LAB 4 - Little Boy

Hope you didn't forget about the evil scientist and the stalwart soldier. They didn't forget about you. By the way, how's your bottle of water? Words by Savage and Daily. Drawing by Savage.



chapter 4 – little boy
The little boy stumbled through the emptiness of the jungle. The heat had convinced him that he would grow into a leopard and terrorize villages of other small children. His jealousy, of course, was from his lack of memory. He did not know what force had set him loose and alone into the jungle. Only, he was thirsty, and he was becoming desperate.
The boy's hands were innocent and shaped like palm fronds. His hair was rakish and lingered over his prickly ears. His knees were shabby, laughable. His ribcage sprouted through his chest. His eyes were marked and bright. His shoes were red cabbage leaves. All of the child's management was loosening. And in the distance he saw the wreckage of a medical facility. The boy grew hopeful and began to run.
The remnants of the laboratory told no stories. The black magic had been distilled. The mystery had been slain. Seduction was no longer part of its mystique, yet still the child entered and still he thirsted and still there were lingering plastic bottles lined on shelves. The boy glanced upon the rows of life sustaining liquid kept prisoner in plastic and he pounced. The feral nature of the child gave way. He snapped open a bottle and gorged, water slashing down his face and throat. If heaven was a conceit, it would be such as this: the child fell asleep quickly, peacefully, in a sense of security amidst the crash of all ending chaos. This was disproven, however, when he awoke and was not a child at all. Something else.

His finger nails had become claws. His teeth fang. Long tangles of patch splatch hair covered his body. But he was no pedestrian horror movie creature. No, he wasn't even an idealized jungle cat. He was just himself except uglier and older. He aged into the strangest of men. The little boy lost. He stood up. The clothes he fell asleep in were torn. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. How long was he out? He walked out of the lab and back into the jungle. The jungle seemed less special to him now. The trees were just bland sticks of aged brown bark and the leaves were dull green. It was as if the youth's eyes turned from digital love to radio decay. The day was overcast. The old boy began walking, crunching on twigs and leaves and mashing into sludgy muck. His mind remained the same. He cried and cried. This world wasn't familiar to him. His body was foreign. Everything felt wrong. He had been walking a few hours when he came upon a lake. Should he take a swim to cool off? Should he?

Instead, the boy sat upon the bank, staring at his reflection. He began to imagine what he saw as the face of his unknown father; perhaps even his mother. The old boy started chanting to himself, “You are free now, you are free. You are free now, you are free.” It seemed to help. Beneath the water he could make-out tiny flints of fishes frolicking in the swim. He wanted them, to be the air they breathed, to find distillation into the air, and to never cease rising, even into the empty void of space.
The old boy fell asleep that night, but he did not expect death. He dreamed grand dreams of tiger paw and the feasible defense of an imperial castle against fire. He had dreams that contained songs he’d never heard before. When the old boy awoke, he decided not to despair. He was the king of the jungle; how had he forgotten? With a roar, he pounced sideways into the brush, chanting his unknown name over and over and over. Some of the jungle would be changed by this. The old boy smiled.