CHAPTER 23: Tubes.

With his heart pounding in his chest, he gathered his courage and pushed the metal doors open. The doors creaked in protest as they were forced to move from the place that they had been standing on for years, untouched.

When Theo walked in, the lights switched on and he was faced with numerous, large glass tubes with cloudy liquid in them. Metal veins were all over the floor, connecting them to gigantic metal boxes.

A thick layer of dust clung to the glass like a shadow. He stretched out his hand and wiped the cold, smooth surface clean.

Immediately he retracted his hand in horror after seeing what these tubes contained.

Humanoid creatures with skin tones varying from a bright blue to an unnaturally white stared at him with dead sunken in eyes.

Some were almost identical to humans, with round ears and no extra limbs whatsoever. But the blue patches of fur scattered over their bodies gave away their nature.

Some were more similar to Theo, only distorted somehow. Tails fused to their bodies, a missing wing or one that seemed to be melted together with an arm. Some had instead of one forked tongue, two human ones, and there was even one with a complete double face.

Terrified he moved forward only to face even more of these monstrosities. The only comfort he could find now, was that all of them seemed to be dead.

He went further until he reached the back of the eerily long room. Here he found three glass tubes much like the ones he had seen earlier.

The one to the right was empty. There was no broken glass or any of the cloudy liquid on the floor. This one was meant to be empty. And since he was the only one of his kind walking around, this tube quite clearly belonged to him.

The one to the left had a figure in it, but this one seemed different from the rest. Yes, it had the blue skin and a tail. But apart from that it looked more similar to a human than Theo, though his limbs seemed longer. He had four fingers, that ended in claws. This wouldn't have been weird considering the other more humanoid creatures that were preserved here, but this one was the only one with antlers instead of horns.

Despite this the middle one was the most remarkable. This one was nearly identical to Theo himself, only it was a lot taller, had six horns instead of two, it had dark blue stripes all over its body and more fur on its back that spread out to its shoulders.

He stood there, watching the thing for what felt like an eternity. Not knowing what to do, he pounded on the glass. He wanted nothing more than to destroy everything in this room, starting with the creature that resembled him the most.

But it was to no avail. No matter what he tried he could not break the glass. At this point he was no longer sure if it was even glass to begin with.

Eventually he could do nothing more than to fall to his knees with bleeding knuckles. Was this his answer to what he was? Just another monstrosity that was never meant to be born. No, born wouldn't be the right word to use. Birth was natural and the same couldn't be said for these things surrounding him. Fabricated, or simply created would be better words to describe the way these creatures came into the world.

He stood up; the tip of his tail was still trembling after witnessing the place of his birth. He had to look further. Somehow, he had been moved from the tube to the box his father found him in. And he deeply doubted that he as a baby could break free from the tube to place himself in the box.

Someone or something had to have been here. If he could find the thing that witnessed his creation. Then maybe he could find out why he was created in the first place.

Without looking back, he turned around and basically ran out of the room.

He rushed through the many hallways hoping to find a trace of something that could justify his creation. Only he found nothing.

Most of the things here were old, forgotten, and mere husks of what they once were. The language was unreadable, even if he knew what the symbols meant.

Eventually he stumbled upon a sealed door. This one was different from all the others he had seen thus far. It was not transparent in any way. Just a large wall of metal that supposedly opened up to the side like all the others.

Black and yellow stripes were all over the sides of the door and even a few centimetres in front of it.

Two bleached skeletons in metal suits laid before the sealed entrance. Their hands stretched out to the small panel with then different markings on it in rows of three with one at the bottom.

Theo could hear a faint humming behind the door. It didn't appear like the sound a living creature could make. It was more… mechanical in some way. He had ever heard anything like it before.

Then suddenly, he heard something move further in the hallway. The lights there had yet to turn on and even for Theo it was difficult to see this deep in the ruins.

Instinctively he took a few steps back. Whatever walked around in the distance was many times stronger than him. Let alone the strange pressure that slowly started to grow.

Theo turned around and slowly made his way out of the ruins. As he was further away from the strange pressure in the distance he dared to move faster until he ran on all fours as fast as he could. He didn't stop running until he got back to the gates of the camp.

The sun has already risen, and the warm light had started to melt the cold layer of white on the grass.

Out of breath he stood in front of the gates. Realising how late he was he climbed in one of the trees in front of the entrance. Once the branches could no longer carry his weight he jumped out of the tree and spread his wings.

After gliding for a short while he started to flap them with all his might to stay in the air as long as possible.

In the end he was able to reach the plateau on the walls. He pulled himself up and jumped off on the other side.

Now all he could do was hope that no one noticed how long he was gone for.