The word “uncomfortable” was nowhere near accurate enough to describe what Ugo felt in his frail body as Kian passed his hand over his facial deformities. It was as if he used a monkey’s paw to wish to be caressed lovingly.

Instead of a smoking hot girl in a bikini, he got a moaning one-armed weirdo clad in his black Healer’s Garb.

Ugo realized that whatever happened to the astral form would happen to the physical Container as he focused on Kian’s missing arm.

“I did this… it’s amazing,” Kian said. “You’re not in pain, are you?”

“Well, physically, nah, but emotionally? Yeah…”

Kian pulled away and studied Ugo. “You do realize you look better now than you ever had before, right?”

As Ugo contemplated whether he would take the words as Kian’s strange form of a compliment or the greatest insult he had received in his life, the Infectiologist grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up. “You’ve been aged rapidly. I guess this is part of the plot to kill my specimen, isn’t it?”

“You can’t force people to change into….” Ugo pointed at his bumpy face. “This.”

“It’s for their own good!”

“How, Kian, how?” Ugo shouted back.

Kian suddenly turned to his side and said, “I can sense my carriers….” He tightened his grip on Ugo’s arm. “Let’s go to them.”

They moved towards the staircase and descended to the basement door. “Your cutting magic is formidable,” Kian said and looked down at where his arm used to be. “Even with my Garb equipped, I can’t grow my arm back.”

“Sucks to be you.”

“I’m not a bad guy.”

“Yeah, sure, because good people have to constantly say: ‘I’m not a bad guy.’”

“You don’t understand how the relations between the races are. You’ve recently learned about the supernatural; I’ve lived in it since I was born.” They reached the door. Kian quickly undid Ashlin’s spell on the knob, and a cacophony of groans blew out as soon as he opened it.

Kian hauled Ugo into the room.

For Kian, it was his paradise, and for Ugo, he believed it to be the closest thing he could imagine hell to look like.

The sounds of dry coughs filled the air, and there were puddles of green and yellow vomit across the floor. The specimen had matured in all the carriers. If it wasn’t for their clothing, Ugo wouldn’t have been able to distinguish one from another. Their tumorous-like faces had growths of different tissue.

The infected reminded Ugo of the teratoma documentary Zeke showed him once. That day gave him another reason to hate his excellent memory as the vomit-inducing images of the cancerous growth were stored in an easily accessible section of his brain. All it took was a second to think about it and he would see the movie’s highlights in his mind in 4K.

Ugo scanned the infected. The sick little girl lay on the bed, and her swollen face with extra eyeballs looked to have been fused with the sheets.

On one side of the room, the caroler was humming sadly from all four of her different colored lips as she moped about the room with her arms wrapped around herself.

The elderly security guard with teeth and tongues protruding from his bumps was banging his head onto a wall.

In the corner sat the once beautiful 30-year-old woman whose massive misshapen blob for a face had swelled to the point where it was heavy for her neck and body to support. She’ll probably need a wheelbarrow to get around.

And on the other side of the room was the defeated work-at-home-dad with his back against the wall whose rearranged face had now cemented into a swelled swirly mess of eyes, noses, and a stretched mouth.

Seated on the floor next to him was the suited man from the airport with muscle tissue and different-colored hair growing out of his rotund face. The tween girl was seated on the floor as well, sobbing with curved bones growing out of her bulbous face, and rested her head on the shoulder of the burly hockey player who sat next to her and whose face was sunken deep with the rest of his head shaped into spheres of various sizes.

Kian let go of Ugo and frolicked around the room, stroking and hugging the deformities of the carriers. It was a sickening sight.

Ugo recalled the origin of the word “teratoma”. It came from the Greek word “teraton,” meaning “monster.” With what he saw, he had no doubts about its apt definition. These regular people had started their day ordinarily without expecting it to end with them becoming abominations.

“You hate looking at them, don’t you?” Kian asked as he stopped to turn back to Ugo.

“I hate looking at them because they are miserable, Kian. They are scared and confused and want to go home to their families, happy and healthy.”

“I’m not the one who is keeping them from their families, Ugo, and who says they aren’t healthy? You can do all the analysis you want on them, and you won’t find a single irregularity with their physiological health. ‘Misery’? Well, that’s only because they think they are ugly now.”

“You’ve made them into monsters, Kian.”

Kian’s face twisted angrily. “A monster is someone who hurts others. It has nothing to do with appearance.”

“I’m pretty sure the oxford definition has the word ‘ugly’ in it.”

Kian pulled down his mask, and a chilling smile formed his disgusting lips. “This is why I have yet to face any doubts during my crusade. People like you just continue to prove my point.” He walked over to the sick girl and sat on her bed. He stroked the swells on her face as he went on, “You know what the Realms consider to be monsters? Ogres, cyclopses, slimes, reptiles… goblins, all harmless creatures that have had lies spread about them and were believed just because they were… ugly. Monsters are creatures who willingly exist to cause harm: vampires, sirens, gorgons, kappas.” He stopped to scratch his head. “When beautiful creatures like mermaids, fairies… and elves are in trouble, beings from all over the Realms rally to help them, but the creatures with an extra eye or two in an unpleasant place? They are left to deal with their crises on their own.”

“So, that’s what this is about? You’re making a statement about beauty standards?”

“It’s more than that, Ugo.”

“People—I mean—beings gravitate towards things that look more appealing. That’s just how the world works.” Ugo began to think about how many things beautiful people get away with just because of their looks. Even outside the world of celebrities, he has seen examples in classrooms. Stunning girls who skipped out on tests by bursting into tears on command and blubbering about how they didn’t have enough time to study.

He wondered if Violet wasn’t as exquisitely beautiful would Zeke be as obsessed with her. Beautiful people seemed to have a supernatural hold over people and could alter their behavior like a magical virus.

“The world doesn’t have to work like that,” Kian said. “What ever happened to character? Did you know that pixies are extinct? Pixies were said to be mischievous, good-for-nothing creatures, but that rumor was spread by humans when they were denied to have certain wishes granted. A deadly disease spread that killed the pixies, and no one did anything to help. Not even fairies, and they are close relatives. Nobody cared because they weren’t nearly as beautiful as fairies. So they all died. The same fate will probably happen to selkies since they aren’t as popular as mermaids. This is not the type of world I want to live in, Ugo,” Kian said. “This disease is made to unite us. To not be so caught up in appearances and learn to appreciate each other for what we are, not how we look like! Sure, there are growing pains now, but soon they’ll adapt, and their children will adapt more easily, and then… this will be the new status quo. My disease will spread outside the Human Realm, and a truly beautiful universe will be born out of it.”

Out of nowhere, Kian got up and summoned his sword colonized with bacteria, prompting Ugo to step back and raise his hands in surrender.

“Come on, I can’t fight.”

“Here to stop me?”

Ugo realized that Kian’s eye wasn’t directed at him. He turned back and saw Wade with his hands in the pockets of his dirty Healer’s Garb while languidly leaning against the door frame.

“Nah, man, I am not a fighter,” Wade said to Kian. “You know this unless you try to steal some goods from my stash, and then I’ll bite you. That’s about it.” He entered the room and casually scanned the abominations around him. “Besides, you’re my perfect counter; you can just put a pathogen on yourself that inhibits the ability to sleep.”

Kian lowered his weapon along with his guard. “I’m taking my carriers.”

“Sure, sure, but first, let me share something,” Wade said and then wolfed down some pills. “I’ve been analyzing your specimen for hours now, and the most recent iteration I took from Ugo had me realize something. Sometimes I forget our Healer’s Garbs’ DNA also contains our own, so I found human DNA, Kitsune DNA which is from Aida obviously, and… Elven DNA.” Wade pointed to his side. “Aida reminded me of some genetic detection techniques she taught me a few years back.”

Ugo looked over in the direction Wade was pointing, and nothing was there. “Uhh… you do know Aida isn’t here, right?”

Wade looked at him as if he was staring at a human for the first time in his life. “Oh, right, she’s a hallucination. Thanks for the heads up, man.” He turned to Kian.

“With the technique, I was able to separate the Elven DNA part of the specimen and found traces of the Icelandic genome.”

Kian’s Healer’s Garb vanished.

“Is there something you’d like to share with the class, Kian Albertsson—?”

“It’s Elbertsson.” Kian heaved a sigh and pulled up his checkered mouth mask. “My mother is a Sun Elf, and my father is human.”

Ugo neared the two. “You’re a freakin’ elf?” He scanned Kian up and down and couldn’t find a single feature of his that would hint him being an elf. His aura even only felt human with low purity levels.

“Even before the Great Seals were broken, Halloween was the one day of the year where its power was depleted,” Wade explained to Ugo. “During Halloween, many creatures across the Realms, traversed to the Human Realm, and interacted with humans, not doing anything too gaudy to avoid the detection of watchful angels, but some succeed in willingly getting sexually involved with humans in hopes of impregnation. That’s more or less how Aida’s parents got involved with each other.”

“Getting sexually involved with humans is even ordered and encouraged by various Kings,” Kian added with a tinge of acidity in his voice. “As it is believed that mixed breeds garner great power. My mother sought to find a human, only to sell the child to the Royal Family. She succeeded.”

Wade’s eyes widened. “So, you’re a part of the Royal Sun Elf Family.”

“It’s nothing to be proud of.”

“Why do you hate your family so much?”

“The Royal Family isn’t my family, and they’re monsters. All elves are, and yet, are praised just because of their beauty,” Kian said. “They need to be taught a lesson by being forced to turn into the thing they hate most.”

“You plan on taking this sickness to the Elven Realm.”

“I plan on taking it everywhere, but yes, the elves are the prime target.”

“Humans and elves have a strikingly similar biology,” Wade said with a smile, showing admiration for the well-thought-out plot. “You’re just testing it on humans first.”

No longer able to play spectator any longer, Ugo raised his hand and asked, “You’ve changed your appearance to look less like an elf, haven’t you?”

“I couldn’t bear looking at myself in the mirror.”

“Did you use magic to change your hair color or just regular dye?”

Kian stared silently at Ugo.

“I’m just asking because I know Sun Elves are blonde wait… or are Wood Elves blonde? Hey, does this mean you’re originally black or—?”

Before he could finish, Ugo took a punch to the throat, sending him staggering back into a wall. He flopped onto the floor on his stomach and helplessly watched Kian slash his sword at Wade, cutting him across the chest and launching him into the ceiling; he hit some wooden beams and blasted back onto the floor.

Talk time was over, and the man on a mission crouched to the hurt Wade and brushed his finger across his bloody wound. He stomped up to the door and drew a sigil with a bloody finger. “Healers have a higher calling and that is to do more than heal individual patients. We need to heal the world!” He pushed the door open, and a hospital waiting room was on the other side.

“Someone needs to be willing to do whatever it takes to make a better world for everybody.”

Using his grotesque magic, he had a tumor grow out of his stump and shape into an arm and hand—it was a red, fleshy appendage. Kian walked over to the tween girl and burly hockey player and dragged them over to the door, ignoring their screams of terror. “In the present, I’ll be seen as a monster, but in the future, I’ll be a hero.” He pushed them into the waiting room, where mass panic immediately erupted.

The caroler and elderly security guard were the next carriers to be hauled into the waiting room. “I’m trying to get this done without bloodshed, but you’re forcing me to draw blood! Do you think I enjoy that?” Kian continued to rant, straining his small voice. “I’m not a monster!” He grabbed the ankle of the woman with the enlarged head and dragged her across the floor. “I am not a bad person!” Only the woman’s body made it through as her massive head got stuck in the frame. “If you would just let me show you how this will help….” He said as he pushed his foot against her head and started kicking it. “Then you would be ashamed for trying to stop me in the first place.”

After the woman got through, Kian started to mumble to himself as he wandered the room.

He was losing it.

Ugo had seen a similar fit in Zeke, the mumbling, wandering aimlessly, letting out screams of varying pitches, and fisting whatever surface was nearest; while Zeke’s was whinier, Kian’s was rage-filled. He twitched in his steps as if trying to get a worm out of his ear.

Continuing his vexed fit, Kian got a hold of the businessman and work-at-home dad while rambling inarticulately about something. When he was done pushing them through the door, Kian slowly approached the little girl on the bed and stared solemnly at her. “I am doing what needs to be done.” He picked up the girl in his arms (the bed sheets were still fused with the side of her face). Kian paced back to the door and launched her into the chaos.

Ugo got up on his shaky legs and stared at Kian as he stopped by the door.

“If every face is a horrifying visage,” Kian said and turned back to Ugo with the waiting room in shambles behind him, “then there would be no need for comparisons, and everybody would learn what to truly value about a person, and what’s important.”

“We’re going to stop you, Kian,” Ugo said sternly.

“I’ll be waiting, and trust me, this time, I will be ready. Although I admit being killed by you guys is a definite possibility, my beautiful, perfect disease will never die.” Kian went into the waiting room and closed the door.