Regarding Hero in the corner with a sweet smile, Villain held out a hand- an offering, if Hero would take it. The poor sap was too busy wielding a knife to reach for aid.
“Darling, I know how intimidating it is to awaken in an unknown place, but do you really think I would bring you here and simply leave you a useful weapon to fend me off with?” Villain nodded at the knife which Hero held clutched to her chest. “It is a decorative knife- goes with my decorative plates. I am sure you saw those platters as well?”
Hero swallowed, then nodded- if only to avoid possible harm. Who knew if this person would hurt her or not when they didn’t even have the decency to tell Hero their name first? They must have been a part of the agency.
“That blade will not hurt me, no matter how deeply you push it.” They kept their hand held out. “I will not stand here forever.”
Then don’t, Hero thought, and let me go. Or at least explain why in the world she was here, huddled beneath a kitchen counter, holding a useless knife as a weapon. Wait- “A knife is a knife.” Shaking breath, shaking hands, shaking legs, shaking everything. “Why wouldn’t this knife hurt you?”
“No blade can, even if it pierces my heart.”
“And your brain?” Hero wasn’t brave enough to attempt either body part, but still, it was nice to know...as if she would ever tell anyone else how to kill another person.
Villain released a small chuckle before withdrawing their hand. “Not that either. Believe me, I have tried.”
Believe me, I have tried. “You’re the one in the hidden file,” Hero whispered. One image after another came to mind, then, of that dusty flash drive, of the moment she plugged it into her laptop, of the singular folder that appeared, of opening every one of those files. The person in front of Hero now seemed very familiar, and also very helpless. She dropped the knife. “What they did to you...”
Day 1: Subject 000 possesses nearly all human qualities. While some of our crew members claimed the subject had control of retractable fangs, extending from the lateral incisors and canines, we have found no evidence of this in the bodily analysis. Tests remain to be conducted.
Day 2: Subject 000 has shown signs of comprehension of the English language. When asked if it were comfortable, it shook its head. No, we did not think it would be comfortable. The table is metal, and the subject is surrounded by We have taken this response to mean, ‘No,’ but are not certain. Tests regarding language comprehension will be conducted.
Day 3: When faced with a knife, the body of Subject 000 convulsed in a shaking and almost humanly fearful manner. We predict it has been exposed to-
“What they were going to do to you,” Villain returned. The lids of their eyes dropped like a veil, and they nodded once again, this time at their hand, another polite invitation for Hero to take it. She did, and he pulled her up. “You would have been killed. Whatever information you found, you should have left it alone.”
No, Hero wouldn’t have left it alone. Something like that, experiments to the scale her agency was conducting, they deserved to be explored and...and exposed. At the very least, whatever- whoever- was wronged, needed to be taken care of properly.
This brought a smile to Villain’s face. “You are the first person to ask me that question in a very long time.”
Who. Hero had said ‘who’ instead of ‘what.’
“Long ago enough that I am no longer sure how to answer that question. I am Subject 000, and my origins, in English, are unknown.”
“You learned our language as the agency observed you.”
Villain nodded. “I knew no language before then. I breathed,” they said, and that was all.
“You drew and exhaled breaths. Did you eat?”
“They tried starving me,” Villain told, “and seemed disappointed that my breathing continued. They extracted my teeth, as well, to see if it made any difference.”
Retractable fangs. “What made them think your teeth were dangerous?” What made Hero think they weren’t? That Villain hadn’t been hiding them all along by some unseen will to remain unseen?
“Humans are fickle-minded. They see what they want to see and nothing else. Nothing more, nothing less, as they say.”
“You seem as though you’ve observed us, and yet you didn’t even have words before us. How could you comprehend what we possess and don’t? How could you comprehend anything?” Hero was becoming closer and closer to rewording her ‘who’ to ‘what’ as the conversation continued, as she understood less and less of the person- or whatever they were- in front of her. They seemed to understand her species perfectly well, but...well, it started to make sense all the desperate curiosities of her agency. Not that Hero would ever experiment on someone as they had been, but she was beginning to understand the urgency.
“I still have a need for survival, just as you do. Just as you know and will acknowledge as a reason to stay in my home, versus running rampant through the streets.”
Hero would have frowned at the thought of someone thinking her so foolish. She wouldn’t run through the streets like a crazy person because if anything this being said was true, then she’d be killed by the agency for discovering their well-hidden secret. A flash drive abandoned in cobwebs and dust. However, Villain was clearly unaware of the hidings of a human being. Humans possessed more intelligence than hiding in plain sight.
Speaking of hiding, “Where are we?” It didn’t seem right for a being as Villain to have such a nicely decorated kitchen or dining room. “And who are you?” Maybe this last question was hopeless, but Hero had just the feeling that Villain knew more than he led on.
