When ZAC returns home from the surface, he has found that Twitch's sentience experiment that day may not be a failure! Instead of dying like all the others, according to Twitch, this rat lived and escaped with his skin glowing a slight green, but th...
"Scratch! I'm home!" I shout as I enter the room from the front door with a small bag in my hand. While it may look awful outside, I decided to make some little renovations to make it less depressing. Most of the cracks were smoothed out inside and all signs of scattered glass and wood were thrown in the garbage. All was quiet in the house. It's expected; I did tell him to stay silent when he hears something the footsteps through the ceiling. I head over to a revealing pipe that I've grown a bit too familiar with. I've always escaped through this thing from my old room, Scratch's room. I knocked on it 9 times, 3 sets of one knock followed by a pause then 2 consecutive knocks.
I look across the hall, hearing the faint footsteps in the silence across the hall. The door was blocked by an old heavy desk I got from the junkyard. I lift it up revealing a brown rat in the stairs. He lunged at me to hug me. He dug his hands deep into my tough green skin and climbed on top of my shoulder quickly. He leaned forward to my arm to sniff the contents of the bag..
"Hey!" I say, holding the bag away. "Be patient pal. Heh. It's not gonna go anywhere." I walk down the stairs before dragging the desk back in its place, concealing the opening, leaving the two of us in the basement with only a small yellow lantern illuminating the room. "Sorry I was late buddy. I got into a.. complication." I mumble, feeling my hand go to my back. I could feel the arrow's mark just behind my left shoulder. Of course the skin reformed, but it felt like the scar still existed. He crossed the line...
Instinctively, Scratch begins to sniff at the spot. I felt puffs of air on my skin before reaching over to guide his head away. I reached in my bag to get a piece of stale bread. "Hey.. I could hear your stomach grumbling, huh?" I said, raising the bread and turning my head to meet his eyes. "Here! It's.. not what you wanted. There.. was no fruit today. I'm sorry."
He paused before grabbing the bread, his hands shaking in hesitation. His eyes dart back to the spot I was shot.
Finally, the trek through the old wooden stairs is over. At the end there was only a singular room with 2 small beds made from various trash bags. In the center there was a lantern and on the wall closest to it were some drawings and a small piece of green chalk at the foot of the wall. We sit near the lantern, eating the food slowly in silence. I couldn't say anything, all I could do is go back to the scar routinely throughout the dinner, patting it and imagining a dent that wasn't there filled with ineffective poison as my skin radiates heat to effortlessly combat it as I go for his throat...
"Squeak!" Scratch yelped, holding the green chalk in his hand and a small piece of bread in the other.
I pause before replying. "Uh.. Shouldn't you wait after dinner pal. You haven't finished your meal.." I point to the bread in his hand.
He shakes his head no and just points to a dark corner in the room.
"You.. wanna show me something?" I grab the lantern and take his hand. I gave a slight smile. "Surprise me buddy."
He leads me to the corner of the wall. It begins to illuminate to reveal what seemed to be a big headed rat with crazy, pupil-less eyes and large ears holding various stick figure rats to a cauldron. Below the cauldron were just pictures of individual bones. I just stared at those eyes as they stared into me. "Wha.. What's going on buddy?" I ask, worried. "Is this another nightmare again? Those.. bad thoughts?"
He slightly nods his head yes.
I walk up to the draw and smudged my hand on top of it, using the fluids within me to wash away the chalk. It barely worked, only taking away minor markings but the whole figure was still intact. I swipe the green crayon away from Scratch. "Listen to me pal. I know you're scared of him. I know he did bad things to you; he did bad things to me too, and I trusted the guy, but he's all behind us now, ok? You're safe here! He doesn't know we're here and he hates the surface. Too much light, y'know? Heh." I gaze at the hideous display again before crossing it out with a big green "X".
"No more of these drawings okay? It's not good for you to worry." I smooth out his rustled fur. "Heh. That's my job now. Tell you what." I ate the bread in my other hand in one clean swoop. "We can start story time now! Bet you were waiting for that!" I take Scratch and the lantern away from the drawing of his creator, obscuring it in darkness. I lead him to a clean wall, a clean slate. "Now.. I have 3 stories in mind.." I take the green chalk and begin to draw out the choices.
"I have another story about Atomic Man.. You can't go wrong with that," I said, drawing a stick figure with a cape across his back.
"There's a nice one about a guy at the Sumps! I was pretty surprised with that one. Real too!" I drew a thug with a mohawk.
"There's also a Blitzcrank story. I always like stories with that lovable machine.." I drew a circle with 2 circles within to signify his eyes.
"Well.. What do you want today? I'm ready!"
He points to my left shoulder.
"Guess... you're curious huh." I pause.
"Blitzcrank it is."
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"How.. How did it not work!?" I shout as I pace repeatedly around the cauldron that now holds my creation. The question repeats. Over and over and over and over again. "How did it not work? How did it not work? How did it not work!?" I gaze into my reflection in the green liquid. Maybe it was time.. Maybe he would come back to me later in the day. Maybe the blob's skin proved too hard to penetrate! Yes! That must be it! But.. why was he that aggressive to his original superior!? What inserted those awful thoughts and actions to his head! Twitch was a great king.. Must be side effects.. It had to be side effects! This was originally meant to target my own rats after all, NOT SENTIENT BLOBS, yet.. it should've worked.. It should've worked!
I reach my clawed hands to my neck, feeling the pressure on top of it as it was before. So much strength.. So much.. audacity! I.. I can barely breathe as I imagine the pain and anguish as my own subject tries to exterminate me. I couldn't breathe. Only puffs of air comes out. Puff. Puff. Puff. Puff.
I let go of my neck, gasping for air. I look back at the potion that may have caused my demise. "You.." I shout at the green reflection staring back at me. "It was YOUR job to make them see me as the sewer king I AM! The sewer king Twitch is!! They're supposed to like me.. I.. I saved one of them! I gave them the gift of sentience! They should be mine.. and now they might as well be dead! The surface isn't kind.." I look into the cauldron again as it begins to boil underneath the green lantern. I huff and puff.. Breathing in and out.. The sewer king can fix this. The sewer king can get everything that was his back..
The intoxicating toxins hit my nose. I take the potion's call. I sniff and sniff and sniff and sniff to decipher what could be missing. My rapid, excited hands grab at everything, potions, sludge, larvae, everything that could be the piece to the grand puzzle of THE future! MY future! The stench begins to converge to something harmonious, something grand, something perfect! It was fixed, done, ready!
I scour the walls through every crack and cranny, digging my claws to seep all of the roach men out before I could find him.
"YOU!" I shout at him. Time was of the essence. "You told me that there were 4 possibilities.. 1 of them worked! You must tell me the others.. TELL ME NOW!" The hand squeezes violently as he merely squeak the answers I ask. "Of course..." I mutter. I grab my crossbow and scramble out to find him. I hear the grumbling of the machines as I go closer and closer to the surface, an area where the people command their metal slaves to build on top of tombs. This wasn't the place for my subjects.. Surface was never good for anyone.. They need me...
