Hn… got another writing assignment today from the big bosses. What’s more, ZF pitched in too and asked me to write a story with me and the crazy scientist man. Admittedly, this was a better job than the last one. Or not. I still wasn’t sure whether or not Pretz would puke on me or try to eat me or some other weird vore thing like that.
He’s into vore, I’m almost sure of it.
I called ahead to tell him I was coming and he told me he’d tidy up the place as much as possible. I dunno about you, but the message woulda come out a lot more reassuring and normal if I hadn’t heard an explosion before the guy hung up on me.
In case you still haven’t got an idea who I was interviewing, it was Stitches, the local crazy scientist on the block. Nice enough guy, but I’d never take a drink he offered if I were you. The little farmhouse he shared with his honey was within walking distance of my place, so I decided to head on over with my little tickler and pack of gum.
I noticed him out there, trying to get some yellow goat off what looked like a torn up pair of boxers. I could say the same thing about the guy though. From a distance, I gauged about five feet and eight to ten inches. Guy got dirty blond hair about shoulder length, all tied up to make a pretty messy ponytail. His pants were all scuffed up, just like his boots, which was typical of field work, but his lab coat told me that it was totally just a side job.
But his skin. That was creepy. He looked like some sort of patched up rag doll. His skin was all different, and you could see the stitches on each part. To be honest, it was a little disturbing.
”Yo!”
He waved at me from the field, one hand still clinging to the boxers stuck in that goat’s mouth. His crooked smile was a lot more human than the most of him, but I kinda felt like he wasn’t gonna strap me to a dissection table any time soon, so I came on over.
You’re Stitches?
”Er… Pretzels. Not too many people call me Stitches… though a couple do.”
What else do they call you?
”Eh. Freak. Nutjob. Crazy b*****d. You know the usual kind of names you get when you look like this.”
He seemed pretty secure about the way he looked. I had to give him that.
”I’m guessing you’re the interview guy. I suggest you get in there and wait for me. I think I’ll be a while.”
No arguments there. That goat really liked the taste of boxers. So I just hauled my a** into that little farmhouse he called home.
First thing that hit me was that the place was, despite his really scary looks, he made the house look pretty damn cozy. It was small, but someone sure made use of the space. It was well aired, things looked neat, and there wasn’t a single roach in sight.
”Like it? Nyu made it really cozy.”
I wasn’t surprised that he was behind me. They usually were.
”Sit down. I’ll get you some snacks.”
I was guessing the Nyu girl wasn’t home so I decided to listen to the guy and seat myself. But no eating. Not from him. He came back a few minutes later with a basket of bread and some fruit.
”Sorry. Guess I forgot to do the groceries again.”
Thought you lived off the land.
”The land’s been a b***h recently. Been attacked by shadows. Monsters. Gophers. All sorts of nasty critters.”
I simply nodded and looked him over once more. Upon closer inspection I saw his chipped spectacles, his messy ponytail, and the metallic glint on several spots on his open skin. A dirty farm boy scientist made out of mismatched skin grafts. This was going to be an interesting interview.
Tell me about yourself?
”Well… I don’t know my real name, if that’s what you’re asking, but yeah I already told you what my name is. I um… I’m eight years old an-“
Waitwaitwait… Eight?
This dude?
”Yeah. Eight. I’ll explain what happened later on. Ahem. So like I was saying, I’m ten years old and I currently live with my lovely fiance.”
Who is, I’m guessing, ten?
”Ha! No… course not. She’s six.”
You my friend-
”So anyway… I was born on… well I don’t really know that, actually. And if I had to pick a side between kawaii and unkawaii… I’d shoot myself.”
There is a neutral option.
”Ah, then that’s what I am. I’m neutral, and not just because both sides are psychotic in a completely and utterly sick way but… well actually, that’s pretty much the reason.”
I feel ya. I kinda had to interview one of them yesterday. So what are you into? Hobbies? Things?
”Me? Hm… Nyu… yeah, she probably tops the list. Actually she takes the first three slots… hm… after her would be science. Or alchemy. They’re similar in essence I guess. After that- wait, did I mention my dad and sister? Yeah, they’re also over science. I love to tinker. Make new things out of old crap. Oh, and my master. I guess he’s likeable… but mostly the projects I do. The usual things you’d expect from… well.”
I see. And yeah, guess we’d expect it from someone like you. Any dislikes?
”Ah… well I really shouldn’t name off too many people, should I? I’ll generalize and go with people who hunt my family members down. And I don’t like getting eaten… it sucks.”
People… eat you?
”Not people, animals… but yeah, I fall apart easy.”
I’m not touching the bread for sure now.
Right right… anything else notable?
”Hm… anything else? Yeah, I guess you could say that I hate being alone.”
Really? You struck me as the loner type first time I looked at you.
”Eh… I don’t like being alone. When I’m alone, the voices tend to talk to me.”
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”I’m guessing the next part is where you ask me about my history?”
I hadn’t even noticed he’d returned. I didn’t like it when guys were sneaky like that.
Not just yet. Personality comes first.
”Ah… you know I don’t get why you ask that question. You know I’m possibly going to lie, right? Or at least get things grievously wrong.”
You don’t seem like the type to skimp on details or be a narcissist, and if you’re planning on telling me your story, I doubt you’d try to lie about who you were at this point.
”I’m touched you think I’d be so honest… I’ll see what I can say.”
He pulled out a small length of wire and twisted it around his fingers in silence, winding and unwinding it ever now and again. Guess everyone has their concentration methods.
”… I am first and foremost a man of curiosity. If I see something interesting, I do not sit around and simply admire. I study. What makes it tick? Why is it like this? Where did it come from? I ask myself this every time something piques my interest. However, I am inclined to do things for the hell of it every now and again. All work and no play, you know?”
Hell of it, hm?
”Of course. Like the time I already knew what would happen if I lobbed a dung bomb into dad’s shower, but I did it anyway. Do you know what happens when I do that?”
You get a very angry dad?
”Heh. No, an angry sister. I forgot dad doesn’t shower too often.”
That’s disgusting.
”That’s life.”
“On a second level, I am a man of… slight obsession. You know that once I engross myself in work, very little can pull me from it. Very little. However, that is not to say I’m simply a workaholic. My obsession extends to the way I look after my family. Should anyone harm or endanger my family I… go to certain lengths to “fix” the damage.”
Sounds like an ordinary family man with balls and a shotgun.
”Sir, of course that would be normal behavior. But the lengths I go to are what set me apart here. The lengths.”
I had to admit, he was starting to creep me out a little more the more he talked about it.
I’m guessing you’ve got another poetic level to yourself?
He gave me one of those creepy a** chuckles as he nodded.
”Yes sir. I am… a man of insanity.”
And I did not even want to go there.
”My story?”
At this point I was reluctant to even know what Stitches had in his lunchbox today. He seemed like a nice guy, yeah, but there was no doubt about him being a little cuckoo too. Still, the folks get what they paid for.
Yeah. You know. How you got to be like your self and everything.
Admittedly, I was curious about the stitches.
”… alright… if you’re sure about that and if you really need it then I guess I can tell.”
Again with the length of wire.
”… I never knew my parents. Thought I should start there because that was the beginning of all this… s**t. My earliest memories were from when I was already at the orphanage, sharing my room with several different looking kids, some with fangs and tails and others with pig snouts. It was… a strange orphanage. Diverse, to say the least.”
“I was a rarity. I looked like a human, which in itself was rare in those times, but apparently no one ever felt like I was one. That was a no no there. If we looked like it, we should feel like it, and everyone new that the little blond boy didn’t feel one bit human. So like every weirdo of the kiddy bunch, I was… “exiled” by the rest of my peers.”
“Don’t pity me. I didn’t give a damn, really. Not back then, and not now. I was used to being alone. I had my books, my tools, my materials, my mind… I had everything I needed to live. It wasn’t like the orphanage would kick me out on account of being strange. It was pretty strict where I lived that I couldn’t get kicked out on grounds of weirdness. Not after the last few kids that got that treatment. I wonder who let those children near machetes.”
“And I was exactly what they needed too. Smart, unwanted and unloved. No one would miss the blonde scary orphan, and that’s why they took me. Who? The scientists. My first family. They were interested in certain projects that they hoped would save mankind one day, and they were doing pretty well in the experimental phases… when it came to mice. Their projects always failed on human beings, twisting them, breaking them, destroying their minds and bodies… it was risky. That was why they needed someone unimportant, fresh, willing and full of life, and there I was, waiting to be adopted.”
“So they took me home, my new mama and papa, and took care of me. Of course, they were reluctant at first to tell me their reasons for adopting me, but it came out eventually. I guess they were feeling the whole “family vibe” thing around me. But it didn’t matter. They looked after me. Fed me. Bathed me. Observed me. I didn’t care too much; really… it was nice to be taken care of like that. It felt like I was accepted, and though I was used to being lonely, this new feeling was welcome. Now I know what you’re thinking: “How could I be happy knowing that I’d be experimented on?” It’s because no matter how scared I was before the experimentation and how ******** up I was after, the point still stands that deep down, I think I really did love them.”
“I’ll go into details on their experiments later. Let me just say that they at first, they worked. Every single one of them produced the desired effects. I was strong. Stronger than any ordinary human being at least. I was eight years old and already being called mankind’s hope.”
“See me on the newspapers? “Scientist’s New Project: Saving Man.” No? Of course not. They had to do a clean up after the incident at the GenChem Labs. Haven’t heard of that? That just shows how good of a cover up job they did.”
“So what happened? I guess my skin was what happened, that was what. My body began to reject my skin. I woke up one night screaming when I saw most of my left arm peeling away to reveal the muscle tissue underneath it. It started on my limbs, and then it hit my torso, my neck, and then my face.”
“Okay, it was pretty scary, admittedly. Waking up like that, covered in gaping wounds. Parents had to put skin grafts on me so I’d stop freaking out. My body rejected even those. They had to give me something else, something made out of my new body’s DNA. And so they made me a second skin. This one didn’t fall off, so that was good. But the stitches never healed. The colors actually changed. I looked like a rag doll, but that was the best they could do. So I said it was fine.”
“A few weeks later, I couldn’t eat. No, not that queasy feeling that stops you from eating. I’m talking about the Barfy level of puking I got after eating an ordinary sandwich. Not only that, I craved the taste of metal. Of copper. Of wiring and household appliances. My body had been taught to take substances and convert them, but apparently now it saw all substances as a form of nutrition and would regurgitate that which it considered… unsatisfactory. The scientists looked me over and told me that with training I would be able to consume everyday foods and to squash down my stranger cravings. So I said I would be okay.”
“That was when the nightmares started. At night I dreamt morbidly. I dreamt of things I’d never want to think of again and of things I would never want you to know about. I screamed in my sleep, and when I woke the screaming didn’t stop. Only the screaming in the day wasn’t from my mouth. The voices in my head were never silent. Never agreeing. Always screaming for me to lose it. And I did. I killed the dog with my bare hands, and enjoyed it. My parents had me checked. Their last project, the one that was supposed to tie everything together, was driving me mad. It was taking over my mind. It already had taken over my mind. They told me there was no way to fix it, and that the only thing to do was to put me down. So I told them it was okay.”
“And then I killed them all.”