He watched with his brown eyes wide, he watched until his vision blurred, he watched his father. The man he once knew as his father took up a gleaming silver knife and examined it. the brown eyed boy swallowed and glanced toward the green sac like thing beside his father. It was about as big as him and he could see a form within it. The man grunted in satisfaction about the knife and said softly, “Time to wake up and greet the world, beautiful.” The form inside the sac moved, his father, this monster of a man, held the knife up and slit the bottom of the sac open. a kind of almost transparent goo slipped out onto the floor.
The brown eyed boy almost gagged as he watched from behind the pillar in his own, his very own, basement. The goo now dripped delicately out and the boy almost yelped in shock when he saw a foot sliding out of the thing. Now it was two and he watched as a whole person slithered onto the bag and onto the clean area of floor beneath the sac. She was coated in the goo and looked out of place and gangly, she wiped at her blue eyes and looked up and the man who was smiling proudly and almost insanely. She looked to be the brown eyed boy’s age. Then he blinked thrice and knelt by the girl’s feet, “your bleeding.” She looked at him, confused, “I am…bleeding? Is that my name father? Have I been named, bleeding?” he smiled at the girl and said, “no. I have not yet named you. it’s a thing you do when you’ve been cut. I must’ve cut the sac too close to your foot. It is very small though. Your alright.”
She frowned and then the bare girl smiled back at the man; the boy thought she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Covered in goo of course…but still….Her brown hair clung to her bare back and he stood again, “alright. let’s get you clothed and up and standing.” He took her hand and pulled her up, she stood wobbling then almost immediately stood straight, he grinned and led her forward, she took a hesitant step and then when her other foot touched the ground she walked at pace with him. she was graceful. The boy ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair and smiled, then caught himself and sunk further into the shadows. He remembered how he got down there and discovered the thing, er, the girl in the first place.
He’d been angry at his mother for embarrassing him in front of his friends and so he pushed her warnings of going into the basement away and clomped down the stairs, “Dad!” he called, “dad!” he sighed huffily and jumped the last four steps, he flicked on the light and gasped in shock at all the equipment, the thing that held the girl and the computers. Bewildered, he stumbled closer to the green thing, the thing that caught his interest. It moved. He jumped back, his eyes too wide it seemed for his head. he came closer to it and asked, “are you alive?” the blurry shape seemed to turn toward him, “can you…can you hear me?” the shape seemed looking at him and he raised his eyebrow and hesitantly placed his hand on the thing. It seemed to raise it’s own hand and place it there.
He shook his head and stepped back; he heard his father coming and made a wild dash behind one of the pillars. That was when it all happened.
Now he was back in this moment, seeing the girl learn how to dry and clothe herself. The monster of a man had left for something for the girl and they were now alone in the basement. She stood still and looked around. He risked talking to it, “hello?” she whipped around and cocked her head, “you are the…voice I heard? The one I hadn’t heard before?” his breath caught and he was shocked she was so smart, “yes. the voice.” She smiled, “hello voice.” then he heard his father coming and said, “shh.” She turned toward the man. and he brought a brush down for her hair. He brushed it down and she said, “I saw a voice. It was different. I saw a voice.”
He stopped brushing and asked, “saw a voice?” she nodded, “yes. saw a voice. Different from yours. There.” she pointed toward the stairs and the pillar, the boy’s breath caught and he struggled to keep still. “oh, you must have heard my son Joshua upstairs.” She asked, “son?” he nodded and sighed, “it’s hard to explain, you’ll learn soon enough. Now, my wife knows I’ve been working on a project so I’m going to take you upstairs and introduce you.” she took his hand and flitted lightly up the stairs beside him in jeans and a t-shirt.
Josh took a shuddering breath and dashed up the stairs to his room. he heard his father saying something to his mother and he knew he was introducing the girl to her. he sighed and came into the kitchen just as his mother started yelling. Something about creating something unnatural and damn stupid. The girl whimpered and stepped back from the wife and the man and the yelling. She turned to see him there and said, “voice!” and hugged onto him tightly, his hands above his head, she wouldn’t let him go. he looked at them both and said, “uh….get her off me! who is this chick?!” his father sighed and said, “now there see, Stephie you scared her!” he stepped to the girl, “it’s alright. no need to be scared. See it’s alright now.” she reluctantly let go of Josh and held to the man’s arm halfway behind him.
“Joshua, this is Evangeline. She’ll be living with us from now on.” Evangeline tugged on the man’s sleeve and whispered, “the voice I saw. He is the voice I saw.” The man smiled, “no, no Evangeline, he is the voice you heard.” She looked excitedly up at him, “my name is Evangeline?! Oh it is even prettier than bleeding!” the man laughed and Josh pretended he knew nothing of his father’s little experiment, “um…where’d you get her? is she like a foster child? Is she like a retard or something you adopted?” the man looked angry, “no! she is not a retard! She is….perfect. and she is now your sister. Be kind to her and show her to the room down the hall, the new one we painted.” He said,“yeah ok. c’mon Evangeline.” She followed him and grimaced once they were out of sight, he’d helped paint that room with his dad. A light yellow. It was supposed to hold pictures and things, his mom’s sewing room. now he noticed the small little daisies in the paper and carvings on the trim. The lace curtains and no sewing equipment.
“this is your room.” he said. She looked at his face and smiled, she pulled on the door. It wouldn’t budge, she pulled and pulled and it wouldn’t open, she looked crushed, “my room entry is broken.” He smiled at her, so childlike and pushed on the door, “ya push on it.” she laughed and went in, “yes!” she marveled at the bright room and looked out the window, “what is this?” he walked over, “the window?” she shook her head, “yes but no, beyond that.” He said, “outside?” then the man came in and the girl ran to him, “look! Josh has told me to push on the door and look! Look out the-the window!” she dragged him over and he wasn’t annoyed like he was when Josh did that, but he smiled and laughed and hugged her close. Josh slunk back to his room and thought, ‘did he make her to replace me? and when is he finally going to crack that crazy head of his and go berserk? Did he really make her to replace me?’
End Part 1