Monster that They see

                   Monster that they see

By: Spencer M. Ott

Copyrighted 2010

  Chapter 1

My earliest memories are those of being in a tube filled with a green fluid, with wires attach to my arms, legs and head.  The wires stretching overhead to the top, sending vital signs and brain waves to a computer, where scientists analyzed the data, making sure I was developing correctly.  The scientists appeared to me only as white creatures, with no distinctive features.  All of them were clad with a white mask, white caps, white latex gloves, and sterile white lab coats, betraying nothing of the person underneath. 

            Only one stood out from these white creatures.  He was of average size, 6 foot-tall, he still wore the same sterile white lab coat, but no mask, cap or gloves.  He had short salt and pepper hair, and a long white beard, which reached down to the middle of his chest.  He had a strong, square chin, and a narrow nose, where half moon glasses rested.

But what stood out the most of this man, were his eyes.  His eyes were of an icy blue, the color of the northern glaciers, and just as cold.  They seemed to peer into your very being and read your very thoughts.  For hours at a time, he would stare at me with his glacial eyes, through his half moon spectacles, and watch me in the tube, as if I were a piece in a museum.  Whenever I was conscious within the tube, his stares would send a shiver down my spine.  They seemed completely devoid of emotion or warmth, and nothing more than stares passed between us. 

Other than his face, only one other imprinted itself into my mind while I was in the tube.  It was during one of the first times I had awakened while still in the tube, and when I had opened my eyes, I saw something that still to this day warms my heart. 

A little girl, of no more than six, was staring at me through the glass.  She had a round little face like a small cherub, with small ears, and a little nose.  She had long chestnut hair that fell past her shoulders.  Her eyes were teal, as if someone had captured the essence of the ocean and had infused it with her irises.  She looked at me with pure innocence and love, a look only a child could give, and yet, I saw a kind of sorrow in her eyes, a sorrow that would make you think she was much older than she was, and knew much more than she wanted to.

As we stared at each other, one of the white creatures came and stared to shoo her away from the tank.

“You mustn’t go near that.” The scientist told her, “That thing isn’t safe.”

She tried to protest but to no avail.   It escorted her out of the room and then returned to its work, scribbling on a chart and checking monitors.  The creature’s behavior confused me. I did not seem to be a threat, not being much bigger than her, but… I was different, looking at my reflection in the glass.

From afar, the man with glacial eyes observes the creature, he cannot believe how much it has developed in six years.  Its dark grey skin, similar to the color of smoke from a fire.  Cool greenish yellow eyes with slits for pupils, that appear cool and calculating on its human face.  It had grown wavy, medium length, bronze hair, and going from the base of the skull to the bottom of the neck, small crimson feathers had formed, each one no more than an inch in length, and stripes of similar color run down its back and upper arms. 

On the lower arms feathers had developed, becoming an obsidian color with blood red tips that grow from the outside edge of its arms, the longest is four inches starting at the wrists and decreasing in size down to the elbows.  It had normal five fingered hands, but each finger had grown a claw in place of a fingernail.  It had beast-like three toed feet, each toe ending in a claw, with the inside toe raised off the ground, with the claw being a wicked sickle shape.