“What is it, boy? Haven’t seen you for a while,” the man said, lowering his right hand from the strings. He took notice of the shadows beneath the kid’s eyes and changed his question. “What happened to you?”

The boy smiled at that but it didn’t relieve the man. There was something wrong with that expression; it was etched with a certain amount of cruelness and disgust. It was something that should have been unfamiliar to the young child sitting by his side.

“I heard you saw things.” The boy nodded at that, the smile turning more pronounced. The man was hired to get the story out as he was a stranger but a person people were eager to open up to. He had a certain charm about him that made everyone think he was harmless and ready to help.

But he wasn’t sure he wanted the story this kid was hiding within. The boy was all little forced smiles and happiness with others around but when they were alone... This was much worse. And the man wasn’t sure he wanted the reason for it.

“Why do you keep it hidden so deep? It helps to talk.”

He said that and waited for a reaction but the kid didn’t turn his way. His face was half-hidden beneath shining curls and aimed at the sea before them. The man leaned forward and looked at the expression.

It was sombre, lacking the smile that had become his dominant feature but neither full of that disgust and anger aimed at the world itself. The man almost smiled sarcastically himself. No one would ever even notice something wrong with the boy now. He had gotten good with the acting so quickly it was worrying.

The people of the town thought he had healed, that the worst was all behind. They just wanted to know what had happened that night. It was a mild curiosity of theirs. Fear of what was so scary in their peaceful town.

Yet whatever it was, it was a cruel reality to this boy. He lived with it every single day, hiding it beneath layers and layers of rationalities to keep himself sane.

“You’re not really ever going to tell that story are you?” whispered the man and the boy nodded. His face twitched as if he was trying to smile but stopped himself. “What do you want to hear today?”

Like usually the boy had no preference, he just shrugged and the man picked up the guitar. It was always like this. He tried a few notes and then went into an old lullaby.

There were hundreds of songs he knew, thousands of tunes that could be played but none of them fit the mood. They were for happy days or for sad ones, but in the boy’s presence they would have felt like a mockery. He was never going to have any of that.

It was a fascinating thing to see someone stuck in time, to wonder about the possibilities but when one saw the reality of it, it brought horror to the heart. He had heard about other children on whom the cure had been used but none of them lived.

Some died from medicine while most from not being able to consume it without their organisms rejecting and making them even more sick. Only a few passed infancy. Yet that didn’t make their lives any easier.

Any sickness was like a death threat to them. It was even impossible to raise their immune system. They were usually kept in sterile rooms, rarely allowed out. That, however, did little to prevent children from understanding that they were different.

They were never going to grow up.

This realisation was like a hammer to the already small confidence of the affected children and after a couple of years all of them found an early grave. The company that produced the drug was sued and found guilty, bankrupting.

Yet it’s legacy still stayed in this child. He was one of the last affected and for this reason still alive, too young to fully understand his position. Barely fourteen years old. If he was lucky and ignorant, there was still a couple of years left before him. The longest one of the kids had survived were seventeen.

The boy turned to him then, the sun reflecting in his icy blue eyes. People said he was very cute and warm, but the man never saw it. He wasn’t sure if the people were blind or the boy stopped pretending around him, but there was nothing sweet about him here.

Darkness lurked in the corners in his clear eyes and there was disgust in the corners of his mouth when he smiled or laughed. How could anyone call this boy happy?

“What story are you hiding?” the man asked the wind, stopping for a moment. He could see the boy’s eyes on himself but didn’t turn to him for a while. “You know I need to tell them something. I was hired for that sole reason.”

The eyes narrowed but he didn’t say anything, his mouth in a straight line. “You want me to tell a lie? Is that what you want?”

A nod was the man’s answer and he turned away. Not once had he done that before. He might have not been the aura he radiated, but he liked to stay honest. People had no reason to complain then and he kept his reputation.

But this situation was not like any other. It was easy to deem the kid deep in depression and leave, saying he was doomed. That it was impossible to get the information out of him. That it wasn’t much, just something important to the boy and should be left alone for the time being.

He could do that and be done with this.

Yet he felt a strange connection to the kid.

If not the people of the city, he’d have deemed the kid mute. Not once had they talked. But there was a certain honesty in that. The kid didn’t want to talk, he was adamant in that but in front of him didn’t pretend otherwise.

He showed his emotions openly, saying with them enough if not more than would be possible with words. That was more trust than anyone in the village received.

And that scared the man a bit. He wasn’t sure why he was trusted like that. It was clearly not his aura, the way he presented himself. The boy was a master of pretending himself, he could sense a fake from a couple of miles away.

Was it respect? Maybe. But whatever it was, for the last couple of months the boy had come to meet him here, in this very spot, every evening without missing a day. The people were surprised by that and the man himself most of all.

Most of his patients tried to escape him at first, hide away before learning to trust him. The boy hadn’t seemed to have learnt from the same book though. He came from the first day and never missed. Not once.

What did it say about him? “Why do you think I’d do it for you? It would be lying and could sabotage my reputation,” he said pulling at the strings. There was no real melody in his head so he just played with the notes. They rose and fell without any real meaning.

The boy shrugged, turning to the sea. There was a smile coming onto his lips and the man knew someone was approaching them. It was so easy to see from the boy’s reaction.

“How’s it going? Does Ang like the music?” a female in her late thirties asked, coming over to stand behind the boy. He grimaced while she was talking, but when he turned to her there was a bright smile on his face His lips opened up to speak but the man waved a hand to stop him.

“There’s no point to make the boy lie about my meagre skills,” he said with a laugh. “Did you need anything?” he asked with a pointed look. It was agreed that this was his last day and he had expressed his wish to not be interrupted.

“Oh, nothing! I just wanted to see how you were doing. We feared Ang will not take the news well,” she said with a laugh. The man wondered for a moment, but decided it was real. She had really come here to check up on the kid like he was someone needing to be taken care of every moment of his life.

The man didn’t really like it. “I think it would be better if I could discuss it with him myself instead of having you destroy everything I’ve been doing here.” The cold voice he used made the woman take a step back. Her face turned red in outrage but after seeing the kid’s puzzled face, she made a quick retreat.

From the look in her eyes the man knew he wasn’t going to be called to this place for work any time soon, or ever. It didn’t sadden him as much as he had thought. He turned to the boy and he had a relieved expression on his face.

“You never liked me, did you?” the man asked with a sudden realisation, a genuine smile tugging at his lips. “You just wanted to run away from them.” The boy looked at him, the corners of his lips tugging up.

For the first time the man saw laughter dancing in his eyes. “You liar! And here I thought you liked my music that much!” he shouted out in fake outrage. This made the kid chuckle. “You’re good, I give you that,” the man then said after a sigh. “But we have to say our goodbyes here. I think you know that too.”

The boy nodded, his expression turning grim. There was a question in his eyes. “No, I’m not coming back. After this last episode they’ll never call me again.” This made the kid’s face fall. He turned away.

“Don’t be sad. You’ll find other ways to evade them. You’re strong enough.” The boy laughed at that but there was no longer any happiness in there. It was a cruel sound, piercing ears with dagger sharpness.

The man still smiled at him. “You know, there’s a couple more years left for you to pass the record.” The boy’s eyes locked onto his. “You know, you’re not the longest surviving member of those who had been used as a human experiment.”

The question was still present in his eyes so the man elaborated. His hands reached for the strings again and started a soft melody. It wasn’t much, nothing to show off his non-existent skills but it was going to suffice.

“Thirty children meant to die,” he said in tact with the tune that his fingers were playing. “They were born to never face the world, escape into oblivion without having to face it’s darkness.”

He struck a higher note, bringing attention to his next words. “But some people tried playing gods. They wanted to learn the secret of eternal youth. Something forbidden to mortals.”

There was a question on the kid’s lips. He licked them, wanting to voice it but his vow kept him silent. It brought the smile to the man’s face but he played a couple of lower notes, creating a foreboding feeling. “They sustained the life of ten children, forced them into the world. They lived and the people were called prophets. They were supposed to bring the new age about.”

The tune lightened a bit. It became quicker and more lively. “The babies were healthy and no one could find a fault in them. They were rosy cheeked, smiling and giggling. Everything a baby should be.

“Though sooner than anyone had expected a disaster struck. One of the kids got sick. It was a simple cold but every time the boy was given a remedy, he’d wretch and vomit it out. The doctors tried injecting the medicine straight to the system, but that was a fatal mistake.”

The notes slowed, turning into a soft beating of a heart. They were loosing tempo, becoming irregular. Slowing down. And were soon over.

Silence reigned for a moment. Then the melody picked up again, lethargically moving into something resembling a tempo. “The press was horrified. News of this flew around the world in an instant. The people playing gods were called out on this and they tried damage control.”

One of the corners of the man’s lips pulled up as he remembered that time. “The children were collected and tested. It was found out that all of them couldn’t stomach medicine. It was so bad that they actually got sick of even the slightly more concentrated amount of vitamins.”

“This brought another wave of outrage, but it was weathered down easily.” The tune equalled out now. It was no longer slow but hadn’t turned quick either. “The rest of the kids were put into protective wards, monitored all the time. And the original drug modified. Another bunch of kids, thirteen now, stolen from death’s clutches.”

The sound turned hollow instantly. There was something very wrong with the things that were going to be told next. “It was a mistake. Grave one. These children... Every single one of them... They found death sooner in the most horrible of ways. Their lungs twisted, mutating slowly until air no longer could be taken in and the kid’s suffocated.”

“It made the people turn against those playing gods but the experiment was still under way.” The man turned from the kid, his eyes locking onto the setting sun. “Nine of the original kids were still alive. Their immune systems weak, almost non-existent but they were still alive and the drug’s purpose wasn’t one to make them healthy anyway.

“Eternal life was what mesmerised the people playing gods.” The man’s voice softened here. He was whispering, hardly louder than the sounds of his guitar. “It should have been enough for them but they couldn’t stay still while waiting for the children to grow up. They felt like they were wasting time.”

The music slowed even more. A single note sounding and then echoing. Once it was over, another came like a wave in its predecessor’s wake. “They modified the drug and this time secretly found seven children. These weren’t announced to the public and parents were sworn to secrecy, unaware of the true purpose of the drug.

“Some years passed with barely any deaths. It felt like a great achievement as ten survived to the age of six and started attending school. They showed up to have the same capabilities as their peers, neither smarter nor worse than their classmates. It was some very good news. The drug had no effect on the human brain.”

The notes picked up then, returning into a melody. They were still slow but no longer so desolate. “Years passed and the lack of growth was noticed. The children weren’t turning into teenagers, neither in body, nor mind. A child can be called an adult and without looking one if he passes the age of twelve and develops an abstract way of thinking.”

“But,” the man’s fingers stilled on the guitar, “they never did.” He looked at the boy beside him, the small figure hiding burdens unimaginable to others. His fingers brushed the strings, chords coming into life. “They never developed it. They were stuck with the mind of a child and knowledge that they’ll never be equal. That they were robbed of it.

“It didn’t sit well with many. They protested and went on miniature rampages. No one cared. Not those that played gods for sure. They were amazed by the fact that their product had worked. It was a miracle, even taking into consideration that the stopped time was slightly too early. Everything could be changed. The most important thing was that their formula worked!”

He smiled bitterly as notes from an old song escaped from his fingers. It sounded like something that should be reserved for funerals. “Those who played gods were so absorbed in it they didn’t notice the children going crazy. They went mad in their confinement, protected from the evils of the world. Only two from the first ten remained after it was finally noticed.

“It was horrible but the five out in the world were still alive. They were the youngest ones, still barely coming into their last years of growing. The god players had hope that they might turn out differently as their drug had been adjusted but it wasn’t the case. After their eleventh birthday their age was stuck for years unknown.

“The best part of it, of course, being that differently than in dwarfism, they didn’t age either. Their body remained the same, one of a young kid.” There was something akin to disgust in the man’s voice as he said that. It made the boy raise his head but no question left his lips as he continued to listed to the tale.

“However, their joy didn’t last long. Their subjects’ life expectancy was around fifteen years. Around that time each one found a reason and a way to lose its life. Purposeful or not, all of them happened and the children were gone. One girl managed to live to seventeen but that was more luck than anything else.”

His fingers brushed over the strings, creating a soft melody. “She was a sweet little thing, always smiling and ready to help. Perfect child they called her. Not once did she get into trouble or did something wrong, it was like she was made of goodness itself. Or so people thought.

“One day she managed to make people let her into the kitchen where she could touch sharp things and potentially injure herself. It was scary but they conceded, wanting to give her everything she desired. She was so nice to everyone after all.

“That had been a grave mistake,” the man said in a dry tone, his eyes alight with mirth. The melody under his touch quickened, rushing out in quick bursts. “She smiled and when no one was seeing picked the sharpest knife around. It was too large for her small hand but she didn’t seem to mind.

“Like an angered wasp in her yellow dress, knife poised as a sting, she dashed towards the closest man and stabbed him. She didn’t aim. All she cared was to make her captors suffer. It lasted for a long while, the people that had cared for her were of gentle nature. Unaware of her pain, too innocent.

“But they were stabbed, maimed or even killed at her hands. It happened only to a few but it was a heavy price none the less. They were people that had had nothing to do with her imprisonment. All they had done was care for her. That was their fault. But the girl hit where she could reach and when they were close to subduing her, she pushed the knife into her own heart.

“It wasn’t a clean hit. She suffered for long as they did operations on her without any narcotics to lessen the pain. It was all in vain but she laid on that table for hours, seeing, feeling.”

The hand stilled then over the strings, last notes echoing away as the man turned to the boy. “That was horrendous news and those who played gods were caught and their research banned, outlawed as inhumane and cruel. The players themselves were mostly put to jail, locked away to prevent them from making more of their experiments on innocent children.

“But what the world didn’t know is that one of the subjects was still out there. Others of his kind had died in silence, too young. He, however, is still there full of power and maybe even capable of passing the girl’s age. She was seventeen though, something no other subject had even come close.”

The boy listened to that intently, his eyes on the man. There were no words said but the man could feel the gaze. He turned his head to look back and saw the challenge in those blue orbs of ice.

It made the man smile, though there was little joy in it. He had succeeded, the boy was going to survive another four years or at least try to for the sole purpose of being the best. But what after it? He didn’t want to think of it. This wasn’t something he could achieve.

He had done everything he could. It didn’t make his guilt go away, not in the slightest. But that was all that was in his power.

The boy will have to find another reason to live and suffer for after this was over.