphasis. She swallowed in both shyness and disgust.
"Did Dr. Valentine captured V… I mean, the Experiment?" She corrected herself right before accidentally spitting out that tabooed name. The shining intensity of the head scientist's smile could be seen from the lightlessness of his spot.
"He was about to… but I ordered him otherwise. He shall just observe and report, for now." He proudly stated.
"But… why?" The woman's confusion grew stronger along with her already established uneasiness.
At this point, the man known as Hojo rose from his armchair and ever so slowly walked towards the still form of Lucrecia, one emphatic step over another, until he was close enough to be actually seen. He was a middle aged man with long black hair tied up in a ponytail, with ominous blank glasses covering his eyes and a deviated smirk as a further proof of his madness. The woman of the same age found herself frozen in terror... she knew all too well what that gleeful expression meant, first hand. Her superior eventually decided to grant her the answer.
"… Because our little boy needs to see exactly how 'fun' this world can be." And then, he once again began to laugh. If she could, Lucrecia would have yelled.