"Shut it down," a man in a white lab coat said. There was no expression on his face as he looked at the readings before him.
"Shut it down?" another man, dressed similarly, asked, disbelief evident in his voice. "This is the closest we have ever been to achieving it."
The two seemed to be in some type of lab, surrounded by white walls and heavy machinery that filled the room with a soft hum.
There were multiple other people dressed in white lab coats; some were hunched over monitors, while others rushed up and down.
On the screens of some of the monitors, an unknown text scrolled by.
In the center of the lab, a boy, no older than ten, was strapped to a metal table. His chest rose and fell erratically as tubes fed glowing fluids into his veins, each a different color.
"Yes," the first man spoke again, his voice low. "He has found out what we're trying to achieve."
The second man froze almost immediately as he turned to the first. "Y-you don't mean," he asked, hoping—no, praying—that his thoughts were wrong.
As if in reply to his question, the monitors started to flicker. Several of the data streams abruptly cut to black. One by one, authorization lights across the lab switched from green to red.
ACCESS REVOKED.
SUPPORT WITHDRAWN.
COUNCIL CLEARANCE: NULL.
The second man's eyes widened in horror as he looked on. "No," he whispered. "They wouldn't. This project was sanctioned. The Council approved it. They all had a stake in this."
"They did," the first replied, "but they are also unwilling to take the fall, especially now that He has found out." He turned from the screens at last; his eyes were completely hollow. "So they've pulled out, every last one of them."
There was a moment of silence. "…Why?" the second asked, though he already knew the answer.
"Because this is no longer a political risk," the first said. "It's a divine one."
On the table, the boy convulsed. The fluids in the tubes seemed to be trembling violently as the colors started bleeding into one another before stabilizing into a dull, indistinct grey. And that's exactly when the alarms began to sound.
WARNING: EXTERNAL AUTHORITY DETECTED.
WARNING: VEIL BREACH IMMINENT.
"We have to move him," the second said urgently. "If we shut it down now and sever the Core—"
"It's too late now," the first interrupted, turning towards the entrance. "He's here."
The moment the words left his mouth, the lights in the lab suddenly started to flicker. Fog, coming from an unknown location, started filling the lab, followed by a very familiar scent:
Brimstone.
"You guys really did piss off Father this time," a voice suddenly said from behind them. The two scientists turned around, only to see a man standing close to the strapped boy.
The lights finally steadied, revealing his features. The man had a head full of white hair and wore a black formal suit with a wine-red shirt underneath. Though they didn't need to look at him to realize who he was.
They looked around and noticed that all the other scientists were frozen in place. It wasn't because of fear; no, it was because time had been completely halted for them.
"I must say, though," the man muttered, now curiously observing the boy on the table with his glowing red irises, "you pests really have outdone yourselves this time."
The two lead scientists, unfrozen by time, stood still without saying anything. They knew their lives could be snuffed out by the slightest movement from that man. No, calling him a "man" was a degradation to him.
"But there's something missing," the man added, unbothered by the thoughts of the two, which he could loudly hear.
He stood straight and started patting his suit pocket as if searching for something. He paused for a second before saying, "Ah, that's right."
He stretched his hand to the side and, for a second, it seemed to disappear before reappearing with a small vial.
The bottle contained a golden liquid, and the moment it appeared, the eyes of the lead scientists widened.
"Watch closely," the man muttered as he tilted the vial toward the boy's convulsing body. He let a single drop touch his lip, and it disintegrated almost immediately.
The boy's convulsions worsened as golden cracks appeared on his body, almost as if he was breaking apart.
The man watched with a grin as the boy's eyes snapped open, showing a myriad of colors ranging from red and blue to green and gold.
A heavy pressure descended on the two scientists, almost forcing them to their knees. Sweat drenched their faces as they finally realized what they had just created: an abomination.
The man, on the other hand, leaned closer, his crimson eyes scanning the boy carefully. "Survive this, little one," he said softly, a rare note of amusement in his voice.
As if reacting to his words, the boy's body slowly stopped trembling. A few seconds later, the cracks disappeared and the boy's eyes slowly closed, sending him into a deep slumber.
"You truly are a surprising specimen, kid," the man said with a smile, placing a finger on the boy's chest right above his heart. "But I don't want you causing havoc just yet."
A red glow appeared on his finger before it crawled onto the kid's skin, creating a certain pattern. "This should make things interesting," the man said. He picked the boy off the metal table before finally turning to the two scientists.
"Father did say to clean this place," he muttered, looking at the terrified men.
"Y-you can't do that, we—" one of them tried to say, but with just a snap of the man's fingers, his mouth was gone.
"You talk too much," he said, his eyes glinting with quiet menace. "Council approval or not, it changes nothing. I don't care about your plans, your justifications… all I care about is completing my task. Everything else is irrelevant."
There was a moment of absolute silence before the first scientist opened his mouth and asked, "What happens to the kid now?"
"For now?" The man looked at the boy sleeping in his arms. "He'll live an ordinary life."
"I see." The first scientist went silent for a while before adding, "And us?"
The man looked at him for a while but said nothing in response. Instead, he just turned around as a crack appeared in space, which he stepped through.
The moment he did, the second scientist's mouth returned and he immediately said, "H-he spared us?"
But it seemed he spoke too soon. The crack suddenly widened, and from it, creatures far taller than humans stepped through.
They had red skin, some with horns, others with tails. One thing they all had in common was the unmistakable scent of brimstone.
Their eyes scanned the lab before falling on the scientists who had just been unfrozen.
"Demons!" one of the scientists screamed, and that's when panic settled in.
They immediately scattered, trying to reach the exit, but before they could, the demons were already upon them.
The first scientist just stood in his spot as the chaos unfolded around him.
He looked up at the ceiling before muttering out loud, "What the hell did we just create?"