Third Operation: Eyes, Part 2
"Are you okay, Cal? You look like you've seen monsters or something," asked Hemel when he entered the dormitory. His colleague, Calium, was laying in his bed with a pale, almost ghostly look imprinted on his face. His metallic eyes stared into the ceiling as if pulled by the depths of an unfathomable abyss. Hemel slowly raised his eyes as well, finding absolutely nothing hanging from the chiseled stone. His gaze returned to his friend. "Come on, get up already," he said, snapping his fingers, "you're gonna be late to Advanced Alchemy." Calium blinked slowly, raising himself on his elbows. "I don't want to go," he mumbled. He promptly got slapped on the face by his roommate. "I don't care about that. What I do care about is Mrs. Jalya and how she will lecture me for not bringing you to her class." He helped the boy get up on his feet, then dragged him by hand out of the room and through the many corridors of the University.
"Seriously though, what's up with you?" asked Hemel again, sneaking a few whispers during the class. "Did you ask that crush of yours out?" He paused. "...Did she reject you?" Calium shook his head. "I can't explain it to you, man. But it's not about her." He felt his cheeks turn pink a little just from thinking about her. But that happy thought was not enough of a distraction for him. Neither was Hemel. Even now, his brain hurt from dizziness as the transplanted pair of semi-mechanical eyes kept bombarding his visual cortex. His body adapted them into his system already, thanks to his unique trait. The problem was with his eyes. They were too good, they could see too much.
He looked at Hemel again, gazing in a general direction, trying not to focus on anything. With a silent vibration, the artifacts reconfigured their internal structure, blurring the shapes of the students together while highlighting the flow of mana inside them. The boy blinked a few times, allowing his eyes to return to normal. It would be a while until he would figure out how to use this power; for now, just seeing, watching, looking around - things that his body did subconsciously - took too much mental effort to do. Calium closed his eyes and laid his head on the wooden table as Mrs. Jalya continued her lesson, feeling her words flow around him, hoping to get a bit of sleep before the end of the class. His thoughts drifted towards Elder Ohari, his experiments, their agreement... He wondered if all of this would one day be worth it.
"I call it accelerated evolution," the old teacher had said, but Calium had suspected that the Elder did not show him the full picture. The old man reinforced his fingeres with an antimana alloy; he had altered his internal organs so that he could survive off mana alone, without need for food or water; his lungs were altered with traits from who-knows-what species of bat that can live near vulcanic fumes, allowing his body to filter toxins from the air. The only parts of his body left to be altered by the Elder were his skin and blood. "You'll be able to adapt to any temperature using your internal mana reserve." "You will be immune to all known toxins, poisons and venoms." "If I can solve these remaining array parts and reverse the process, I might be able to give you camouflaging skin." The words of Ohari echoed inside him - that, and that growing realisation he wanted to deny, to ignore. The diet, the harsh training, the operations... they were all empowering his body, turning it into a weapon. He was slowly becoming something unrecognizable, unacceptable. A warrior capable of overcoming any obstacle, no matter the terrain, weather or resources. With his eyes now gone, his soul felt trapped inside as the body morphed into a nightmarish being. A monster like those who took his family away, like those who murdered his friends and burned his village smiling.
And he had agreed to it.
Comments