Aurgerian Calendar
12th of the 15th Month, Year 4791
Time 21:47
In what appeared to be an abandoned two-story building, a dim light flickered in the basement.
A man sat hunched in front of three glowing screens. He looked ancient—so fragile that a single gust of wind might reduce him to ash. The right side of his face was marred by a yellowing patch, something dark and unidentifiable leaking from beneath it. He wore a faded red tunic stitched with yellow thread, paired with torn brown khaki pants—though calling them "clothes" was generous. They were more like rags.
His back was bent, and he could only stand upright with the aid of a splintered wooden stick, which looked like it might break at any moment.
The basement around him reflected his condition—filthy, decaying, forgotten. Trash lay scattered across the floor: broken tubes, discarded syringes, and cracked glass bottles filled with foul-smelling liquids. A table lay overturned beside a cluster of old, dusty monitors. But amidst the chaos, one object dominated the room.
At its center stood a large glass container, connected by a web of plastic-fiber tubes. Fluids of various colors flowed steadily into the tank—most notably streams of red, blue, and green.
Inside that glass chamber floated a child.
The child stared directly at the old man, expressionless. His eyes held no fear, no curiosity—only awareness. Deep, unsettling awareness.
His eyes were mismatched in color—one red, the other green. But more bizarre were the pupils. Each eye held two pupils, joined at their ends, forming a shape eerily reminiscent of an infinity symbol: ♾️.
Apart from his eyes, the boy looked normal. At least, he would appear normal—if one didn't look closely.
He had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot. Not in the malformed way of an extra thumb, but as if evolution had granted him an additional, fully functional digit. Each finger and toe moved independently, with coordinated precision, suggesting total control.
He floated in that chamber, silent, watching. He understood. He knew he was being observed. He knew he was being contained.
As the old man continued to stare at the three glowing monitors, lost in whatever calculations or surveillance they displayed, he remained unaware of a second presence in the room—someone who had entered silently just minutes ago.
The child in the glass container, however, was not so unaware.
He had sensed the new presence immediately.
This figure was dressed entirely in black. Not an inch of skin was visible—no facial features, no identifying marks, nothing. But even through the obscuring outfit, the child could deduce certain things. The newcomer was tall, towering at nearly 6'9", and powerfully built. His movements were smooth, silent, and measured—lethal in their precision. And though he made no noise, the child followed his every step.
The figure stood still in the shadows for nearly five minutes, silently observing the hunched old man.
Then, without warning or sound, he stepped forward and gripped the old man's head from behind. In a swift, brutal motion, he twisted it a full 360 degrees. There was a sickening crack. The man's body dropped to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.
As the corpse collapsed, three more figures entered the room through the main door.
The first of the three resembled the black-clad killer in attire, though he was noticeably shorter—about 6'1"—with an average build. He moved cautiously, his eyes scanning the room. The two who followed him looked nearly identical to the first, though they were even shorter, standing at approximately 5'11".
All four men were now in the room.
Inside the tank, the child watched. Silently. Intently.
But then something disturbing happened.
The child began to move—his hands rising slowly within the viscous liquid of the chamber. His fingers twisted and turned in the exact motion the black-clad man had used to kill the old man. Every rotation, every angle, every ounce of imagined force was perfectly mimicked. The imitation was flawless. Not exaggerated. Not clumsy. A perfect 1:1 replication.
The room fell into a stunned silence.
The first man who had entered through the door—the one called Guso—was the first to speak, voice rising in shock.
"Hey… look at that child—thing? He's imitating you!! What the fuck!? He's doing it exactly—exactly! Not even a hint of difference! What is that!?"
One of the men behind him stepped forward and hissed in a warning tone.
"Quiet down, Guso! We don't want to alert anyone in the vicinity. Not even local security. And that… that isn't a human child. Look at his hands—six fingers on each. Same with his feet."
Then the largest of the four—the silent killer whose eyes now glowed faintly beneath his hood—spoke in a deep, rumbling voice.
"It's a homunculus. An artificial human… more or less. He was created with the blood of the Patriarch and Matriarch."
He paused for a moment, his gaze locked with the child's unsettling stare.
"And he has more than just human blood in him. I can't identify most of it—but I recognize the essence of the Red Dragon Emperor... and the Green Dragon Empress."
Guso stared at the towering man, eyes wide with disbelief. His voice, though quieter now, trembled with unease.
"Are you sure, August?" he asked, his gaze flicking between the child and the man beside him. "Are you absolutely sure it's not some other creature we're unaware of?"
He took a step closer to the glass chamber, as if seeing the child again might offer a different answer.
"The research on homunculi was abandoned nearly seven centuries ago," he continued. "It was deemed too inhumane—monstrous, even. These things were made and discarded like broken tools. They couldn't function as real humans… they weren't meant to. And now you're saying this old man—this crumbling relic of a person—not only perfected the technique, but improved it?"
Guso's voice tightened, almost accusingly now.
"That thing imitated you. Precisely. Instantly. No delay. No hesitation. That's not just mimicry—that's cognition. And the only features that even remotely make it look human are its body shape... though even that's up for debate. Look at those eyes. Look at its hands—its feet. What the hell is that, August?"
Inside the chamber, the child remained still—at least on the outside. But within, his mind stirred rapidly.
The voices around him—strange at first—had become clearer by the second. The vibrations, the rhythm, the tonal shifts. At first, they were nothing more than noise. But his brain, like a machine fine-tuned for survival, adapted almost immediately. He didn't just hear the sounds—they were patterns, and patterns could be understood. Mapped. Replicated. Absorbed.
Words.
Are you sure, August?
Homunculus.
Patriarch. Matriarch.
Improved.
Meanings snapped into place, one after another, like puzzle pieces finding their fit. The old man had once spoken, but rarely—and never with others. There hadn't been a dialogue to study. But now, these four new presences were giving him more than sound—they were giving him context.
Language. He understood it now.
He knew what they were talking about.
They were afraid. Of him.
They spoke of his hands, his eyes, his feet—as if they were abnormalities. But to him, they were simply... parts. Pieces of himself. He had never thought of them as wrong. Only different.
They called him a "homunculus." The word settled in his mind like a seed. He understood now—it meant artificial, unnatural, a being not born but built. Shaped. Crafted. Like a tool.
But he didn't feel like a tool.
He felt.
The child turned his eyes slowly toward the one they called August—the tall one, the strong one. The killer. His mind replayed the motion: the twist of the neck, the angle, the torque. He had mimicked it perfectly. His muscles, even in the fluid, had obeyed.
Because they were learning too.
Every part of him was evolving.
He wasn't just watching anymore.
He was understanding.
And for the first time in his short, manufactured life, he began to think—not as an experiment, but as a being.