Judgment

Kowalsk finally woke up and realized he was not alone. He opened his eyes slowly, rubbing them and blinking rapidly. The high brightness of the room prevented him from seeing anything clearly, and with his eyes burning, he tried to focus on something to recognize his surroundings.

"Are you going to take long to get up, or do you want to keep lying down?" someone nearby mocked.

"Who's there?" he asked suspiciously.

"You don't know me, and telling you my name won't help you at all."

Three seconds of silence was all it took for Kowalsk to burst into his bad temper. "That's not why I'm asking your name, you brainless idiot!"

Three more seconds passed, and a more explosive response came: "I just wish I was next to you to show you how brainless I can be."

Now standing, Kowalsk could hear his interlocutor but, no matter how much he searched, he couldn't locate him. With his eyes now adjusted to the excessive brightness, he could see the entire scenario surrounding him. Monitors and computer keyboards were everywhere, a table with various printed maps on it, several fire extinguishers, and many unknown machines full of viscous liquid leaking from their tops, wetting part of the floor where Kowalsk was standing.

"What a mess is this? Disgusting," Kowalsk complained, lifting one of his feet and realizing both his shoes were smeared with that strange substance that looked like a mix of mashed banana and burnt rubber.

"Anyone listening might think your house is very clean, soldier," the voice taunted again, and once more, Kowalsk couldn't find its owner.

"If you really want to find me, don't be so limited, soldier. Just look for me, you can do it.

Instinctively, Kowalsk looked up and found the source of the voice, but he was left bewildered. A capsule from some experiment was hanging above his head, gently swaying.

"An interestingly cowardly hiding place," Kowalsk jabbed, already guessing his mysterious companion's reaction. The response came quickly in the form of an uncontrolled yell.

"Who are you calling a coward, you pathetic soldier?"

Kowalsk didn't respond, just listening and analyzing what this place could be.

"Scared of me, little soldier?" the pretentious and arrogant voice asked.

The ex-soldier began to examine everything he saw in that place and finally concluded he was in a genetic experiment laboratory. There were five suspended capsules, two broken and three apparently intact, all interconnected with a myriad of wires and hoses of various sizes.

"What kind of zoo is this?" Kowalsk asked without taking his eyes off the first capsule, which never stopped swaying. Kowalsk's wait wasn't long; soon after, the endlessly moving capsule shattered like a cheap mirror into almost a thousand pieces, and its occupant jumped in one leap to stand in front of ex-soldier Kowalsk.

"And now, little soldier, where's your courage?" Kowalsk wanted to run; his eyes couldn't convey to his brain what was threateningly staring at him. Even if he wanted to flee, his legs refused to take a step out of there, almost as if he had forgotten how to run or simply how to get out of there.

In front of him stood a humanoid figure over two meters tall, with legs resembling those of a grasshopper, complete with those serrations on the sides. Some tattered clothes futilely attempted to cover its legs, while an old jacket covered it from the waist up. The arms seemed too limp, even though the figure tried to appear tough and full of poise.

But the head of the strange figure was the most horrifying thing Kowalsk had ever seen in his life: a face devoid of skin and hair, with overly exposed and grotesquely bulging eyes. A nasal cavity without any cartilage and a mouth surrounded by a small grill apparently welded or glued to its own jaw, giving this character a gruesome appearance, worthy of the most horrifying horror movie ever watched by the trembling Kowalsk.

"Who are you, ugly thing? Or rather, what are you?"

"Like you, I am a soldier. Better said, I was created to be a soldier, the best of all."

"Doesn't look like it," Kowalsk muttered very softly.

"May I know why you made that comment, soldier?" asked the enigmatic and disfigured stranger.

"For a simple and trivial reason not worth mentioning."

"But I insist on knowing," the disfigured character demanded, advancing even closer to Kowalsk.

"Alright, since you insist, I'll tell you, but don't get mad afterward," Kowalsk declared courageously, still trembling. "You may have a scary appearance, but you don't even have the erect posture of a soldier. Your hands are too limp and loose to hold anything, whether for combat or defense. Your center of gravity is off, which is why you're almost a hunchback and probably limp."

Kowalsk hadn't even finished speaking when the door to the main passage opened, creating a gap big enough for the hunting creature to insert its massive head into the room in search of food. He barely had time to recover from the shock, and before he could react like a veteran soldier, he saw the bizarre figure he was mercilessly mocking dash past him like an insane blur.

Knowing how strong and resilient the hunting creature was, Kowalsk was stunned to see that twisted and disfigured man grab the beast by the neck and punch it repeatedly, so quickly that his eyes could hardly follow. Seeing that the winged creature was much tougher and more resistant to blows than he had assumed, the strange figure changed tactics, always followed by the attentive eyes of Kowalsk, who didn't miss a single move.