The compacted words on the white paper were written in Latin. Rokah concentrated on the black ink, attempting to read the sentences. They didn’t make sense, at least to him.
The tall male with reddish hair was standing behind him. Rokah looked at him and snapped: “I am not signing those papers. This is not a job. This is pure slavery…”
“This is not slavery if you are going to sign it with your own free will.”
Rokah narrowed his eyes, questioning the logic behind these words. While calming himself by letting the air with the jasmine fragrance fill his lungs. His mind wandered, searching for memory about this fragrance and where he had smelled it before. Snapping back his attention to the present situation under the voice of this creature, urging him to hurry and sign the contract, Rokah’s anger and disdain returned. There was no way he was going to sign out his freedom twice.
Moving away from the desk, he placed the pencil on the papers and declared mastering the coolest tone he could manage: “Take the condition 17, 18, 19, and 23 from the contract, then I will sign it.”
Rokah felt the hair on his head squirm from the tightness in his scalp. Blood pulsed through his neck as the anger boiled his brain. He commanded this growing discomfort while reaching the entrance of the study room. His growing desire to know the identity of Mister Benefactor flayed away after reading the conditions of the contract. The truth was simple and clear “Mister Benefactor was just Mister Slaver.”
He doubted it from the beginning, yet he still searched for some hope in life.
In the end, the creatures who were hated by fate, there was no place for them… No one will help them just for the sake of helping them, because angels didn’t exist, a verity that he has learned a long time ago, the hard way.
The previously clouded image in his head was cleared instantly. So, being a resident here made you a half slave, being a resident in the main house made you–with your own will- a fully-fledged slave.
Even if Rokah was angry at this Mr. benefactor. The lord of the manor was smart. No, he was brilliant at using the misfortune of others for his benefits without triggering their rage. He also gave them the illusion of being their benefactor.
There was no benefit for him to get hired in the manor anymore. He needed to find another method to get what he wanted, and there was no option better than reviving his old skill.
At noon, Rokah went to Chewa’s funeral. The cemetery was as he left it. Gloomy, cold and it soils hard to dig in because of the frost. The second biggest irony he saw today was that damn monster drilling Chewa’s grave. He froze from afar, observing the Aractanthrope movements just to confirm, and again, he can spot the anomaly in his motions. It made him hardly hold that ruptured smile…
“Doctor! I never heard your opinion about that man?”
Rokah turned to his right, following the source of the voice. Not just because of the question. The petrichor odor – the earthy scent produced when rain falls on a dry soil- tackled his sense of smell. Rokah blinked in disbelief, then he scolded the man who stood near him using a flat voice: “What are you doing here in this cold weather?”
“Following your advice, Doctor…”
The man’s accent filled with sarcasm, and Rokah relished at its tune. When a powerful individual tries to ridicule a person weaker than him, it meant that he is trying to hang on to the only straw that holds his pride. But no matter what, a doctor has to be virtuous for his recovering patients, regardless of their identity or origin. Right…
A Lycanthrope, a gravely injured Lycanthrope in the convalescence phase, and an Aractanthrope in the same narrow space. They must never confront each other, or his cover will be blown. Yet Rokah found another reason to kill the big man. If anything goes wrong, he should get rid of the subject of his current experiment – Lycanthrope- and all his work on regeneration has to stop.
As Rokah resumed his thoughts, he told the wolf in a voice filled with faked concern: “I am glad that you can walk on your feet, my long hours spent nursing you bear its fruit.”
“Well, I paid a dear price for it.”
The doctor stole a few glances at his face, then lowered his sight to the frozen soil under his staled boots and said after a moment of contemplation: “In life, nothing comes for free.”
Rokah never asked about his name. He never felt the need to do. He was just wondering what it went in his mind when they halted side by side, watching the ceremony of burial.
The annotation of each Metamorph has a take after his beastly morph was true. The wolf wasn’t very tall or massive compared to the Aractanthrope, just one inch or two taller than the average mongrel. He was pale and thin, the outcome of a long time in a coma.
“Isn’t that our buddy?” the wolf inquired about the extended bulky man, using his index finger to bring the doctor’s focus to the target. Rokah slapped his hand away using a small force, then whispered: “Are you mad? If he found about your existence, you will be as good as dead.”
The wolf didn’t look convinced by the doctor’s argument, which caused his face to contort with rage and regret about all those white nights that he devoted to nursing this animal. Most doctors hated to invest in undisciplined patients with whom they threw the efforts of their doctors out the window.
The wolf bent to reach Rokah’s ears and whispered, in the same manner, “did you notice it? I guess you noticed it.”
Rokah stared at him while he adjusted his position and stowed his hands under his armpits to warm them. He lifted his eyes and caught Rokah looking at him, thus He smirked and said: “if you didn’t notice it, I won’t tell you…”
A burst of soft laughter escaped the doctor’s mouth. He attempted to repress it by biting his lips. Then he shifted his gaze away from the wolf, aware that the wolf was looking at him in doubt. He knew he was confused about this reaction. This type of immature behavior could be that he injured his brain, too.
” Actually, you revealed yourself. You were awake when he aimed to strangle me!” Rokah tried to clear the issue. Then he faced him and added: “I guess you wished him to kill me…”
The wolf avoided direct eye contact and slightly inclined his head to the left before he murmured between his lips: “What are you talking about?”
“Then illuminate me. When did you learn about his sense of smell being wasted? You will never dare to approach him in this condition of yours.”
The regulations of burial ended, and the last paper flower on the tomb was left by Madam Linda. The doctor retreated with the rest of the group, but as soon as he noticed his precious patient still halted there between gravestones like a scarecrow in a wheat field, his heart softened for an unknown reason.
This Lycanthrope probably thinks of his fate as being worse than those who are under the earth.
For an instant, Rokah blamed himself for tricking him this way. He only desired to seal the holes in his heart. He wished to appear powerful and smart, so the world wouldn’t look down on him. But after all, all the living beings are the same when it comes to despair. Appearances, origins, or high birth, they all didn’t matter when they sink into this sloppy nasty swamp of despair.
Having a moment of self-reflection, Rokah never considered himself a doctor. He was more like a despicable individual who will use his knowledge to navigate the dark ocean called “life”. And if some chose to give him a title, and treat him the way this title implies, it was their fault.
The coldness of the breeze was like a sedative drug. Rokah’s fingers were like iron bars, heavy and hard to move, yet he managed to poke the standing man in his left shoulder. The response he has scored from him was more like a confession: “You want me to kill the Aractanthrope? I can have a decent fight with him, but if he morphs, there is no guarantee I could strike him down.”
He said, ignoring this straightforward offer: “No, there is no point in getting you killed. I only wish that you get better.”
Enjoying the weird expression that painted his face with the color of disbelief and contemplation, Rokah walked away from him, following the trails on the white snow left by others. After a while, he heard his footsteps accelerating to catch up to him; somehow Rokah sensed he wanted him to perceive his words about wanting to drink the beer.
“No, we are having some milk… it’s better for the health.”
Rokah could swear he heard him chuckle. He wondered what’s wrong with this Lycanthrope? How far the depth of his brain injury goes. Then Rokah had a second thought and concluded that he was the one with some kind of deep injury in his soul.
