Eldritch Guidance

Side story 2 - The Whispers In The Wall

Content warning - Lots of gore and body horror

-Twenty years ago in the east end of Graheel on Eld Street.-

A skinny man with messy brown hair wearing a dirty white lab coat with a pair of thick glasses was sitting at a table, going through a bunch of handwritten notes. This man was known as Leroi. He was an alchemist running a shop selling supplies for potion making on Eld Street in the east end of Graheel.

Some might think it’s unusual to run an alchemist shop in an area where the majority of people can’t use aether, but they would be wrong. The art of alchemy was one of the few arcane practices anyone could learn and use. It didn’t require aether, only time and effort.

However, the tools for alchemy were expensive. The real problem of running an alchemist shop here is the people living near Leroi's shop, The Bubbling Beaker, were not exactly the most wealthy. So the number of people that came to his shop was very limited, but that was fine for Leroi. He didn’t open this store to actually provide supplies to the locals. The shop only existed to get supplies for himself.

Leroi required large amounts of materials for the alchemical experiments he was conducting. So large in fact, many suppliers would reject his orders from the time before he opened this store. The quantity of chemicals he requested made suppliers nervous. They were worried that the chemicals they were sending him were being used for some sort of illicit activity. Not wanting to risk culpability, they would not send him the things he requested.

This frustrated Leroi at the time and he couldn’t convince the suppliers to give him the materials he needed. The suppliers wanted a reasonable explanation for why he was ordering so much, which he didn’t have because he was using those materials for illegal alchemy experiments. So there was a brief moment in time when he couldn’t get the supplies he needed. That’s why “The Bubbling Beaker” existed. A store ordering large amounts of alchemy supplies looks less suspicious on paper than when Leroi was doing it as an individual. As long as no one bothered to look at where his store was located, no one would find anything strange about it.

He was sitting at the front desk going over his research and notes about his last experiments. He was trying to look for a clear solution to a fundamental problem in one of his experiments. Leroi knew that if he could solve this problem, he would become famous. It would revolutionize alchemy and the alchemist community would even overlook past ethical violations if he was successful.

The sound of the front door of his store rang out. Leroi looked from his research notes to see someone he hadn't seen before, which caused him to quietly groan in annoyance. This store wasn't actually made to sell products to people, but he had to have a storefront for his fake business, and sometimes a local would wander in here because of it.

There were a handful of regular ‘customers’ that would come by every once in a while. Those people didn’t ask any questions and just took their chemicals and quietly left. Leroi was sure that the people regularly visiting his store were just buying supplies to make illegal substances themselves, which suited him just fine. It wasn't his problem, and actually having records of selling chemicals made his store seem less suspicious.

Leroi didn’t like seeing new faces enter his store, it meant there was a risk they would stop and try to talk to him. He hoped that this man would quickly look around, buy something, and leave without really talking to him. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case as the man walked straight towards Leroi.

The disgruntled alchemist put his note down to more closely examine the figure approaching him. The man had black hair and red eyes, a physical feature that Leroi assumed was a mutation since a lot of mutants lived around here. What was most surprising was that the man appeared very well dressed, more so than what one would expect living on the east end of Graheel. He wore an expensive-looking black sateen dress shirt and a pair of matching pants.

People living around here would not dress like the man in front of Leroi. Unless he was trying to make a certain statement to onlookers. However, Leroi didn’t care about any oddity of this person he didn’t know. He just wanted him to leave.

The well-dressed man approached Leroi with a smile and engaged in conversation with him.

John: “Hello, nice to meet you. I’m John Li, your new neighbor.”

Leroi: “Neighbor?” he repeated, confused.

Leroi didn’t recall anyone moving next door to him recently, but he admitted to himself he didn’t really pay attention to what was happening in the neighborhood. It could very well be that the bakery next door closed down and this person moved in. If that had happened, he doubted he would notice.

Leroi: “I see… Why are you here?”

John: “Um, just here to give a friendly greeting.”

Leroi: “OK. You’ve done that. You can now leave.”

John: “Oh, um are you busy right now? Mr um…” he said while looking around the vacant store.

Leroi: “Leroi, and yes, I'm very busy.”

John did not entirely believe Leroi, but wasn't going to push against him if he didn’t feel like talking at the moment.

John: “OK, well I’m next door if you want to talk later once you have some time. My store is the ‘Mystic Emporium’. A sort of… antique shop.”

Leroi: “Mr John, take a hint. I don’t care, and don’t appreciate you trying to be all friendly with me. I don’t really want to know you. So let’s stay out of each business from now on, OK?

John: “Oh, um, um…” he stuttered.

Leroi: “I’m closing up shop. So leave, now.”

John: “I was just trying to be nice” he grumbled a bit before he left, feeling a little insulted by Leroi’s attitude.

Once the antique store owner was gone, Leroi was alone in his store again.

The grumpy alchemist didn’t care about leaving a good impression of himself. He was hoping that this interaction was enough to make this John person stay away from now on. He didn’t need anyone bothering him with his work.

Leroi: “Ninety-nine!” he called out.

A door to the back of the store slowly creaked open, revealing a strange creature. The creature had blue skin with thin humanoid arms and legs. It had barely any torso or neck and stood at two feet tall (61 centimeters) with no mouth or nose to speak of, instead, it sported one giant eye where a face might be.

This was a homunculus. An artificial creature created through the union of alchemy and conventional spellcrafting. It is a creature that was highly unethical in its creation, but Leroi had created this one all the same.

Leroi: “We’re closing up! Clean up the shop. I’ll be in my study. Don’t you dare to bother me until I call you,” he ordered.

The homunculus that was named Ninety-nine just blinked, as it had no mouth to make any sound to respond with. Leroi walked past the strange creature without a second glance and headed into another room. Now alone, Ninety-nine just looked around the store.

It was immaculate from its vantage point. The homunculus felt it did a really good job at cleaning from previous orders. There wasn't much for it to clean. Their only shame was the shelves. Ninety-nine was short and couldn’t reach up to properly clean it, but everything close to the ground and within reach was very tidy.

There wasn't that much point in cleaning unless it could reach the upper shelves, but it had to follow orders. Ninety-nine had no choice. It was magically compelled to do so. Homunculus were bound to the person who made them and had to do any order they were given. Effectively making this creature a slave to the alchemist. Even if Ninety-nine wanted to go against Leroi, it couldn't live without the aether that the alchemist-mage supplied him with. There was no escape.

Ninety-nine was to live out its existence as a slave.

Although, as a rare homunculus capable of complex thought, it wasn't sure if it wanted to continue to live like this. While its thoughts were far from human, it still somehow understood the way it was being treated by Leroi was wrong. It didn’t know why, but knew it was wrong.

Not wanting to dwell too much on its strange thoughts, Ninety-nine got to work, but it first walked over to the front door. The creature was hiding in the back and had overheard that short conversation with its creator and their new neighbor. It was curious about this new shop that opened up.

It gingerly opened the front door and carefully looked around. Leroi ordered Ninety-nine not to be seen by anyone, so it was being careful to make sure no one was around. People around here have likely never seen something like a homunculus before. The artificial creature could be easily mistaken for a monster by those who did not know of them. If Ninety-nine was discovered, it would cause problems for itself and its creator with the few who lived close by. However, that wasn't likely to happen.

Ninety-nine looked around the vacant street. It was completely devoid of people. Eld Street was mostly abandoned, and people hardly ever came around here. It was why Leroi set shop up at this location, and why Ninety-nine wasn't worried about being accidentally discovered.

Once it saw that it was clear, it slowly stepped out and looked around. It looked to the left to try and see the new shop it heard about, but only saw the familiar abandoned building beside the alchemy store it called home. This meant that the new neighbor must have moved into the bakery next door.

Upon that realization, the artificial creature felt a strange sense well up inside it.

Ninety-nine had a hard time understanding these strange feelings it got every once in a while. It was pretty sure it was an emotion, but not what kind of emotion. It mostly categorizes these feelings and sensations as only “bad” or “good". The current feeling it felt was bad.

The bad feeling it got wasn't as intense as when Leroi got mad and started throwing things at Ninety-nine, but it was still bad. Likely caused by knowing that the bakery was no more. When Ninety-nine reminisced about the bakery next door, it got another feeling that it categorized as good when it did.

The truth of what the homunculus was feeling a sense of loss. The bakery next door brought some small amount of joy to the strange creature and its existence. Despite having no nose, it was somehow able to smell, and early in the morning, it could sometimes smell fresh bread being baked next door. It was a small sensation it enjoyed, but now it wouldn’t be able to experience that anymore.

The homunculus turned its giant eyeball to the right towards where the bakery used to be and became confused.

The familiar bakery was still there. Its sign in the shape of a loaf of bread still hung on top just above the store entrance, advertising its product. Nothing about it has changed, but at the same time, it wasn't right. It was like it was in the wrong spot, because now there was another store between the alchemy shop and the bakery.

The new store had two canted bay display windows with a single-panel glass door between them. The sign above the store read ”Mystic Emporium.” The store looked out of place, It looked pristine and brand new compared to the structures around it, but at the same time, it felt like it was always there. However, Ninety-nine knew it wasn't always there, but had no idea how to explain its appearance.

“How does that work?” The homunculus wondered to itself.

There were a lot of things it didn’t understand about this world, and thought that must be the case here. The artificial creature wondered if there was some sort of way to move buildings around. It didn’t have another explanation as to where this store came from and just accepted it as a fact that buildings could be moved.

Ninety-nine's innocence and lack of experience prevented it from understanding the depth of the oddity of the situation in front of it. Even in this world of magic, moving buildings is not something that could be easily done. Especially, without a large amount of people noticing. A normal person wouldn’t be able to casually brush off this anomaly as quickly as this homunculus was doing.

Walking onto the street, way off in the distance, was a man holding a bottle. He was stumbling and didn’t look like he could not walk straight. From the position Ninety-nine was, it was sure it couldn’t be seen. It focused its eye on the person, and recognized the individual as Dave, the person living in the bakery that used to be next door.

The feeling Ninety-nine got from this man was bad. The walls were thin, and it could recall hearing yelling between this man and the woman next door. The feeling it got from those moments reminded the homunculus of when Lori yelled at it.

“This man is making lots of bad feelings for others.” Ninety-nine thought to itself about Dave.

Not wanting to be seen by the drunken man, Ninety-nine quickly ran back inside The Bubbling Beaker. Once back inside, it reached up as high as it could and locked the door behind itself.

It then ran over to a nearby closet that contained cleaning supplies and pulled a rag. Ninety-nine then began a long process of cleaning any spec of dust that it missed.

??????????????????

Two hours later everything near the floor was practically sparkling and the smell of cleaning agent hung in the air. The homunculus could almost see its reflection on the surface of the floor from it being scrubbed so much.

The floor and everything two feet (60cm) from the ground was scrubbed down.

Ninety-nine looked on at the results of its work as another feeling welled up inside. A feeling the artificial creature simply identified as “good”. While the process of cleaning was tedious, it was one of the few things this creature knew how to do. Cleaning was also preferable to the other tasks his master, Leroi, made it do. As long as it was cleaning, it wasn't helping the alchemist in the lab. Something it could be thankful for, if Ninety-nine understood what it meant to be thankful.

It looked at the top of the shelf and dreamed of one day being able to reach it so that it could also be properly cleaned.

Leroi: “Ninety-nine! Get down here! We're starting project 335!” the alchemist yelled from somewhere deeper inside the shop.

The good feeling the homunculus got from cleaning was supplanted by a very intense “bad” feeling. It didn’t want to go to its master, but had no choice. Hesitantly, it walked to the back of the store and entered the back storage room.

Inside this room was full of crates and metal drums of chemicals lying around. It was cluttered and hard to tell how everything was organized. The scent of harsh chemicals permeated the air.

It walked to the corner of the room and pulled a hidden rope that opened up a secret trap door in the floor, revealing a ladder leading down. Ninety-nine started to climb downward while closing the door above its head. The smell of chemicals got stronger as the homunculus descended.

Once it was off the ladder, Ninety-nine looked around. It was a hidden laboratory that Leroi had built to conduct his experiments. There were lights hanging from the roof and all matter tools and chemicals lying about on tables and storage shelves. A slight haze hung in the air, likely leftover fumes from another experiment done earlier since the makeshift lab had no proper ventilation.

Standing by a large table was Leroi in a white lab coat. He had thick rubber gloves and safety glasses on while slowly pouring a bright green chemical into another beaker full of a blue liquid. As the liquid mixed together it turned purple and puffed out a plume of smoke. Leroi held the beaker away from him quickly so as not to inhale the fumes. Once it stopped spitting out vapors, the alchemist held the beaker close to his face to examine it.

Leroi: “Excellent, It’s ready,” he then turned away from what he was working on to see his homunculus standing there by the ladder it climbed down, staring at him. “Well? What are you waiting for? Come over here already!” he ordered.

Ninety-nine slowly walked over to Leroi as he was commanded. Once he was within arms reach of his master, it was grabbed by the arm violently. The alchemist was annoyed that Ninety-nine took so long to walk over to him, and was now roughly manhandling the artificial creature to take out his frustration.

Leroi pulled the creature up by the arm and then slammed it onto the table he was standing by. The creature landed on its back with a loud thud. Ninety-nine started to get that feeling it didn’t like, mostly in the back where it was slammed. It wasn't sure if it was an emotion or another sensation, but it was “bad”, and he didn’t like it.

What the creature was feeling was pain, but didn’t know how to understand it at the moment beyond simply it being “bad”.

Now lying on it back on a cold metal table, Ninety-nine looked to see the one who created him pull out a big syringe and needle. Leroi violently jabbed the needle into its side and wiggled the needle around, paying no concern for the creature, as he looked for a blood vessel to draw blood from. Ninety-nine experienced another bad feeling from the needle that was more intense than being slammed against the table.

Leroi pulled the plunger back and crimson blood flowed into the large 10ml barrel of the syringe. Once he had the blood he wanted, he pulled the needle out and slapped on a piece of common industrial use tape on the wound left by the incision.

Ninety-nine felt weak. The amount of blood taken was a lot for such a small creature. The homunculus struggled a bit, trying to pull itself up, before Leroi just shoved it to the side. Without warning, he pushed Ninety-nine off the side of the table after the alchemist got what he wanted. It fell onto the floor while flipping in the air and landed on its front side, making a slapping sound of its skin hitting the ground. The familiar bad feeling it got from being slammed onto the table could be felt again on Ninety-nine’s front now.

It struggled again, but managed to get unsteadily back onto its feet this time. Ninety-nine looked up with its giant mono eye to see its creator gather a few more miscellaneous liquids.

He was grabbing vials of other strange-looking liquid and placing them in front of him by the table Ninety-nine was just on. He then slowly started to pour the liquid into a small basin beside the table.

It was too high from where the homunculus was to see from its vantage point.

While clenching the area where it was jabbed with a needle with its hand, it slowly climbed up on another nearby table to watch what Leroi was doing.

It didn’t want to watch, but had no choice. Ninety-nine was smart enough to be able to read and write, so Leroi made him record the results of his experiments down. It had to watch what its creator was doing, so it could write it down later. It was all part of what Leroi ordered. If it didn’t do this task well enough, Leroi would make Ninety-nine have many very bad feelings.

The chemicals were mixed in the basin one by one. The color shifts from blue, to green, and purple as each chemical is mixed together. Leroi then waved his hand over the liquid, infusing his own aether into the substance, briefly causing the liquid to ripple while he did this. The final ingredient added was blood that had just been extracted from Ninety-nine.

Once the blood was added, there was a puff of smoke and the liquid started to turn red and bubble aggressively. The liquid then solidified into a red fleshy texture and started to condense on itself into the vague shape of a humanoid. But, it stopped halfway.

There was now an arm and leg with half a head sticking out of a mass of writhing flesh. It was hairless and the skin sagged on its exposed limbs in a most unpleasant way to the eyes. The creature looked around frantically with black beady eyes, its alien nature too difficult to tell if it had any coherent thoughts. It flailed its limbs hopelessly around while it dangled from the fleshy mass it was attached to. And, despite its inhuman nature, anyone could immediately tell that the creature was in pain.

Abomination: “Gaahglashga!!” it cried out, suffering from its newly formed existence.

Leroi: “Sigh, another failure it seems. It only half-formed this time. Still no intelligence either. Probably will die quicker than the others. Project 335 is a complete failure.”

Abomination: “K-k-k-kill m-m-me!” it begged.

Upon hearing that, Leroi started to smile.

Leroi: “I stand corrected. Maybe not a complete failure. Tell me my homunculus, what are you feeling right now.”

Abomination: “P-p-p-paaaaaain. K-k-kill meeeee!” it cried out, as blood started leaking out of its eyes.

This was Leroi's life's work. The creation of homunculus, but not just any, ones with intelligence.

Many successfully created homunculus have the most basic of intelligence, not much better than a single-use machine at times. They couldn’t usually do complex tasks such as writing or even speech. So, Leroi attempted to try and fix those flaws about them and create a more consistent method in their creation.

The creation of homunculus is frowned upon in the Alchemist community, due to its random probability in its creation and the moral issue of creating life. There is no standardized way to create them. Even if two alchemists use the exact same method to create one, you could get three different results, with none of them creating a homunculus.

It is a process of trial and error. In doing that, you can end up with a result similar to what Leroi just created, a half-form creature that can only suffer in its brief moments of life. You have to create hundreds of failed homunculus before you can create a half-decent one that could be properly used as a servant or tool. Creating so many creatures for them only to suffer and die was obviously something people, and even alchemists found disgusting. This is why the creation of these creatures is universally banned.

Leroi thought those people's concerns about ethics were holding progress back, and continued those experiments to create an intelligent homunculus until he was discovered and blacklisted by the alchemist community for it.

Even after he was excised from the community, he intended to prove them wrong. It took Leroi ninety nine attempts, but he created an intelligent homunculus. That same homunculus watched as Leroi conversed with Project 355.

Leroi: “Where are you feeling the pain?”

The abomination didn’t answer. It failed around and screamed one last time before falling limp. The mass of red flesh it was attached to quickly turned gray, looking like its life expired.

Leroi: “Tch. Still can’t consistently create one. But, intelligence seems to be developing more often. Twenty-two of the last hundred attempts at least showed some signs of useful intelligence. So my theory of using the blood of an already intelligent homunculus as the basis for the creation seems to have some merit,” he said aloud to no one in particular.

Leroi grabbed a scalpel nearby and aggressively made an incision into the fleshy mass of his failed homunculus. Blood shot out like a fountain once he broke the skin, covering the front of the cruel alchemist's lab coat in blood.

Despite the excessive amount of blood that shot out, he didn’t stop. He kept cutting the mass open. Looking inside to try and understand where he went wrong.

Ninety-nine just looked on as Leroi violated the corpse of his failed creation. It had some degree of empathy for the failed homunculus, but it didn’t know that. Failing to understand its own emotions, watching all this left it with a bad feeling it didn’t know how to describe. How the creature wished to have not watched this, but had no choice. Even if it could speak and express a desire to not watch, it was unlikely Leroi would even care.

The process went on for another fifteen minutes. Leroi pulled out misshapen bones and organs of odd colors from the fleshy mass. Blood continues to splatter and get all over the nearby table and floor. The blood that leaked out of the dead homunculus started to fill up the basin it was sitting in. By the time the alchemist was done dissecting, it was a horrific bloody mess. A mess that Leroi would make Ninety-nine clean up.

The mad scientist pulled out what looked like a purplish-blue heart. He looked at it with fascination, before placing it in a glass jar.

Leroi: “This thing developed a curious-looking heart. Ninety-nine, clean this mess up while I study this,” he commanded while walking into another room with the odd-colored organ.

Ninety-nine looked at the bloody mess. With some reluctance, it jumped off the table it was on and walked over to a nearby cabinet to get out some cleaning supplies. It carried a large pile of rags and buckets over near the area of the failed experiment and started sopping up as much of the blood as possible. Each rag would become saturated with blood, and once that happened, Ninety-nine threw the rag into a bucket and repeated the process.

Eventually, the bucket completely filled up.

Ninety-nine took the bucket of bloody rags to a nearby furnace that was repurposed as an incinerator. The exhaust of the furnace leading somewhere into the wall and upstairs. The homunculus opened the door to the makeshift incinerator and saw the flames were already burning away. It then dumped the rags into it and quickly closed the furnace door, making sure none of the smoke got into the lab.

One time Ninety-nine had left the furnace door open while it was using it, and a bunch of smoke filled up the lab. Leroi had smacked Ninety-nine a dozen times for that while berating it. The artificial creature learned that day not to let smoke into the lab after that, all to avoid those bad feelings.

The one-eyed creature walked back to the bloody table and was preparing to repeat the process until all the blood was cleaned up. Suddenly, Ninety-nine heard a familiar voice.

Abomination: “K-k-kill m-me,” it weakly begged.

Ninety-nine looked up at the table where he heard the voice, before climbing on top to see. Laying there in a basin full of blood was the failed homunculus. The part that had the head and limbs was separated from the larger mass, cut away from Leroi’s violent dissection. It was still somehow alive, if just barely.

Both the homunculus' eyes met, and Ninety-nine got another bad feeling. Ninety-nine looked towards the door its creator went, almost expecting Leroi to burst through the door as it did, but there was no reaction. It then looked back at the creature lying in the basin.

Ninety-nine knew it was supposed to inform Leroi that his experiment was still alive, but the one-eyed creature got a very bad feeling from the idea of doing that. The cruel alchemist would likely try to keep this half-formed homunculus alive for as long as possible to study. Prolonging its suffering in the process.

The artificial creature didn’t understand it, but it was feeling a sort of kinship with Project 355. It was created in a similar method to Ninety-nine, utilizing its blood. In a strange way, it could be said that Project 355 was the child of the one-eyed homunculus. And, that feeling of kinship compelled Ninety-nine to help, despite not understanding why.

Seeing that it didn't look like Leroi was about to suddenly enter the room, Ninety-nine grabbed the parts of the abomination that were still alive. It gathered the exposed limbs and head of the half-formed creature, pushing it off the side of the table. It landed with a wet bloody slapping sound.

Abomination: “I-I-it huuurtsss,” it quietly whined.

Ninety-nine quickly jumped down from the table and began dragging the abomination across the ground, leaving a trail of blood in its wake.

While Ninety-nine should be telling Leroi about this. It wasn't going to. There were no specific orders that required it to tell Leroi about this. It was only ordered to clean up. Disposing of experiment 355 is still within the context of that order, not in any violation of the magical control that Leroi had over Ninety-nine. It just had to be quick about, so Leroi wouldn’t find out.

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Ninety-nine dragged the half-formed creature to the incinerator. It quickly opened the furnace door and saw the fire still blazing inside, already burnt away the bloody rags it just put in. It then picked up the abomination with some effort. Ninety-nine got blood all over itself and the front of the furnaces, but managed to get the creature to the furnace entrance.

As a small act of kindness, Ninety-nine pushed Project 355 down the chute into the incinerator. While the creature slid into the fire, it looked up at Ninety-nine with alien-looking eyes one last time.

Abomination: “T-T-T-Thank you…” it mumbled as it slid into an inferno.

The one-eyed homunculus quickly closed the furnace door and then turned away.

Ninety-nine got another feeling from hearing what Project 355 said, but it wasn't good or bad. It didn’t know what it was. It would ponder for the rest of the day about what it was feeling as it cleaned up all the blood in the lab.

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Ninety-nine had just finished writing down what it saw during Leroi’s experiment, and crawled up from the underground lab back up into the storage room on the ground level of the building.

As an artificial creature, it shouldn’t feel tired, yet that was what it was feeling right now. The activities of the day left it drained, and without being able to properly comprehend the emotions it was feeling, it didn’t understand why.

Watching a fellow homunculus be created and suffer was a bit much. Then having to clean up the bloody remains, was taxing on what mental fortitude Ninety-nine had.

Ninety-nine walked over to one corner of the room behind some crates. The space between the wall and crate was only large enough to allow small creatures like Ninety-nine to enter.

Hidden away from Leroi was the creature's little sanctuary.

In that corner was a pile of newspaper used to make a bed and a few other nicknacks. It was items like pencils and broken glass, collected and placed about as little decorations, things that its master wouldn't notice missing. These were the few things that could be considered to be owned by Ninety-nine. Everything was placed in a way that gave the homunculus lots of “good” feelings, an enjoyable visual sensation when it looked at the little space it made for itself, but was too exhausted to experience those said feelings currently.

It walked over to the pile of paper and gently laid down, while holding its side near the area where Leroi had stabbed it with a needle. Ninety-nine after a few hours of contemplation, realized the “bad” feelings it got was likely pain.

While it didn’t necessarily understand what it exactly was feeling at the moment, given enough time, Ninety-nine could figure it out. The homunculus was intelligent after all, it just took a little time to understand its own feelings and sensations. However, it didn’t figure out what it felt when it dumped Project 355 into the incinerator. It constantly thought about it while cleaning up and recording down the results of the experiment.

“Was it good! Or was it bad?” The creature thought to itself.

It didn’t know how to categorize that feeling, and kept thinking about it while Ninety-nine closed its giant mono eye. Preparing to drift off into a dreamless sleep.

However, it heard something. A strange sound.

It opened its eye and listened carefully. Trying to figure out what it was hearing. It sounded like a conversation between multiple people, but it was like they were whispering to each other. The “voices” that could be heard might have been disturbing for another human being, but not for Ninety-nine.

Ninety-nine got up and left the little sanctuary. It walked out into the center of the storage room, and continued to listen carefully, trying to figure out where the whispers were coming from. It walked around the room aimlessly, trying to get closer to the source of the sound.

It walked by crates and metal drums full of chemicals. Eventually, it came upon an empty shelf. It was here that the whispers were the loudest. It looked around, but didn’t see what was causing the noise. It placed the body right beside the shelf, and realized that the sound was coming from behind it.

Ninety-nine walked to the side of the shelf and tried to push it to the side. It was a small shelf, only three feet high, but Ninety-nine was also a small and thin creature. So, it was still extremely difficult to move it.

It pushed against the furniture with its entire weight. Eventually, with a great amount of effort from the homunculus, the shelf started to move. It made a high-pitched squeaking sound as the legs of the shelf rubbed against the floor. Ninety-nine could only manage to move it about a foot before it had to stop to rest. It was about to push again when it noticed something.

Hidden behind the shelf was a small hole in the wall from where the shelf had been moved. It was surrounded by a bunch of cracks and was maybe six inches wide and two inches vertical in size, much too small even for Ninety-nine to fit through.

Once the furniture was no longer obscuring the hole, the whisper became much louder. Ninety-nine concluded that the sound it was hearing was coming through this hole. It then looked at the wall the hole was on and started pondering for a little while.

This was the wall that separated the buildings. In the past, the other side of this wall would have been the bakery next door, but the bakery wasn't there anymore. Instead, it was that new neighbor's store that would have been on the other side.

What Ninety-nine heard sounded like it was possibly multiple voices conversing with each other, so it concluded that there must be more than one person living next door like the bakery before. It got closer to the hole and tried to peer inside, but only saw a black void. So, instead, it started listening very carefully.

Now more able to clearly hear what was being said, the whispering it heard was nonsensical. It wasn't a language that the homunculus understood. And yet, it knew what was being said. It didn’t know the words, and yet understood the meaning behind them.

It was a conversation about fate, time, the stars, and things beyond. If Ninety-nine had a normal human mind, it would have gone insane from what it was hearing. Instead, it was just confusing. It heard and understood what was being said, yet didn’t. There was no way to properly explain the sensation of both understanding and not understanding the information it received.

The complex topic of discussion was already confusing enough, but Ninety-nine was more curious about why it could understand what was being said, despite not understanding the language. It wondered this and wasn't particularly a question to anyone, but it was answered.

The whisper changed its tone and an answer was given to Ninety-nine as to why it understood what was being said. The explanation was: “!^%$#error4&ty$*/(k:”}l>g”. A concept that the homunculus didn’t understand—for it was not because the strange creature's mind had trouble understanding certain concepts—but it was an idea no mortal could comprehend what was said, let alone Ninety-nine.

However, Ninety-nine immediately understood now that the voices on the other side of the wall were aware of its presence, and it was answering its queries. The artificial creature was incapable of speaking without a mouth, yet the voices on the other side of the wall seemed to know its thoughts.

Ninety-nine asked if the voice could read its mind. The whispers answered with another alien concept the homunculus didn’t understand, but the sentiment of what it heard was effectively the confirmation of what it asked. The voices seemed to effectively be able to read its mind. For the first time in its existence, someone else could understand Ninety-nine without having to write its intention down.

Realizing it could converse with someone other than its creator, Ninety-nine got another strange feeling again, the feeling it got categorized as “good”.

“Excitement”. The word popped into its mind from the voice. The whispering seemingly explained what it was feeling. Ninety-nine stood there thinking for a few seconds and realized that the voice was correct. “Excitement” was the best word to explain what it was feeling.

The curiosity of the artificial creature grew and asked another question. The voices seemed to understand the emotion Ninety-nine was feeling and wanted to know if it could explain the feeling it had been pondering all day. The strange feeling it got when it dumped 355 into the incinerator.

The whispers stopped and the room became silent. For a moment Ninety-nine thought that it might have asked something wrong, but the whisper echoed in the homunculus’s mind once more.

Ambivalence. That was the word it heard.

“Ambivalence?” Ninety-nine thought to itself in confusion.

It was not a word it knew.

When Ninety-nine was created, knowledge of various kinds of things was automatically imprinted upon it. However, it was not like it gained knowledge of the entire dictionary. There were plenty of words it did not know about. Leroi would never bother to teach Ninety-nine anything like this. In the few opportunities it had to read and learn, such a word never came up.

It then asked the whispers what “ambivalence” meant.

This time the whisper explanation was not as confusing. It explained “ambivalence” as having two opposing feelings and ideas at the same time.

At first, the homunculus didn’t immediately understand and was about to ponder how applicable the term ambivalence was to what it felt, but the whisper continued to go on and explain. The voice explained that Ninety-nine felt happy when 355's suffering was over, but also immediately felt sad that it had to die. Thus resulting in two opposing feelings at once.

It made perfect sense to Ninety-nine now. The feeling it got really was this ambivalence. Such a strange feeling it was to the creature.

The homunculus learned a new word.

Ninety-nine would go on to converse more with the mysterious whispers, learning new things.

??????????????????

Two weeks went by since Ninety-nine first conversed with the whispers.

Every day, after it was done with its chores and following Leroi’s orders, Ninety-nine would go to the small hole in the wall. It would listen to the whispers and ask questions. The homunculus was now constantly learning new things.

On the surface, Ninety-nine looked like the same blue-skin homunculus that Leroi had created all those years ago, but the creature had gone through a massive transformation internally. Specifically, its mind had evolved. Through conversing with the voices, the artificial creature was now able to better understand its own emotions and mind. It didn’t categorize its own feelings anymore as either good or bad. It was now able to properly identify what it was feeling at the moment it was experiencing it.

Ninety-nine knowledge bases had also expanded. The homunculus used to only know about things within the confines of Leroi’s store, but it started to understand more things about the world around itself. And, possibly knew a few more things than even its creator on certain subjects.

The voice answered any of all questions Ninety-nine had. It was generous with its knowledge.

Through the time conversing with the mysterious whispers, Ninety-nine enhanced mind came to the conclusion that the person it was talking with, wasn't a “person”. It didn’t know what was on the other side of that wall, but there were too many things that the mysterious voice knew that were beyond human comprehension. However, the inhuman nature of the entity on the other side of the wall didn’t bother Ninety-nine. It was just glad to be able to converse with something else that wasn't its cruel creator. So, Ninety-nine kept the voice a secret from its creator.

Leroi had yet to notice the hole in the wall, unlikely to even care if he did. There wasn't anything super strange about the hole, for the alchemist never heard the whispers like Ninety-nine did. It was only Ninety-nine that heard the voice, but the homunculus didn’t know that. As a precaution to ensure the hole wasn't discovered, Ninety-nine would cover it up with a small empty cardboard box that could easily be moved.

The blue-skinned homunculus was currently standing by the small hole in the wall. It had finished cleaning the store for the third time it was ordered today.

Ninety-nine was stressed by the cleaning, mostly by its inability to reach up high. When Leroi looked around the store, he would see the dust on some of the upper shelves and order his creation to clean. Not being able to reach those shelves because of their short stature, and unable to climb because Leroi ordered Ninety-nine never to climb onto the shelf for fear of breaking something, It couldn’t be cleaned properly.

It was a constant cycle of Leroi seeing the same dirt on the upper shelves and then ordering Ninety-nine to clean. Never bothering to look towards the ground to see how clean everything was, or realizing that Ninety-nine can’t clean the upper shelves because of previous orders.

Whispers: “Ish lo jinn, maka nooova mattta gouon,” the voice said, in an inhuman language.

“I see. So there is more than one universe. I would have never guessed.” Ninety-nine silently thought to itself.

The homunculus came to speak with the voice as part of de-stressing itself. It found that learning new things was relaxing.

Leroi: “Ninety-nine! We’re doing another experiment! Get down here now!” he yelled out from the secret lab below.

An emotion came over Ninety-nine, but unlike before how it would categorize those feelings, it knew exactly what it was feeling now. Dread, that was the word encapsulating what it felt.

Ninety-nine knew that it was about to witness something horrible again and experience a bunch of pain. But, it had no choice. It heard Leroi’s order and was now magically compelled to go to the alchemist.

It quickly covered the hole with a cardboard box and went through the motions of heading down into the secret laboratory.

Leroi was already standing by the lab table where it had created 355. He was currently gathering a bunch of different chemicals, preparing to create another homunculus.

Ninety-nine took the initiative this time and walked up to Leroi, sticking its arm out, preparing for the alchemist to extract its blood. Figuring if it was quick to offer its blood, Leroi wouldn’t hurt it as much this time.

Leroi looked down at the homunculus surprised. He’s never seen his homunculus take such initiative itself.

Leroi: “Huh? Guess you are finally learning, good,” he said, not thinking anything particular about the creature's actions.

The alchemist took out a needle and extracted the creature’s blood. While not as aggressive as last time, it still wasn't pleasant for Ninety-nine. Leroi quickly slapped on another piece of industrial tape where he jabed the needle into the homunculus, and then immediately went back to its experiment.

Ninety-nine climbed up onto another nearby table again, and watched the insane alchemist at work.

He went through almost the exact same process. Mixing various types of chemicals, infusing the liquid with his aether, and waiting to make sure it was all the proper color.

Once he got to the final step of adding the blood, he stopped. Instead, he pulled out a glass jar that was stored just beneath the table he was at. In the jar was the heart of 355. The organ was beating, despite being in a jar.

Leroi had continued to experiment with the heart he got from his last attempt at creating a homunculus. He had managed to return life to the heart and make it beat despite being separated from its body. Thinking that the heart might be useful for his next attempt at homunculus creation, he saved the organ for this experiment.

Ninety-nine could only glare at Leroi for this, but the alchemist didn’t notice the death glare he was getting.

Leroi dropped the beating heart into the liquid followed by Ninety-nine’s blood. Like before, the liquid started to ripple and turn red. But unlike last time, the liquid didn’t turn into flesh. Instead, the liquid just turned from red to black and started filling the lab with a foul odor. Deformed bones and organs created from this process started to float to the surface of the black liquid.

The experiment was a complete failure. A homunculus didn’t even half-formed this time.

Leroi: “FUCK! I was sure adding the heart of a homunculus would do something. Where the fuck did I go wrong.”

“This is all doomed to fail.” Ninety-nine silently thought to itself.

It had conversed with the voice from the wall about Leroi’s attempts at creating homunculus. The whisper told Ninety-nine that his creator would never succeed in creating a consistent method of making artificial creatures, not without the assistance of higher powers. Ninety-nine learned that the essence of alchemy was bringing order to chaos to create something different. So, trying to create life goes against the core of that practice. Life is fundamentally chaotic and order can not be entirely imposed upon it.

It is why creating artificial life through alchemy is so random, it’s because of the chaotic nature of life itself. Life is spontaneous and random, coming into existence without rhyme or reason, then one day ceasing suddenly to exist. A process rooted in order could never truly replicate that, especially consistently. Leroi was applying a process that on paper should result in the creation of intelligent homunculus by removing the chaotic elements, but in doing that, he actually gets results like this. No living creature, just a black fetid pool of liquid with dead floating bones and organs in it.

In fact, the whisper explained that trying to impose too much order on creating life simply causes it to die. If life is chaos, then the purest form of order would be the inverse of that, death. Ironically, Leroi’s attempt to try and create a consistent method makes it more unlikely that he will even create a living homunculus, let alone an intelligent one.

The alchemist looked into the black pool in deep thought. He was trying to figure out where he had gone wrong this time.

Leroi: "Uggghn. Go record this down. I’ll call you when I need you to clean this,” he said, directed at Ninety-nine.

Ninety-nine continued to glare with an intense amount of enmity at Leroi. The alchemist was too busy looking at the black pool to notice. The artificial creature did what it was ordered, due to the magic that bound it to Leroi.

The homunculus went through the motion of climbing back up to the storage room above. It then walked over to a nearby chair and table with an open book with a pen and inkwell on it. Ninety-nine began writing down the results of the experiment, all while thinking to itself.

“I hate this. Why does my master have to do this? He failed so many times already, and when he’s successful, he creates existences like 355. Can’t he see how much pain he’s causing? Why is he so cruel?” Ninety-nine thought to itself while continuing to write things down.

Ninety-nine was quick with its report. It only took ten minutes to write the details of the report. It just wrote down that experiment 356 was a failure, and resulted in a foul-smelling black liquid.

Once it was done, Ninety-nine decided to go converse with the whispers again. It wanted to ask why its creator was the way he was.

The artificial creature walked over towards the wall with the hole. It removed the box covering the hole and prepared itself to start hearing the whispers again. However, as it removed the box, it noticed the hole had changed. It was bigger.

The hole was originally a tiny thing, but now it was big enough for Ninety-nine to stick one of its tiny arms through it. The bigger hole was now surrounded by deep cracks in the wall, likely as a result of the increased size.

Ninety-nine looked at the change that occurred to the hole and then got a little excited. It got really close to the gap and peered inside, hoping that with the hole widened, it would finally be able to see the “person” on the other side of the wall. All it saw was a black void that it couldn’t see beyond.

The alchemical creature felt a strange compulsion. It didn’t know what was causing it, but it felt like sticking an arm into the hole. Despite Ninety-nine new improved abilities of discernment, it complied with the strange compulsion it was feeling.

It reached into the hole as far as it could. Ninety-nine pushed its whole body against the wall to try and get its arm in as deep as possible.

Ninety-nine felt something brush against its hand. It felt slimy, dry, hot, and cold all at once. A strange sensation that it didn’t have a proper word to describe. It was about to quickly pull its arm out when it felt the weight of something landed in Ninety-nine’s hand.

The creature slowly pulled its arm out and stared at what had landed in its palm. In its hand, laid a small sealed glass ampoule with a strange black liquid sloshing around in it. It looked at the strange liquid and wondered what it was.

“Twilight Elixir”. The word suddenly pops into Ninety-nine’s head.

The voices Ninety-nine suddenly heard from the hole were no longer whispering. It was audible, clear, and felt more far-reaching than previously. Each alien word it heard rang in Ninety-nine’s mind with a sensation that was both neurotic and euphoric.

The thing on the other side of the wall was explaining something to Ninety-nine. It was telling the homunculus to sneak that liquid it gave into Leroi’s food without him noticing. It then went on to explain to Ninety-nine how to achieve its true and complete freedom

??????????????????

Leroi slowly came to consciousness, feeling groggy. He had been lying on his back sleeping, but didn’t recall ever going to bed. The last memory he had was drinking some tea that he ordered Ninety-nine to make for him.

He slowly opened his eyes and rather than seeing the roof of his bedroom, it was the roof of his lab. He tried to move his head to look around, but couldn’t move his neck. In fact, he couldn’t move anything. He was completely paralyzed, the only exception seemed to be his eyes.

His eyes frantically looked around to try to understand what was going on. His head was propped up against something, so he could at least see his chest and the area in front of him. From where he was lying, Leroi could see a bunch of shelves and tables with alchemical equipment on them. He could tell from the position of everything, that he was currently on the operating table in the lab.

“What’s going on? Why am I on the operating table?” He thought to himself confused.

There was nothing to answer his query. He could only lay there, unable to move. Ten minutes went by, then another twenty more before a full two hours went by. Nothing was happening, and Leroi was starting to worry. He had to hope that whatever was causing his paralysis would eventually wear off. Otherwise, he would eventually die here, unable to take care of any of his bodily needs.

With the hours that went by, Leroi thought that this was some sort of combination of sleep paralysis and sleepwalking. Otherwise, he had no other rational explanation of what was going on.

His concern shifted to the back of his mind as he heard something outside from his line of sight. It sounded like glass bottles bumping into each other along with liquid sloshing in some sort of metal container. Leroi couldn’t tell what it was, but it was close. The sounds were coming from somewhere below beside him.

He saw someone placing glass bottles full of various liquids beside his body on the table. Leroi couldn’t see exactly who or what was doing that, but he did recognize some of the chemicals. They were the chemicals that he kept in his lab. It was various types of harsh disinfectants used to clean and sterilize tools.

Then he saw what looked to be his scalpel also being placed beside the bottles, along with a few other operating tools.

“OH LIGHT NO! Is someone about to operate on me! Is this some sort of nightmare?!” He silently thought to himself, as intense panic overtook him.

His panic calmed as he saw a small blue figure climb on top of the table. It was Ninety-nine. The small blue creature looked up and down at Leroi and then at the chemicals placed on the chemicals placed on the table.

“Oh good. It’s just Ninety-nine.” He thought to himself, as he started to calm down.

The alchemist was thinking that Ninety-nine was trying to do something to help him. Leroi thought that maybe he had lost consciousness in the lab from some fumes. It wouldn’t have been the first time that accidentally happened. And, Ninety-nine found him unconscious and placed his body on the table in the meantime. This was the explanation Leroi was constructing in his head at what was going on.

Leroi didn’t feel threatened by the artificial creature. Ninety-nine was magically bound to him, so he wasn't worried that it would do anything harmful to him. He believed the magic that helped create the homunculus wouldn't allow it.

However, there were several fatal flaws in that assumption. The magic used to create a homunculus only makes them do what they are ordered, but what if they can’t hear the order of their master. And, the assumption that homunculus can’t hurt their creator is also wrong. These creatures are usually not smart enough to threaten their masters, and even if they were smart enough to do so, that would also mean they were smart enough to know they would die without their creators supplying them aether. But, what if an intelligent homunculus didn’t care or was worried about surviving.

In such a bizarre scenario, the only thing that would keep a homunculus from hurting an alchemist would be a direct order not to harm them. In Ninety-nine's entire existence, it never received such a direct order as not to harm Leroi.

Any sense Leroi had that Ninety-nine was trying to help quickly evaporated once he saw it pick up a scalpel.

The small blue creature walked over to Leroi’s abdomen and lifted up his shirt. Ninety-nine then made a small vertical incision that was deep enough to break the skin and draw blood. It continued to carefully slice through muscle tissue and fat until eventually his intestines were exposed to the air.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!” The alchemist thought to himself as panic returned to him tenfold.

Leroi was unable to say or do anything as he watched this happen. The strange paralysis he currently experienced didn’t subside at all. The only saving grace was that he didn’t feel any of this, sparing him from the pain of having his stomach cut open. It was a small mercy.

Ninety-nine continued to cut away, making the incision in Leroi’s abdomen bigger. Eventually, the homunculus dropped the scalpel and reached right inside the hole it made. It grabbed Leoi’s intestine and pulled them out. Long strands of intestines shimmering with a layer of mucus were just casually pulled out in front of Leroi without any concern.

The creature kept pulling until the entrails went taut. Ninety-nine kept pulling, but it was too slimy and would just slip through its fingers. It then picked back up the scalpel and severed whatever the intestine was attached to that was preventing it from being completely removed. Blood oozed everywhere from the cut, splattering all over Ninety-nine, but the artificial creature didn’t pay it any mind. Ninety-nine just tossed the entrails off to the side beyond Leroi’s vision, landing somewhere with a went splat.

Seeing this horror, Leroi mustered every ounce of his willpower to try and move, trying to do anything to stop this. This was a nightmare that couldn’t go on. If he didn’t do anything, he would die at this rate, if it wasn't already too late.

He knew If I could speak a single command to Ninety-nine, this would all stop.

Leroi: “Ermm,” he quietly moaned.

All that effort, and Leroi only could make a low moan. A moan that wouldn’t be able to communicate any clear order. However, that moan didn’t go unnoticed.

Ninety-nine stopped what it was doing and looked over at Leroi’s face where it heard the moan. It finally noticed its creator staring at it. Slowly with a scalpel in hand, it walked over close to Leroi’s face. It then raised its blade up high.

Leoroi was wide-eyed in terror, as he expected Ninety-nine to bring down the blade and stab him in the head. However, instead of stabbing Leroi, Ninety-nine stabbed itself in the chest area a foot below its giant eye. It dragged the blade horizontally across, crudely cutting itself open and splattering more blood all over Leroi’s face.

The alchemist looked on in revulsion at the bloody display of self-mutilation, which was then followed by horror. Looking in the new gaping wound the homunculus carved into itself, Leroi saw a row of teeth and a long purplish tongue.

Leroi thought the homunculus didn’t have a mouth, but the truth was that it did. It was hidden and covered up by skin that had overgrown the opening during its original creation. Neither Leroi nor the homunculus knew about that fact, only the whisper in the wall knew, who then told Ninety-nine.

Ninety-nine long tongues licked at the area where it cut its mouth open.

Ninety-nine: “Hmmm. I-I f-fix,” it struggled to say as blood spits out of the gaping hole of its “mouth”.

The paralyzed man's eyes almost popped out of his head from shock. Ninety-nine was actually speaking. Leroi always knew that the creature was smart enough to talk based on the fact the creature was capable of writing. It was still surreal for the alchemist to hear.

The alchemist completely forgot about the hole in his stomach and his intestines thrown on the floor for the moment, becoming fixated on Ninety-nine. How he wished he wasn't paralyzed and could speak to his creation. There was a lot of inefficiency when communicating with Ninety-nine through writing, but if he was able to speak, Leroi thought there would be so much more to learn. His mind imagined the things he could talk to it about.

Ninety-nine: “I-I-I fix you too. I m-make you less y-you,” it stuttered, before smiling at its maker with its mutilated mouth.

Leroi was brought back to his current situation, wide-eyed with renewed terror.

Ninety-nine would continue to hack away at Leroi.

??????????????????

John was sitting at a table on the main floor of his store. He had just spent hours attempting to clean up around the Mystic Emporium, only to realize it was pointless.

The man from another world was a bit of a neat freak and would clean and organize things around him. The problem was that things would constantly move when he wasn't looking. Books would appear and disappear on different shelves, furniture would move from a different corner of the room to another, and boxes full of objects would suddenly be found empty for only two seconds later to be found somewhere else. It all made organizing anything impossible in this store.

It had been two weeks since he came to this world and he was still learning the ins and outs of everything, including the nature of his store.

He sat there feeling defeated from all the time he wasted trying to organize everything.

As he sat there, he heard the bell to his front door ring.

He sat up attentive and a bit excited at someone actually walking into this store. This would be the first person, that he was aware of, to come into the Mystic Emporium. But, his excitement quickly turned sour. The person who walked in was Leroi with his lab coat. Looking more portly than John remembered.

He saw John sitting at a table at the back of the store and walked over to him a bit robotically before just stopping in front of the table.

Leroi: “Can I speak with you?”

John: “Ah, yeah sure,” he said.

John didn’t really want to talk to Leroi. He remembered that his last interaction was unpleasant. But, decided to try and be the better person and talk to him anyway.

Leroi: “I just wanted to apologize to you for how I acted and what I said when we first met.

John: “Oh?” he mumbled, surprised.

Leroi: “I was having a bad time when you tried talking to me. I’m sorry about that. I shouldn’t be taking my frustration out on other people.”

John: “It’s OK. Do you mind if I ask you what it was that upset you back then?”

Leroi: “I was just conducting some experiments and it wasn't going well for me.“

John: “What kind of experiment, if you don’t mind me asking,” he said, curious to know what his neighbor was working on.

Leroi: “I wouldn’t worry about that now. I’ve pretty much put it behind me now.”

As Leroi said that, one of his eyes opened wide and started to look around erratically interdependent of the other. It was kinda unnerving for John and weirded him out.

John: “Um, are you OK?”

Leroi quickly grabbed the side of his head and covered the rapidly moving eye with the palm of his hand.

Leroi: “Sorry. It’s a condition. I sometimes lose control of my body.“

“Oh, does he have something like Parkinson's?” John wondered if such a disease like that existed in this mysterious world.

Leroi: “I've forgotten to take my medicine for it. I should probably go take it now. I just wanted to apologize and hope that you’ll forgive me. And, maybe we could be friends?

John's eyes opened wide with surprise and excitement. This would be his first opportunity to actually make a friend in this world.

John: “Of course! And, I hope your condition gets better.”

Leroi: “Thank you. I think it will eventually get better soon,” he said with a smile while still holding his eye.

Leroi got up and quietly left through the front door of the Mystic Emporium.

??????????????????

Leroi just entered through the front door of the Bubbling Beaker. He locked the door behind himself, walked over to a nearby chair, and took a seat. His right eye was still bugging out and looking around erratically, but he seemed to ignore it.

Slowly, Leroi started to unbutton his lab coat. He wasn't wearing anything under the lab coat and his chest was laid out bare. As he started to open up the lower half of his lab coat, where his abdomen would have been was a cylindrical metal tube that encompasses the entirety of his midsection. It was bulky, making Leroi look a little chubby while he wore his lab coat over it.

Leroi’s whole body suddenly went limp as he slumped back into the chair, his one eye constantly twitching and looking around. The front of the metal cylinder shifted and slowly swung outward to reveal a one-eyed creature, possessing a mouth that looked more like an open wound, sitting inside where Leroi’s stomach would have been.

Ninety-nine had ripped out all the organs from around his creator's abdomen to allow itself to fit inside while reinforcing it with metal. From there it followed the instructions of the voice in the wall and modified the alchemist's body in horrific ways.

The modification allowed the Ninety-nine to “pilot” Leroi with two fleshy tubes that looked similar to an umbilical cord, connecting the back of the artificial creature’s body to Leroi’s spine.

The homunculus had managed to accomplish all this thanks to the twilight elixir it sneaked into Leroi’s food.

Twilight Elixir is a cruel potion from another world beyond where Ninety-nine resides. It was a mad scientist's attempt at creating a substance to make himself immortal. It worked by permanently putting someone on the edge of death and life. A state where you're not dead, but also not alive. Not too dissimilar to some forms of undeath. However, the drawback of twilight elixir was severe. Once consumed, you become permanently paralyzed, but remain completely aware and unable to truly die.

Due to how that potion worked, even if you're cut up into thousands of pieces, you’d still be “technically” alive. Leroi could get his head chopped off and he would still be conscious and aware with no possibility of the relief of death.

Leroi being in this state would allow Ninety-nine to endlessly modify his body, without fear of its creator dying. And with its creator alive, the homunculus' continued existence was assured, with Leroi still being able to supply Ninety-nine with the aether it needed to live.

The paralyzed Leroi would every once in a while try to exert control of his body, resulting in some erratic movements. But, he would never be able to recover from the effects of the twilight elixir, never to be able to speak or move properly without Ninety-nine’s help. He no longer had control over the homunculus, or even his own body. Doomed to be nothing more than a meat puppet to his creation for the rest of his existence. An existence that may never end. A horrific irony.

Ninety-nine looked up at shelves of the store from the cavity in Leroi’s stomach it carved out for itself. It smiled as the creature realized that it would finally be able to reach the top of the shelf to clean the dust with Leroi’s help.