Cube Zero: The Newly Imprisoned

Chapter 5: The Cube and It's Technician

The near-silence of the room was then broken by what seemed to be faint cries of distress. Nyroc, Dragonclaw, and even Sparky could hear them clearly (Sparky's reason being is that Trotsky still had her pinned to the wall that was apparently the closest to the sound), while the others had a hard time distinguishing it.
Sparky looked at the door from where she was, and managed to free herself from Trotsky's grasp before she climbed to the door to open it and enter the room. From the crawlspace, she noticed a young boy with dark hair that had his back to her–who was straight up yelling his questionings of his imprisonment in standard Arabic, a language Sparky couldn't make out even if she had wanted to.
"Kid?" She asked. "Are you alright?"
The boy then looked at her, his dark eyes being clear and noticeable in the green light of the room.
"Moustafa..." She whispered as she looked at the name on the boy's shirt.
"I don't know where I am." He said to her.
"Neither do I, kid," Sparky said, climbing down from the crawlspace. "Nor do I know who I am."
Recognizing the fact that he had a large body marking resembling a phoenix on his back and right shoulder, and with her statement in mind, he said to Sparky, "Why don't you call me 'Phoenix?'"
"Phoenix? Why is that?" Sparky asked, looking at him.
"It's hard to explain." Phoenix replied.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group members were thinking up potential reasons as to why Nyroc was so tiny and why he had blank white eyes. It might seem ridiculous; In truth it is, but it was what they could talk about while Sparky wasn't in the room.

"It's not dwarfism!" Nyroc rebuked to Trotsky. "You're a feisty one." She said.
"Feisty?" Nyroc asked.
"Please, calm down," Bartok said assuringly, approaching Nyroc. "She's not trying to offend you in any purposeful way. In fact, I think she may be from a different time period."
Dragonclaw then looked at Nyroc, particularly into his blank eyes, and realized the truth of the Nyrolian's size and blindness.
"He's been moonblinked! He was likely no older than two years old when it happened." He said, with Nyroc looking at the dragon as soon as he finished the statement.
"Moonblinked? What is that?" Trotsky asked. "It's a state that incurs when someone sleeps directly under the light of a full moon, intentionally or not. It's what we call tsukinosaimin, or lunar hypnosis." Blake replied.
"And it destroys their free will." Melody added.
"Oh, mercy! Is that permanent?"

"It's not, telling from experience." Nyroc said, his tone becoming somber. "But the effects of being moonblinked at that age have affected me personally. The most obvious effect, amongst other things, is that I haven't grown a centimetre since."
"So, you've stayed at that height for years?" Trotsky asked.
"I have." Nyroc replied. The door closest to Trotsky then opened with Sparky in the crawlspace.
"You guys coming?" She asked.
"Oh, most certainly." Trotsky said, climbing up to the crawlspace with Sparky climbing back into the room that contained Phoenix to let the Russian through the crawlspace.

Nyroc then climbed to the door as soon as it closed, and was about to open it again when Melody asked him, "Do you need help?"
Nyroc simply stared at her with a look of confusion, and then opened the door to enter the other room. Dragonclaw was not far behind him, once again leaving Blake and Melody alone–but this time with Bartok. The dragon looked at the surname on Blake's shirt, and then looked at the surname on his own shirt–taking a moment of thought before realizing that Blake was indeed one of his sons from when he was human—the child he had asked Bernadette about.
Bartok then looked at Blake, a sense of interest being in his eyes. Before he could say anything to him, though, Melody had opened the door and was in the crawlspace. Since Blake apparently felt safe around Melody, he wasn't far behind her. Coarsely snorting out of disbelief, Bartok followed the two into the room.
In the room, Nyroc had already approached Phoenix–but this was only out of curiosity and not for any malign purpose or intent. Phoenix, of course, understood Nyroc's curiosity–but this was out of the former's assumption that Nyroc was a lot younger than he really was.