A Demon's Toy

I finally reached my safe haven (or home as I temporarily perceived it as). It wasn’t much of a “home”. It was an old abandoned shed that had been used to store the owner’s belongings. The house that sat a few hundred feet in front of it had completely collapsed in on itself making it unlivable. That was fine though. The shed was plenty large enough for one person.

The property the house sat on was currently not owned which made it the best place for a street kid such as myself to stay for a while. It was located just outside of town away from peering eyes and nosy neighbors. Fortunately, when I had found the shed I’d had to do very little fix up of the place to make it feel “homely”. The person (I am going to assume it was a man based off the large amount of sports items I found) had already furnished the place for me minus the television and stereo system. I imagine they loaded that up with them when they abandoned the place. So I already had a nice set up that included a couch, side tables, a used and abused microwave, some seriously outdated cookware, and a couple of antique lamps that sat on the side tables.

If there was anything I needed to cook on a stove or in an oven, I either burnt the shit out of it in the microwave or I started a small bonfire outside and roasted it over the open flames. Heaven forbid they leave me with a nice grill to cook food on, I sighed. Oh well. I was lucky to have what I did. Thankfully they had left behind the mini fridge where, I’m assuming, they kept the beers. Overall? I was comfortable in my “home”.

I slid off my light jacket and tossed it on the floor somewhere near the couch. The next thing I removed was my baseball cap revealing a pair of red-tipped black cat ears. I’ll explain about my neko side later. As for now…

I threw the salmon, orange, and what was left of the water inside the fridge before stripping down out of the rest of my clothes. Completely naked, I stepped outside and began making my way down the familiar path through the woods to the lake. Once there, I did my best to scrub my clothes clean (since they were the only ones I had left at the moment) before laying them out in the grass to dry.

With that I dove into the cool lake water loving the feel of it completely engulfing my body and gliding smoothly along my bare flesh as I surfaced for air. Although it was true most cats (and nekos) despised the very thought of the liquid substance, I enjoyed it immensely. Then again most nekos had frequent access to a nice shower with clean, hot water whereas I did not.

As I floated on my back through the calm waters, I made a mental checklist of what I needed to steal on my next trip into town. Let’s see…I need soap, a wash cloth, maybe some of those travel size hair care stuff, a razor, more food, more water… I scratched at my ear. It wouldn’t hurt to obtain some flea shampoo, too. Just in case.

I sighed and dipped my body under the water to where only my eyes and the top of my head were visible. There was one thing that continued to trump all my other thoughts. That was of the man—the butler—Sebastian. There was more to him than just being a butler. The blatant blood red color of his eyes told me that. At first I had thought maybe they were contacts, but the longer I had stared into those mesmerizing eyes, the more obvious it became that they WEREN’T the production of contacts.

Plenty of supernatural beings had uniquely colored eyes or the ability to change their eye color, so what exactly was he? And had he been born a monster or had he been a lab experiment like me?

Twelve years ago

I pulled at the shackles that were biting into my wrists and ankles. The bright splash of red staining my ivory white skin. I had already been a rather pale seven year old due to a rare illness that had struck me a couple years ago. After they had strapped me down a few hours ago and drained out a few gallons of my blood, my skin had paled into a translucent white.

Although I knew I didn’t have the strength to break the metal cuffs, I continued to fight to break free. I was still confused as to why I was here in the first place. I had been having a nice, quiet family dinner with my parents when my eyes had started growing heavy with sleep. I vaguely remember seeing my parents standing up from their chairs and feeling my dad swing me up into his arms. When I had woken up, I had found myself strapped to this metal table with a red tube running from each of my arms. It had hit me then that the tube was painted red from my blood that was flowing through the plastic tunnel to the large jugs sitting beside the table.

The only person I had seen since then was a woman dressed in a white jumpsuit with a surgeon’s mask hiding the bottom of her face. Her deep brown hair had been combed back into a tight bun on the back of her head. She had only come in that single time to remove the tubes from my arms, place some gauze over the injection wound, and leave with the jugs of my blood in either hand.

I had tried screaming out for help multiple times, but no one had come even to shut me up. That had brought me to one conclusion: I was being held in a soundproof room. So, time had elapsed as my eyes focused on the blindingly white ceiling. The entire room was washed in a dizzy, white color. I assumed a few hours had passed since the woman had come, but in reality it could have easily been a few minutes. There was no way of telling what time it was considering the only thing in the white room was me and the metal table I was strapped to.

My struggles slowly ceased as my eyes began growing heavy once more with sleep. My vision began to tunnel making the edges of the room grow dark while the center grew increasingly brighter. Black dots began swimming across my line of vision. Somewhere in the back of my seven year old mind, I had known I was beginning to die. Instead of being scared the way I had always figured I would be upon my death bed, I only felt a sense of peace wash over me. The pain had eventually faded away into numbness.

As it grew more difficult to hold my eyes open, the woman from before entered the room from the sliding door she had exited through earlier.

“Help me…please…” I quietly begged of her. Familiar honey brown eyes met mine. In those eyes I saw love, sadness, regret, and the begging of forgiveness. Those brown eyes began to sparkle with unshed tears.

“Mom?” I whispered barely feeling the long, thin needle being inserted deep into the main artery of my neck. She injected a bluish-black substance into my body before tightening the cuffs around my wrists and ankles. I watched, confused, as she left the room.

Shortly after she disappeared, I felt a searing pain around the injection point on my neck. Within seconds, that itching, burning feeling spread like wildfire throughout my body. It made my fingers and toes tingle like thousands of needles were being inserted into my flesh. My tiny body thrashed and spasmed upon the large metal table. The edges of the metal cuffs bit deeper into my delicate skin causing what little blood I had left to leak out.

A gut wrenching scream tore free from my esophagus, filling the once quiet room with the sound of agony and pure, raw terror. Soon all I could see was black. The white of the room had gone. Everything had now turned into a murky black. I heard the gruesome sound of my bones changing and shifting inside my body while a terrible ripping could be felt on my head.

“MOM! DAD!” I futilely cried out as hot tears ran from the corners of my eyes down the side of my face to warm my ears.

The pain steadily increased inside my body. Not able to bear the agony anymore, I finally blacked out.

I opened my eyes as the memory faded. I splashed water on my face to clear away any trace of tears. Shortly after that, I had woken up to find myself free of my bindings with newfound powers and my illness cured. Upon seeing my reflection in the metal table I discovered I had grown a pair of black ears with red tips; my dark brown eyes had lightened into a pale yellow-green.

That had been when I heard the distant sounds of shouting shortly before the room vibrated from an explosion. The woman from before, along with a man, rushed into the room and grabbed me. Had I not recognized them as my parents, I might have struggled to break free from his grasp. They had set me down outside far away from the building, said their tearful goodbyes, and raced back to the lab. Moments later it had exploded sky high blowing bricks and pieces of metal everywhere. Even from where I had been cowering I could feel the immense heat from the blast. I had been too shocked to even cry over the loss of my parents.

Since then I had basically been on my own trying to learn about what had been done to me and figuring out how to survive in the world on my own. When I had tried to go back home, I found our house completely destroyed just like the lab. Throughout the twelve years, I had only met two people like me (only they had been born a neko) who had been kind enough to teach me about what I was and the things I could do. They taught me how to survive in the world. I basically owed my life to them. Too bad I had never bothered learning their true names.

I created a rolling wave of bubbles as I sighed into the water. The few questions that no one had been able to answer for me were…why? Why had my parents done what they had done? What was their purpose? And why had they chosen to experiment on their only daughter? I stood up out of the water, shivering when the cool evening air hit my damp skin. I hadn’t realized it had gotten so late.

My hands twisted around my hair to drain out any excess liquid from my black locks. My ears twitched at feeling a water drop trail along their edge. I trudged my feet through the water towards the dry land where my clothes were laid out and hopefully dry. I shook off as much water as possible from my body and allowed the gentle breeze to dry off the rest. Goosebumps broke out along my body as I slipped my clothes back on before heading back to the shed.

I slipped inside my safe haven and grabbed out my water from the fridge quickly downing it. I released a satisfied sigh once I had gulped down every last drop. Being constantly on the run could make a girl thirsty. Tossing the now empty bottle into my makeshift trash can, I fell back onto the old sofa that had been left behind. I stretched out my limbs until I heard the glorious sound of my back popping.

Curling myself into a ball, I fell into a deep sleep.