The Prisoners Meet
The doctor stared blankly at the operating table. The straps fastened. The iron backing solid. And empty needle in his hand.
And no squib.
Panic set in after only a moment.
They’d prepared for the eventuality of the poison not working on a hybrid like this squib child. They knew that normal tranquilizers merely angered endermen.
They’d prepared for that, by having more poisons. To inject one by one until they worked.
What they hadn’t prepared for is the boy teleporting. The bindings had soul sand - that should’ve trapped the boy. Even if he had teleported, they knew that he could only teleport a few feet. He shouldn’t have been able to teleport outside the room.
The doctor stared, and wondered for a long moment what to do.
...I said that the soul sand would trap him.
His escape is on my shoulders.
I’ll get fired for this.
My life will be ruined.
...After a long, long moment, he picked up the boy’s papers.
He picked up a large, red stamp from the desk.
TERMINATION COMPLETE.
It woke up in darkness.
It felt its eyes flare in panic, and stumbled back; its back pressing against the wall. Is hands pressed against cool stone flooring.
A numb sensation spiked through its right hand, while its left barely seemed to feel the cold.
A faint purple light spilled over the floors. It allowed the creature to see, faintly, some of its surroundings. Boxes, a desk, stone floors and walls. A large, cast iron door, with no cracks or holes of any kind.
“Woah! You came back to life!”
Its head darted up, and met luminous slightly transparent green eyes.
It bit back a scream.
Across the room, in a cell, stood a… boy. It (he?) was wearing a simple aqua gown that flowed around him like a dress. His smile was wide and empty of teeth.
His entire body was slightly translucent, and a pale shade of jade. His eyes had smoky black sclera, and bright white pinprick pupils.
“Welcome back to the land of the living, lil dude!” he (it?) said, throwing his arms up, as if celebrating the creature’s random appearance in what appeared to be his home.
“...Hello?” the newcomer muttered, testing its voice. It understood the boy(?) across from it, but how well it could communicate was yet to be discovered.
Suddenly - the boy grimaced at it.
“Oof, looks like you went through some nasty tests, bud,” he said, his white pupils widening as he spoke. Dilating?
“...Uhm,” the newcomer said intelligently.
The boy stepped towards it. Every step made a slight glop against the floor.
“What’s your name?” he asked the newcomer.
“...I… don’t know.”
The boy blinked.
There was silence, for a moment.
“Okay, so, memory loss? Weird,” the boy muttered, seemingly mostly to himself. “Well, that’s okay. My name’s Charlie. We can call you… Charlie 2!”
“...Charlie 2?” it asked, tasting the name.
“Two for short,” Charlie said. “Well - welcome to my cozy home-away-from-home, Two!”
“...Home.” Two repeated blankly.
The word made something stir weakly in its chest.
“Away from home,” Charlie tacked on. “My actual home is… well, let’s not talk about that!”
For a moment, the boy’s smile looked strangely brittle. And then his eyes sparkled again, as he reached over to Two.
“Now, let’s get you up, hm?” he said, offering his hand and a bright smile to Two.
Two reached up to accept his offer-
and his hand simply glopped through the appendage.
Charlie blinked. “...Oh. Right. Uh.”
He leaned back - and clenched his hand experimentally a few times, his fingers sticking together.
After a moment, though, the limb seemed to start to grow more opaque.
“Okay, try again,” the boy said, offering his hand once more.
Two, despite a sincere doubt that anything different would happen, indulged the boy.
Surprisingly - despite a slight glop and a coating of slight slime - the boy’s hand felt surprisingly solid now. Not solid outright, but much thicker. Solid enough to grip and pull.
So Two did. Stumbling to its feet and cradling its head as the world spun.
“Woah,” Charlie said with a blink as he took a step or two back. “Make that not-so-little dude.”
Two glanced down at him, confused. “Not so little?”
“You’re tall,” Charlie said, simply. “But it doesn’t matter. ...Well, okay, it might matter, but it doesn’t matter right now.”
Suddenly - his eyes widened, and sparkled like gemstones. His hands reaching out to weigh heavily on Two’s shoulders - little dribbles of slime dripping down his exposed skin.
“You can teleport,” Charlie whispered, glee in his voice.
“...Yes?”
“You can get us out of here.”