Chapter VII – Buhraies Research

Another long day for Harry was passing by. Which weekday? He didn’t know. Which month? He didn’t know either—not even where he was. Well, he was standing in the middle of an awfully familiar basement belonging to a place he had to call home—but! Concerning the four kingdoms’ world map, he might as well be in the middle of buttfuck nowhere. Harry’s fresh memories of being chained up to the wall still lingered in his brain—perhaps the open shackle and chains still hanging in the wall across him had something to do with it. With a slight squirm, Harry focused on crafting nari gels instead as he heard footsteps coming down the stairs behind him. Don’t fuck it up! We’re on a good streak here! He stated clearly to himself, finishing packing another macabre-looking concoction from a large mixing bowl into a nari gel, then corking it. Next, he grabbed a winga feather, dipped it in a bright red liquid, which looked more red and vivid than blood, and started to write horizontally in the cork Moist Breath, then underneath it, ALT #4.

Eori stood directly by him, nearly shoving him out of the way as she looked into the mixing bowl, then to the already prepped nari gels neatly packed into a box to the left of it. She took a large bite of her sandwich, then shoved the leftovers into Harry’s face. “Tickly Skin all packed up?”

“Yes, scientist Eo—” Harry couldn’t finish his sentence as the leftovers were shoved into his mouth. The tantalizing smell of the meaty sandwich was very familiar. The combination of leafy greens contrasting the spiciness and saltiness of a nice chunk of meat loaded inside was reminiscent of some good memories, bringing him back to the Sanbi castle kitchen. A fleeting sense of exploration and freedom seemed to be the condiments of this sandwich, adding a bittersweet to it.

Eori wiped her hand on his arm, grabbing one of the crafted nari gels from the box atop the table. She pulled the cork open with ease, not making the expected popping sound. “You’re fucking it up!” She placed the cork back on the nari gel glass and rested it on the table. Slamming her hand on the cork with a sudden fury, driving it deep into the oval-shaped glass. She picked it up and grunted to open the nari gel, making a loud popping sound and shoving the nari gel in Harry’s face.

“Sorry, scientist Eori.” Harry carefully picked up the nari gel from her hand. The shackles in his hand were annoying as they got in the way of slamming down the glass. He also lacked the same fury Eori had, so instead of slamming down his hand on the cork, he rested the nari gel on the table and put his weight on it—his palm and wrists pained at having so much weight pushed against this small cork.

Eori popped it open with a slight flinch of her face. “Push it down further.” She laid the open nari gel and cork back on the same table and wiped her hands on Harry’s boxers. Walking over to her writing desk, she plopped her butt on the seat, opened a journal, grabbed a feather, and wrote away.

At least she didn’t slap me this time. Harry put everything he could into corking the nari gel, making his wrist develop a dull pain deep inside as he felt a vibration from the cork wedging deeper into the nari gel glass. Placing the finished product into the wooden box to his left, he noticed all the nari gel re-corking he needed to do. A small but audible sigh came out of him, but then he caught himself and immediately looked at Eori with such intensity and tension through his whole body, one would think he had been caught masturbating in public.

Eori continued writing away with her back turned to him, perhaps too busy to hear the sigh. She then played with her long purple hair as she seemed lost in thought. Not even the sounds of trotting and a wooden wagon forcing its way through dirt and grass softly rustling in the background seemed to get her attention.

A wave of relief struck Harry as he ignored his wrists aching and growing tender as he pressed his weight on each corked nari gel. Is that coming over here? He was squinting his blurry eyes towards Eori, but she seemed to not give a shit about it. A tenacious feeling within him bubbled up, wanting to rush upstairs to see who or what that was—like that feeling you get when you suddenly have explosive diarrhea and feel that innate urge to get up and attend to it. However, that feeling was quickly suppressed by imagining what Eori would do if he were to break away from his assignment.

The sounds of trotting coming to a stop close to the house grew louder, followed by what had to be an egua’s loud neigh, perhaps saying hi.

Harry massaged his aching wrists, continuing to press down on the nari gels with all his fleeting might.

A single loud bang that sounded like someone was using a battering ram against the door echoed through the house, then silence, and then two additional loud bangs echoed.

“I’M COMING!” Eori screamed at the top of her lungs, stomping her way to the stairs. Pausing, she pointed at the two boxes tightly filled with nari gels resting on the floor. “Fuck! Did you check these already?”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Harry raised his shackled hands, looking away from Eori’s open stare. “I’m checking the ones on the table.” He pointed to the wooden box, about three quarts full of nari.

“THEN CHECK IT RIGHT NOW!” Eori grabbed the box off the table with a swipe of her arms and continued stomping her way up the stairs. “And don’t you fucking dare come up!”

His wrists still ached, but daring to get on Eori’s shit list made him rush towards the boxes on the floor and frantically push the corks down. He heard his own heart pounding in his ear as noises of rattling glasses and metal chains rustling around filled the room. His shallow breaths, blurred eyes, and frenzied pace made him slip, hitting his fingers on the side of one of the rough wooden boxes and scratching his skin deeply with splinters. Fuck! Fuck! He tried to contain the blood droplets falling from his hand as the annoying pain flared up, but it was to no avail, for closing the nari gels came first. Sweat ran down his forehead while blood dripped down his tender, warm hands. He felt like he was playing a timed mission but didn’t even know how much time there was left—and he couldn’t retry it either.

Meanwhile, the sounds of a door opening and interactions between a familiar-sounding scientific girl and a guy mumbling echoed down the stairs, followed by sounds of boxes plopping into the floor and being dragged around.

Leaning back, Harry sat on the ground and kept taking shallow breaths as his hands throbbed in dull ache, still bleeding out. His wrists felt like they were shattered, but a sense of accomplishment rushed higher than the fear of being beaten to a pulp. Wait! Shit! Blood droplets were all over the finished products, wooden box, and ground. Jumping up, Harry rushed to the cabinets built into the stairs, grabbing hand towels and wiping away as much as possible.

“What the fuck did you do?” Eori came down the stairs, her furrowed brow and eyes staring daggers, seeming to be evaluating the situation and analyzing possible heavy-handed punishments. “So you finished checking?”

Still trying to wipe the blood away but only making it stain the corks even more, Harry’s eyes began to tear up on their own. A feeling of a certain doomed future was quickly looming on the horizon, failing his time mission, making him try to recork the nari gels more aggressively. At the same time, his hands kept bleeding even more as the cuts kept widening from the splinters. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“Fucking stop!” Eori shoved Harry to the side and picked one of the stained boxes with all her might, making a girly grunt as she bore the brunt of it. Her wobbly legs went up the stairs one at a time. “FUCK ME!” She stopped midway, catching her breath. “Bring the other—to the top—of the stairs!” She gave another girly grunt, her legs wobbling more than ever.

“Yes! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Harry grunted, picking up the box with bloodied hand towels. His wrists now gave off a burning pain while his hands kept bleeding. His lower back felt like it would pop off at any moment as he rushed up the stairs. His bare feet kept stepping on droplets of his warm blood, but he somehow didn’t slip on it. His heart pounded heavily on his chest, telling every muscle in his body not to fucking dare give out now, or the consequences would be drastic.

“Give it to me!” Eori said from the top of the stairs, wiping the sweat off her face, then shuffling away her long purple hair.

Harry, about two-thirds upstairs, grunted even more as he picked up his pace amidst heavy pants that looked like he was about to have a heart attack. He could feel the strain hurting his head, making stars appear in his vision.

“Go back down!” As she grabbed the box out of Harry’s hands, her wobbly legs once again made their way out of the door into the outside, where she dropped the box on the grass, seemingly waiting for someone.

Meanwhile, Harry felt like he was fluctuating. His balance was off, and he was grabbing himself onto the handrails as his body grew limp. He looked forward to the bright scenery just a few steps before him. His vision was still a blurry mess, but he could tell a girl in purple hair and blue pajamas was standing outside on what had to be a pleasant summer day, with lots of greens rustling in the wind. Contrasting all the green scenery, there was a simple-looking wagon and someone walking from that to meet Eori carrying a box. That someone, looking almost double the size of the purple-haired girl, was in heavy yellowish armor containing pointy spikes coming out of it—as if he were a cheval-de-frise in the shape of a human. Ow no! Harry held a hand over his tight chest, already feeling the pain of one of the massive spikes of that armor impaling him for the sake of science. He stepped back, feeling that humanoid thing looking towards him, carrying a box like a feather.

“What the fuck are you waiting for?” Eori cursed loudly at Harry, shooing him away as she stomped towards the door.

“I’m sorry!” Harry looked down and stepped backward downstairs, holding himself on the shoddy thin handrail.

“Is this all the material I requested?” Eori asked at the door, pushing the boxes inside the house with her feet.

Harry’s feet grew too curious, stopping him about midway in the stairs—just out of view. He could hear a guy talking back, but the rather muffled sounds from his armor made it nearly impossible to hear. However, one recognizable mumble seemed to have been deciphered by his brain. Neferteri?

“Yeah—yeah. Is that all?” Eori’s voice now echoed slightly from the outside, then after a muffled guy’s voice replied, she continued, “What are those?”

Harry could hear the guy’s armor clacking towards the inside of the house. He felt a sensation akin to drinking a gallon of coffee, but more like half-gallon or even less than that—it seemed to be missing the je ne sais quoi aspect of I have to do something about it exactly right now, or I will drop dead. Instead, his brain seemed to be acting logical for once, telling him to go downstairs slowly, trying to avoid making too much noise with his shackles as they rustled against the wooden stairs. His breath seemed to have stopped as he tried to avoid the creaky stairs, while his feet were hypersensitive to keeping a grip to counteract the moist blood staining the steps.

“Bye!” Eori’s straight voice echoed from upstairs, closing the door swiftly with a bang and locking it up. With rustling noises, her voice echoed from the living room above, “THE FUCK IS THIS?”

Arriving at the bottom of the stairs, Harry kept his ears primed as he returned to the table to clean his hands and remove the splinters before continuing crafting nari gels. What if I clean the stairs instead to get closer to see what she is doing? He looked at his blood stains staining the stairs, but he didn’t move towards it. But she told me not to come up there—

“FUCK ME! LUNY?” Eori cursed loudly, but her tone then became less coarse, turning into upbeat, oozing with scientific curiosity, “Owwwwwww!”

More experimentation today, then. Harry took a deep breath, his eyes growing moist with the sharp pinching pain as he pulled on the splinters jammed deep in his hand. His mind escaped the moment by running through his mental checklist of what he needed to do to clean or set up for Eori to experiment. A sudden cursed memory presented itself to the front of his memory; a butthole winking at him right before the feeling of having his face squished by a girly butt sprung up vividly in his memory. He tried to shoo it away, but something in the back of his head still kept chewing on.

But I was the one who told her about earthworm—culuim skin! Harry washed his hand on the skin, feeling the water burn his wounds. At the same time, a swirl of emotions came together to create a weirdly emotional cocktail. The indescribable taste was too odd for him to make heads or tails out of it. His face puckered as his lower lips wanted to quiver, but his eyes were not growing wet.

Harry’s face reddened as an estranged smile arose, now feeling a pronounced taste in his emotional cocktail as he wiped his hand clean and went back to crafting nari gels. The over-the-top rushing feeling of cumming what felt like an entire bucket was something he had never felt before, still lingering from that fucked-up experiment. It was carnal and kinda cruel, but it still teased him to no end, with her moans ringin in his ears as he felt a longing tickle in her privates. What if I did more to her? His mind council began suggesting what to do next time Eori performed that kind of experiment, with everyone agreeing it would be a matter of when it would happen. Do I really like all of this? Contrasting that taste was something on the dreadful side—like mixing sauerkraut and ice cream.

The feeling of being cramped and unable to move or breathe made his heart race—but not exactly in a good way. Closer to the racing feeling you get when you drink twice the usual amount of caffeine. Specifically, the agony of desperately trying to draw breath was sharply jabbing his brain, far more vivid than anything else Eori did to him—perhaps he was drinking too much of this emotional cocktail, getting lost in a spiral inside his own head. The same old tinnitus returned, noisier than before. He held himself forward, ready for the worst. He took deep breaths, trying to fill his lungs to maximum capacity, until something clicked. *Am I—*a specific word began to form on the tip of his tongue—cla—claustrophobic? Is this whole shitty feeling caused by that alone? Wait. That same old panicky feeling seemed to not come in at full throttle this time, or perhaps he started to grow accustomed to those bouts. Wait—what if I asked her not to suffocate me? His mouth wanted to say those words out loud, but they didn’t come out. No. There’s more to this! But what is it? This eerie feelie longed over his hectic brain.

What do I need to do? A faint idea of fleeing crossed his mind, but his mental council found the brain cells that cooked up that stupid idea and killed them off for thinking of something so stupidly dangerous.

Another long day for Harry was still passing by. He was in the basement, consuming weirdly experimental stuff, feeling all kinds of pains and sensations on the spectrum, from agonizing to addicting, some he never thought to exist. However, today something felt different. It wasn’t the fact that he had seen a terrifying-looking guy in spiked armor or that he saw the door open to the outside for the first time since he awakened in this house. Not even that he discovered he was claustrophobic or that he enjoyed cumming a bucket. None of that! What was really weird was that this girl with purple hair to his left was openly staring him down exceptionally enthusiastically after who knows how many experiments she had performed already. Wait—was that yesterday already? But—but I’ve been in the basement since we carried the boxes up—I think?

“C’mon!” Eori’s tremulous voice was even different from the usual straight-to-the-point. She looked like she still had way too much gas in the tank—like she shotgunned a can of energy drink laced with mixed amphetamine salts. With her free hand, she pulled on the cork bottling the flask of black honey in his hand, making a nice pop as she almost yanked it out of his hand instead. “Just drink it already!”

Meanwhile, Harry was completely out—if he even had anything on the tank, to begin with. His blurry eyes crossed paths with her vicious smile and scientific eyes filled with glint—like a girlfriend cheering her boyfriend as she watched him trying to win the final sportsball game, or maybe compelling him to fucking better win, or there would not be poontang waiting for him at home. He had seen a similar smile and glinting eyes countless times already, always contrasting whatever weird experiment he was about to go through, but this time it was terrifyingly morbid. A glimpse of the night she abused him came to his memory as he pictured the same vicious smile. Avoiding his gaze from that penetrating smile, he looked down at the flask in his hand, also seeing a normal-looking whitish skin of his hands holding it. Suddenly a memory popped into his brain: his human skin had recently turned into a thick greenish hide just like the Cruros he had seen on the day he dueled Maiara. The sensation of his own skin being in that state still lingered in his brain—the feeling was like wearing a skin-tight latex, but four times thicker than usual, plus feeling like he was being cooked from the inside out as he kept getting hotter and hotter. Next, it was a lingering feeling of something oozing out from every hole in his body. His brain now seemed vague on the details. He felt like he asked what it was, almost hearing her excited girly voice explaining it, but he just couldn’t seem to remember the words right now—perhaps this worn-out feeling was the culprit for his less-than-stellar memory.

Eori clacked a large hoof nipper in her hands. Its pointy edges were coated in blackish dust, with the overall size looking proper to trim human extremities. Her smile lessened, her tone seeming closer to the usual Princess Eori. “C’MON! Do I need to shove it down your throat again? I need to see how easier it will be to chop your fingers with the winga dust coating!”

With a deep and slow breath, Harry brought the flask towards his mouth; his hands trembled at the weight of it—what had to be, at most, a full cup’s worth of liquid seemed to weigh as heavy as two bowling balls. He could already taste its repugnantly sweet taste even though the flask wasn’t even close for him to smell it yet. He could also even feel the granular texture of this black slop coursing down his throat and its thickness nearly choking it, even though the flask wasn’t even in his mouth yet.

Eori’s smile waned away, seeing Harry slowly bringing the bottle to his mouth. “Just fucking finish it already! We have one last experiment to run!” With her free hand, she rammed the flask deep into Harry’s mouth, then shoved it upwards until the flask was straight up-down, dumping the black honey straight into Harry’s throat like it was a feeding tube.

With each swallow of this thick paste choking his throat, Harry could feel his stomach trying to revolt against the obscenely sweet flavor, but he no longer flinched, let alone gagged. His mind instead brought up the scenery he saw this morning—or something akin to it. He could see a blurry image of something yellowish and blackish about the size of a thumb, zipping around the vibrant green foliage, dancing with the flowers under the warm sunshine. Bee? He could feel his skin getting warmer, but it wasn’t because of his vivid imagination of the sun; instead, it was the rejuvenating feeling of the black honey becoming pure energy within his body. He felt alive and kicking again like he had just snorted cocaine and was ready to conquer the world if he wanted to! However, the feeling was fleeting and quickly crashed into an overall well-rested mood—still better than feeling like shit.

Eori pulled the mostly empty flask from Harry’s mouth and placed it aside. “Grab that bottle to your right and lay your fingers above it.” She clacked the metal tool in her hand towards the uncorked bluish bottle.

“Sorry—but—but I’m not drinking a nari gel this time?” Sitting up straight, Harry openmouthedly asked Eori, seeing a slight scientific shine still glinting off her eyes.

“Are you retarded? Do you fucking see a nari gel around you?” Eori clacked the hoof nippers in her hand again. “Have you ever seen me use this?”

“I’m sorry, scientist Eori.” The hoof nippers clacking towards Harry looked like a dog barking, about to bite a chomp off him. “Can—can I ask what we’re doing?”

Eori laughed in a girly manner, restoring the same vicious smile. She shuffled her hair out of her face, speaking in an upbeat scientific tone, “I’m chopping a couple of your fingers to figure out where you’re from!”

To figure out where you’re from! Eori’s words echoed in Harry’s head. His mouth moved to speak something, but nothing formulated in his mind immediately—she truly had blinded him with science. Rather, random memories flashed by, from when Eiri promised she would help him figure out where he was from to when he was a kid having dinner with his parents. “Home!” A bubbly feeling arose within Harry, smiling as he grabbed the bluish bottle and laid it below his right fingers, all extended towards Eori. His heart fluttered at what was going to happen.

Eori prepped the hoof nipper against Harry’s right index finger and used all her strength in a fell swoop. A distinctive sound of a bone buckling and cracking went off—close to when a drumstick is torn off from a raw chicken—and a limp finger plopped into the bluish liquid below.

Harry felt a stabbing shock rushing from the stump, going through his arm and up his shoulder. “Argh!” He strained his voice, feeling a burning sensation envelop the area as the blood oozed from the wound with each heart pulse, staining the bluish liquid below, his hand, boxers, and even the floor below. His hand was shaking on its own as the pain wasn’t going away.

Eori made the nipper tool move towards Harry’s middle finger. “STOP MOVING!”

“So—argh!” Harry’s index finger flopped down, held by the skin and some muscles still hanging it in place, refusing to let it dive into the bloodied jar below. A sharp bone stub was also protruding—giving it a bony middle finger look that is undoubtedly in a random metal band album cover.

“SEE? I fucking told you!” Eori clipped the leftover muscles, making the floppy finger dive into the same jar. “Next one!”

Nodding as he groaned amidst a teary eye, Harry’s right hand began to shake uncontrollably. Holding the finger jar between his thighs, he used his left hand to hold his rebellious right hand in place, presenting his mortified right ring finger as tribute.

With a good chomp, Eori made a clean cut with her tool, making it plop in the bloody jelly-like water as well. “Good! Now that’s enough blood in the jar! Just the fingers now!”

Harry felt the warm blood continually pulsating from the three stumps in his right hand, sending a wave of blood with each heartbeat that would fill close to a shot glass with each pulse. The warm sensation mixed with a weird numbness felt like his fingers were still there and that he could even move them around, but that’s not what his eyes were seeing. Another sharp pain rocked his arm as his pinkie plopped into the side of the jar, then on his bloodied boxers, and finally bounced on the ground below. He tried to catch it, but his delayed reaction was not even close; his senses were growing dull while a lightheaded feeling crept on.

Eori let out a sigh, “Fuck! We will need to cut that one again later. Show me your other hand.”

“A-aren’t you going to cut my thumb?” With a slight slurring speech, Harry showed the last finger in his hand—it looked lonely, wanting to jump in the bloody pool with its buddies.

“Too thick,” Eori snappily replied.

Growing paler by the minute, Harry tried his best to do as Eori kept asking. With each jolt of shocking stabbing pain, the lightheaded feeling grew intense, making even sitting up straight hard. With only his thumbs remaining, he couldn’t even pick up the bloodied jar of fingers still resting between his thighs.

Placing the hoof nipper aside, Eori grabbed the bloody jar and brought it up to close view, checking out their buoyancy in the jelly, “Never mind on the pinkie.” She placed it by her nippers, cleaned her hand on Harry, grabbed a Body Restore sigil ring, and began feeding the spell.

Looking at the magical spectacle happening on Eori’s hand and forearms, Harry instead squinted his eyes around the room, looking for bluish nari gel*.* “Can—can I ask why—you’re not using Nari—Refresher?” His was still slurry as it grew softer and quieter, developing a lisp of sorts as his eyes grew as lifeless as before he drank the black honey.

With the fingers of her right hand clenched and her palm exposed, Eori touched the palm on Harry’s bare chest and unclenched her fingers. The rings of white flame containing three balls of red double-helices spinning around rushed through the palm and into his body. “Matter of efficiency. Nari Refresher is more efficient as an antidote for other nari gels than a healing agent.”

“Ahhhhh—” Harry softly spoke under his breath, now looking at his primarily fingerless hands growing swollen, hot, and itchy. The broken bones began healing themselves, expanding outwards first, lending structural support for the growing muscle, veins, tendons, fat, skin, and finally, body hair to be reborn. The immeasurable itching feeling coming from his hands made him want to get his hand stubs and rub them against the table—his pained expression and tensed-up posture, as his hands trembled, looked as if he was on the verge of actually doing that.

Eori wiped the excess blood from the jar of fingers with a towel, then walked towards the stairs. “Clean this up, and go take a bath.” She flashed the jar as she climbed upstairs. “Then come to the kitchen!”

Kitchen? Harry’s eyes followed Eori and her girly pajamas disappearing upstairs. How does that even have to do with anything? Sighing, he interlocked his fingers, feeling them tenderly rub against one another, appearing as if Eori had never chomped them off—that is, if you ignored all the blood.

A bloody metallic smell oozing around Harry was now so familiar that his nose seemed to ignore it outright. Although, the pool of blood on the floor did bring him back to when he awakened in the smelly room of the Sanbi castle’s southwest tower. His memory was still vivid enough to remember the smell of the bagarisa musk stench in that room. If only I hadn’t woken up that day—but then where would I even be?

Harry sat in front of a fireplace roaring in flames in a kitchen that was growing familiar to him. He felt the warmth coming from it as he watched a glass container with nari gel inching closer to boiling, striking sparks of light like flint and steel within it as three fingers danced slowly in the gel. Putting up his own fingers in view to contrast the ones in the boiling jar, he felt an uncanny similarity between them. Am I boiling my fingers now? He looked at the jar where he pulled it from, seeing other familiar-looking fingers. Although, there only was a label with F3 written on it, so he couldn’t say for sure. So all of this is to tell where I am from by looking and comparing these weird flames from the boiled fingers? He looked at Eori, looking lost in her meticulous note-taking over several test tubes. Will I piss her off if I ask more about it? Maybe when I finish this last one?

“Is it ready yet?” Eori asked, carefully analyzing the twenty-two test tubes laid out horizontally on the table before her. Each one of them was uniquely identified by a letter and a number combo, and they all had the same whitish with bluish accented fire spread out inside them. Each fire behaved slightly differently, combining uniquely shaped spectrums that shared some similarities, creating rough clusters of similar-looking tubes. In her journal, she was drawing out the spectrums, circling the peaks and valleys that most looked similar to each other, and taking notes with careful diligence in her eyes only seen in a true scientist dedicated to uncovering the mystery that keeps the world ticking—or more likely in her case, dedicated to getting famous and getting paid a lot to squish her butt on his face all day, every day.

Harry looked back at the jar atop the fire. The nari gel was now boiling heavily, letting out an oily smell with a mildewy and earthy finish—akin to the stench of cockroaches being burned in a fire. Turning his nose away from it, he noticed more white fire sparks striking around the gel, with more of them around the fleshy fingers, suddenly developing into a whitish with blue accents fire that consumed them whole, turning them all into a fire blob that sank towards the bottom of the jar. He used his wooden tongs to slowly pour the excess sparkling nari gel into the fire. This is just so weird! The gel dripping from the glass immediately blew into a ghastly white fire when it touched the burning logs below. Even worse, it began traveling upwards through it as well, instantly converting to the same ghastly fire, quickly growing uncontrollably—exactly like pouring gasoline over a fire. Oh shit! Harry stopped pouring almost the same time the white fire was about to reach the glass. That was close! Ow fuck! He felt a gaze towards him.

“I told you not to fuck it up!” Eori glanced from the side of her eyes back at him, then at the ghastly white fire in the fireplace dying down. “Or I will chop it off!” Eori kept studying the test tubes; coincidentally, a sharp sword rested nearby, just waiting to taste blood. Perhaps it was for show, but she had already proved herself to be the utilitarian type, so if she picked up that sword, it was game over.

Please, not the sword. Feeling his hands starting to tremble as he imagined the sword slicing him apart like butter, Harry tried to calm his heart as he continued to pour out the excess nari gel in waves, making sure the white flames didn’t get into the glass and that he didn’t pour out the whitish–bluish glob resting in the bottom. He then popped the cork of a test tube resting on the ground near the fireplace and carefully dumped the glob—it slid and plopped into the tube clump-like, quite close to an egg yolk. With a sizeable relieving breath as he felt his shoulder relax, he corked the test tube and put away the glass and tongs. This is still really weird! His hand hesitated at first, but then he went for it and grabbed the test tube with his bare hands. It’s not even warm! He stood up and rustled his chains as he walked over to Eori.

Eori clutched it from his hands, even holding the bottom section containing the flame like it were nothing. She shook the fire around, observing its yolk-like behavior, then laid it horizontally in the grid of test tubes in front of her, placing it above the F3 label.

Harry stood by her side, squinting his eyes hard to look at these test tubes, all holding a whitish–bluish fire that, in his mind, each seemed like an audio spectrum. Where did I see that before? Wasn’t that like green with red instead? Yeah! My PC had one! But—wait—there’s no music playing, and they’re not moving about! Wait—what am I even thinking about? What even is a computer? With this weird feeling bubbling up inside him, Harry finally let out what was itching in the back of his head. “S-scientist Eori—may I ask what that was? It kinda—looked like the—ahh—Darfaries interface.”

Still writing away in her journal, Eori interjected tautly, “Be fucking specific!” She shook her head in disapproval.

“I am sorry.” Harry stood back, hanging his head slightly. “I meant to ask—what—what is the difference between the flame in the test tube and—and the pure white flame—you warned me about?”

With a quiet hum, Eori rustled the back of the winga feather in her chin as the words seemed to gather in her head. “From Gabiro’s research, that white flame was raw soul fire. If it touched you, it would spread through your body until you were soul dead.”

Pure stupefaction ran through Harry’s body, realizing the would-be danger. The hairs on his skin bumped as the word dead triggered his imagination of the ghastly white fire consuming him whole, making him scream at the fire burning him, except—but the fire doesn’t burn? Harry looked back at the fireplace, where an actual red-hot fire was warming up the room. “But—it doesn’t burn, so how does it kill? May—I ask what it means to be—soul dead?”

“Just go fucking read his book!” She nodded to her left, towards a brownish book with golden décor, which had seen better days, lying on top of a heavy-looking boxy contraption.

Harry walked towards the book, squinting his eyes, seeing that it looked ready to fall apart, with some letters missing from its title. G--iro Sund-ath Sc-entist. A d--per d--e in-- Buhr---s soul anal--is. He slowly opened the book cover, only to feel his heartbeat skip when he saw and heard the bindings tearing off.

Afixating her attention on the F3 test tube and seemingly using her entire brain to compare it against the other tubes thoroughly, Eori didn’t seem to notice the noise.

Reading through the yellowed pages, Harry squinted his eyes hard to capture every detail possible.

Buhraies were the masters of the soul. The hypothesis that they cloned someone by splitting their soul in half is not a bedtime story for youngling scientists! It’s a fact! Despite the lack of history-keeping on their part, I fervently believed so and researched for proof as to how such a marvel of science was achieved. The intrinsic details as to how the soul splitting occurs are still a mystery. Still, I discovered that Buhraies also performed the reverse process to create life from two or more sources. In other words, the core process of how they extended their lifespan and augmented existing specimens with new traits.

Harry flipped a page; a book by the so-called scientist Gabiro that brought him alive was finally in his hands, giving him a sense of connection—kinda fleeting, but still a sensation nonetheless.

That process will be the focus of a future book. As to how they created outright new specimens such as Bruntos and Naked Bruntos, that is a matter of tapping into what they refer to as the soul realm by using donor flesh to bind souls—as in also using the soul merging process, as I now refer to it. For the rookie scientists who question themselves, how did Buhraies reach such a level of dominance over the soul in the first place? The standard framework of soul analysis in which I was able to repro—

Suddenly Eori’s eyes widened as a pronounced glimmer made her eyes shine so much, they were nearly luminous. “NO FUCKING WAY!” With an ear-to-ear gleeful smile turning vicious, she stared openly at Harry.

“S-s-sorry?” A single word fumbled out of Harry’s mouth as she yanked the old book from his hand, ripping the bindings and leaving a hanging, torn-apart piece of the cover in his hands.

Eori flipped quickly through its pages, seemingly ignoring the pages falling apart and literal dust coming out of them. She tore off specific old yellow papers filled with hastily drawn test-tube drawings and compared them with the ones on the table and her journal notes. Her head bobbing and developing girly maniac laughter slipping through her mouth appeared as if she had just had an epiphany about the solution behind the unifying theory of everything.

This sinking feeling started to grip Harry’s heart; an ominous sense of the incoming truth began resonating inside him as he kept seeing Eori’s cracked-out behavior.

“It’s true! I can’t fucking believe it! Gabiro actually did it!” Eori grabbed and shoved Harry’s head towards the F3 test tube. “Look at it!” With a higher-pitched silvery tone, she spoke loudly in his ear as she pointed at it. “What do you see?”

With his face lit up by the plethora of test tubes right in front of him, his blurry eyes glanced around aimlessly, just seeing a daze of luminous bluish fire laid out in a grid.

With a girly laugh, Eori spoke in his ear, “You’re from nowhere! Nobody knows you! And you have nobody!” She wet her lips while her hand rubbed against his back, going down to give his flat butt a squish. “Which means nobody is going to bother us! You’re all mine to have fun with!”

Frozen in time and space, her words felt like a deep stab in Harry’s chest, far worse than anything else she had actually stabbed him with. His flesh was still intact, but his soul felt like it was succumbing to poison. No words came out of his mouth nor through his mind. Darkness within him began to bubble up, filling his chest with this unpleasant longing for his parents or anything that would remind him of himself. That feeling grew more intense as he felt he never had a chance to say goodbye. The sensation was akin to hanging out with a close friend without knowing that was the last time you would see them. A forced goodbye, with his corrupted memories being the final remaining proof they ever existed. His eyes grew moist, then began tearing up as he looked at the F3 test tube—it didn’t say his name, but he felt a connection to it. Harry’s shoulder and head slumped forward as tears fell into the hard ground below.

The viciousness of Eori’s smile waned. With a short sigh, she walked away, grabbing her journal, “This has and will be your home, so clean it up!” She disappeared towards the stairs, but her voice echoed loudly from there. “Figure out dinner too!” She exclaimed as she ruffled her hair; then a few words monotonically echoed from the stairs to the basement. “I fucking hate cooking.” She once again sounded closer to Princess Eori.

Tears kept pouring from Harry’s eyes. His mind kept remembering everything that happened so far, trying to find a way out—none came to his mind. He looked at the open window. His blurry eyes faced the summer forests right outside; he could also smell the fresh summer breeze. He saw himself climbing onto the heavy, boxy contraption that looked like a chest freezer, jumping out of the window above it, and running with all his might, but contrasting that was the thought of Eori chasing him down with a crossbow and firing a bolt on his trachea. He looked at his chained feet, then shuffled his head, trying to kill the invasive thought.

His mind seemed to change gears, noticing a bloodthirsty sword Eori had left behind. The imagery of grabbing it and plunging it into his own chest to end it all came to mind—except, Eori would just revive him again. Harry grabbed the sword, feeling its bearable sturdy weight and seeing his tired, feeble reflection in its sharp steel blade. Suddenly an eerie, dark feeling arose within him; it was of him rushing towards Eori, swinging the word at her just like Maiara swung her hammer towards him, slicing up her body like fajita steaks. This murderous feeling kept growing as he kept seeing a reflection of himself sniffing and sobbing on the blade like the pathetic loser that he was.

But then, the vivid memory of dying at Maiara’s hand, or more accurately, her feet as it came flying towards his neck, stirred doubt in his brain. It was also futile trying to escape Eori as she hunted him down in the dark woods of buttfuck nowhere after that old man had left him behind. It’s useless—it’s all useless. My old life must have sucked, and now this too. His hands grew weaker, dropping the sword, letting it clack on the ground. There’s nothing I can do anymore. I have no fucking idea where I am, and I don’t have anyone. A fleeting memory brought Eiri’s face to mind as he wiped the tears away with his hairy forearm. You fucked with me too! You all did!

This has and will be your home, so clean it up! Her voice echoed in Harry’s head like the voice of a superior being. I guess I don’t have a choice—I guess I didn’t have any choice, to begin with. Harry sighed, picking up the sword and placing it back where he found it.