4. He's...?

“He-he’s n-not dead?” Arthur stuttered while wiping away the snot from his sleeve.

“No, he’s still breathing.” Shelly replied while pointing at Boss’ mouth and chest showing signs that he’s still breathing and is just unconsciously asleep.

After knowing that Boss is alive and well Arthur became excited and hopped around like a silly kid, until the two youngsters were shooed away from the room in order to let Boss rest. The parents still inside continued their observation of Boss in the well-lit room.

“Tsk. He’s dirty. He’s not that handsome, and he’s covered in his own blood.” Said Samuel after a better observation of Boss. He’s still jealous by what Angel said about Boss being handsome earlier.

“In fact, he’s probably the ugliest person I’ve ever seen, look at that face have you seen a more messed up looking face like that before? My god even when I was in the war those dead bodies on the ground looked better than this by miles.” Continued Samuel not giving a proper observation of Boss.

“Like look at him, so unsightly. Oh, and his smell, like what is that?” Said Samuel with his fingers pressed on his nose.

Knowing he won’t stop saying negative things about Boss unless she shuts him up Angel pulled him close and gave him a meaningful kiss before looking back at broken body on the ground. A flush of blush can be seen on her face too, as she keeps her head turned away from Samuel.

Fluttering with happiness Samuel calmed himself before giving a slight cough.

“I’m not wrong. He is a mess it’s a miracle he’s alive.” Samuel said, calmly giving his observation.

“We should do something about his injuries before he actually croaks.” He continued before calling for Benjamin.

Carrying in various gauzes and medical tools Benjamin kneeled before the body.

“It’s going to take half a month before I can fully recover his injuries. However, I don’t know when he’ll awake.” Benjamin stated after checking Boss’ pulse and overviewing his body.

“Thank you, Benjamin we’ll leave him in your care.” Angel said before getting up and walking to the bedroom.

“Yes, thank you Benjamin” Samuel repeated before chasing after Angel. However, before he could make it out of the room, he heard their bedroom door close and locked. Halting before the exit he lowered his head in depression.

“Sir, the extra blankets are in the dresser beside the couch. I’ll need to begin immediately on first aid, so I can’t prepare the couch for you.” Benjamin bluntly stated before preparing to work on the body.

Helpless, Samuel sighed before walking over to the couch and pulling out the blanket from the dresser. He could have gone to other vacant bedrooms to sleep since their home is a mansion, but the couch is the closest to their bedroom which is why he sleeps there whenever Angel kicks him out.

Before the sunlight began to rise Arthur rushed out of his bedroom towards where Boss is lying asleep. Running by his father in the sofa without even sparing him a passing glance he made it to the guest bedroom door. However, seeing the sign in saying [Do not Enter] front of the door and the sounds of drills and hammers coming from behind the room he was extremely hesitant to even peek. He could only dejectedly wait until he was allowed in.

Days came and went until a week passed by; Benjamin was surprisingly done after just 3 days of nonstop work, but he barred anyone from entering for a week to make sure that nothing went wrong. Today, entry was allowed. Arthur was the first to rush into the room to have a look at his alien however, to his disappointment all he saw was a human body covered entirely in bandages.

“Is he underneath that?” Arthur pointed at the bandaged person.

“Yep” Benjamin replied.

“Can he even breathe? How does he eat? How does he pee?” Arthur continues to barrage Benjamin with questions.

“Don’t worry, I made it so that he won’t feel hungry, or need to use the restroom before he and can move again.”

“You can do that?” Said Arthur surprised about not needing to eat or pee “Can you do it to me?”

“I can, but it you won’t like it.” Said Benjamin.

“Why is that?”

“You see those tubes underneath the bandages at his mouth and below his waist?” Benjamin replied while pointing at areas.

“Yeah?”

“That’s where he’ll breathe from, and that’s where he’ll pee and poop. He won’t be getting any hard food besides just water and other stuff to just keep him nourished. The food will become waste and be excreted through the tube where we’ll collect and throw it away.” Benjamin calmly stated.

“Eww” Arthur replied.

“Oh, and, removing the tube from your butt is going to hurt a lot. Do you still want it done for you?” Benjamin continued.

“No way!” Arthur adamantly refused.

The other members of the family slowly walked into the room to have a look at the bandaged person on the ground. Samuel, too, asked Benjamin the questions Arthur had asked and was given the same response. Angel and Shelly however, observed the body trying to sense what was happening underneath all the bandages. A surprised look appeared on the face of Angel as she turned to ask Benjamin.

“How did you manage to heal him so well; I can’t seem to find any signs of the damages he took last week?” Angel said.

Unsure of how he should answer Benjamin slowly told what had occurred when he began treatment of Boss.

“In the beginning, I was treating the patient with my utmost effort in making sure that he can be patched up and well. Normally, I can fully recover a person like this within a month. However, on the second day as I was working on him, his body started repairing faster than my own attempt at saving his life, it was visibly patching up the damage through the naked eye. So, in the end I just sat there and watched over him as he recovered by himself. By the third day there wasn’t a single broken bone or mark on his face.”

“Why is he bandaged up then?” Samuel interjected in confusion.

“He creeped me out with his abnormal healing, so I bandaged him up.” Benjamin said with a straight face.

“…”

Cough

“So, the tubes that are attached to him is really because he’s in a coma and requires it…right?” Samuel asks hesitantly unsure how Benjamin will respond.

“Yes of course, he definitely needs the tubes attached in order to breathe and poop.”

“Oh, and he’s also still wearing his wardrobe underneath, since he wasn’t profusely bleeding anywhere, I just washed it and put them back on him. So, no worries of naked encounters.”

With a sigh of relief from Samuel, he asked a few more miscellaneous questions regarding the past week and about Boss’ situation before telling everyone to leave the room so Boss can recover.

Days continue to pass by as people in the house returned to doing their normal routine. Arthur begins the day enjoying a light snack before training with Samuel. He’s currently learning martial arts along with basic weapon training with various weaponry. Of course, with his current age every weapon is dulled or wooden to prevent injury.

Shelly and Angel, however, started their morning doing the cooking and preparing for lunch. Even though their house has maids and servants for the chores they don’t have a chef because Angel prefers to cook herself.

After lunch Arthur and Shelly have free time to do whatever they want until dinner. Sometimes Shelly will assist Angel with the dinner meals, but most of the time she’s beside Arthur in their walks around the town of Rouge. With their home built on the edge of town closer to the church and trail to the village over the mountains Arthur and Shelly spends most of their time exploring the entirety of the town.

In the beginning when Arthur was allowed outside along with Shelly, he was confused about why most of the townspeople had brown hair. In fact, little did he know, most of the world started out with brown hair and brown eyes. Only through training their mind and body will their hair and eye become a different color.

Through training their body people’s hair will become red, blue, or green. Training their mind will result in the change of their eye color to magenta, cyan, or yellow. However, there is a third variance in colors such as Arthur’s family who aren’t born with the normal brown hair and brown eyes. People who are born with these traits aren’t constrained by the rules of red, blue and green nor magenta, cyan and yellow when it comes to their appearance. They are called The Exotics with innate skills and ability unique to each person.

Because of his unique looks Arthur enjoys walking around town with Shelly, peacocking and enjoying people’s reaction to his silver hair and green eyes. Since time immemorial Exotics are worshipped as gift of the Gods and are believed to bring joy and prosperity to anyone who met them. With Arthur’s carefree and innocent behavior along with Shelly’s calm and mature demeanor, the townspeople are always excited to interact with them. However, constantly being stopped by the adoring townspeople their progress to explore the entire town isn’t much.

“Shelly, let’s go all the way to the other side of town today!” Arthur said with conviction.

“Hm? Why?” Shelly replied.

“Cause~ I wanna! We’ve only seen half the town so far, let’s go see the other half today!”

“Uh…”

“C’mon let’s go!” Arthur interrupted before pulling her along outside the house and into the street.

“Hi Mrs. Tamarind, how’s your husband today?” Arthur greeted an old grandma sitting on her rocking chair in front of her porch, as he passed by her home. She was an old grandma with brown hair and circular glasses for her brown eyes.

The old grandma turned her head slowly towards Arthur and squinted her eyes through her glasses, “Oh! It’s Arthur, how are you dear?”

“I’m fine Mrs. Tamarind, is Mr. Tamarind doing well today?” Arthur repeated his question.

“He’s doing better, doctor expect that he’ll make a full recovery soon. Won’t you two come in say hi, he’ll love to see you two again.” She asks as she continued to rock her chair and forth.

“Sorry Mrs. Tamarind, not today, I’ll visit soon!” Arthur replied.

“Aw, alright I’ll let him know. Where are you two going today?”

“To the edge of the world!” Arthur said excitedly.

“Oh my.” Mrs. Tamarind gave him a look of astonishment.

“He means to the other side of town; we haven’t been there yet.” Shelly interpreted.

“Ah, okay. Be careful though, I’ve heard there’s a weird creature over there causing a ruckus.”

“Will do!” Arthur said as he continues to pull Shelly along the street moving at a brisk pace off into the distance.

“Ah… youth, so much energy.” Mrs. Tamarind eyes linger on the two kids disappearing off into the distance, before slowly closing her eyes leaning back on her rocking chair as it rocked back and forth.

Continuing to pull Shelly along Arthur made it further towards the center of the town before suddenly coming to a halt.

“Wait. Didn’t Mrs. Tamarind say there’s a weird creature on the other side of town?” Arthur turned to ask Shelly.

“Yeah, she said there was a weird creature causing a ruckus over there.” Shelly replied

“Shoot! I should’ve asked what it looked like.” Arthur said.

“Hm, why?”

“I uh, just wanna know” Arthur said seemingly trying to hide something.

“We can just go ask someone when we’re there about it, if Mrs. Tamarind said it’s causing a ruckus people are sure to have some news about how it looks like.” Shelly calmly replied.

“Yeah! Let’s go!” Arthur energetically continues marching forward.

The two little youngsters began asking those within the central marketplace about the strange creature on the other side of town however, their answers were drastically different each time. One person said it was a scary animal with glowing red eyes that’ll drive a person insane if they see it. While another said it’s just a big dog eating all their vegetables. One person even said it was a small bird that’ll appear on your shoulder and whisper derogatory terms in their ears.