Moonflower: The Script of Serun

Prologue

FIFTY-SEVEN YEARS EARLIER

Sylvar was a cold, bitter place in Naylen. Ice pierced the air, and snow didn’t shy from the sunlight. The mountains were stained white, and the wind screamed in the ears of all who inhabited this frigid corner of the planet.

Deep within the thick blizzard, a structure was hidden in the snow.

The dome resembled a hive, with an intricate weblike structure spanning the walls.

Masked guards stood outside with machines ready to respond at the first sign of any vegodians—the human-like beings who could pull magik from the earth and wield it.

Through three thick steel doors, countless security codes and laser fences, roamed dozens of white-cloaked humans. Wires crackled with static, monitors beeped, and keyboards clattered in the main lobby of the high-tech laboratory.

Dr Elsher waited for the elevator. Green lines above the doors flickered, then stabilised, and counted down. With a quick glance at his watch, he straightened and pushed back his layered, oil-slicked blond hair with the palm of his hand.

The elevator doors opened, and he waited for the group of white cloaks to leave before stepping inside. None cared to look at him. None were there to interact. They had jobs and no time for idle conversation.

It was quiet in the elevator, and Dr Elsher enjoyed this part of his workday the most. Inside, with only one camera in the corner watching his every move, he could at least close his eyes for a moment and find some peace.

Just get through today, then resign. They told you that after twelve months, if you don’t like what you’re doing, you can walk away. You don’t want anything to do with this fucked—

The doors dinged and opened. Dr Elsher opened his eyes and exhaled slowly. A woman entered, exchanged a brief glance with him, then he stepped out into a narrow corridor.

Green lines of light from the scanner passed over his body as he approached the iron doors. Stiff shoulders and prickled hairs revealed he didn’t like the process, as if those very lines stripped him bare, seeing through the facade he had to wear in this place.

Dr Elsher lifted the retractable keycard attached to his belt and tapped it against the security lock. With a deep breath, he stepped back and waited.

The doors didn’t open.

Dr Elsher glanced at the security camera in the corner—at least, the place he suspected it would be—one of the countless hidden throughout this suffocating place.

He stepped forward and scanned his card again. Sweat from that brief touch now coated the plastic. As the cord securing the card snapped back to his belt, the doors finally opened.

The murmur of conversation hit him as he took in long wires woven seamlessly across the ceiling—a trail of red, orange, blue, green, and white—towards the cloning tank in the centre of the room.

Dr Elsher could never look inside the tank for more than a moment at a time.

The man floated with wires fixed to his naked body, his black hair floating in the bubbled liquid that was rich with nutrients to keep him alive.

“Dr Elsher, you’re late.” Clipboard in hand, Dr Hill stood by the tank, her glasses pushed up high, dark hair tied in a bun, and eyes shining as she studied the man floating in the tank.

He approached, eyes fixed carefully on her rather than the tank. “Woke late.”

“Again?”

“Again,” he grunted.

Her hazel eyes narrowed. “Humans thrive on habits. Routine. And when someone breaks routine, it’s hard not to notice.”

Say it. Tell her you’re resigning.

“It won’t happen again,” Dr Elsher murmured.

“Good,” she said in a flat tone. “Now, tell me, what do you think of him?”

He stared at Dr Hill. “He hasn’t rejected the nutrients, and his vitals have stabilised since the horm—”

“His appearance,” Dr Hill interrupted. “Does he frighten you?”

She wanted him to face the cloning tank. She wanted him to face what he avoided whenever he entered the room. So, he turned on his heel and looked at him.

He regarded him as alien. Not charming. Not beautiful.

His appearance unsettled him, and he just barely kept the instinct to curl his lip in check.

The creature had translucent skin that revealed every organ, the pound of its slow beating heart, and the way veins weave through fleshy muscle.

Its unique camouflage ability allows it to blend in with the fluids inside the tank, almost out of sight, but once seen, is hard to look away from.

But perhaps his most horrifying features were the vicious cuts slashing out from the corners of his mouth—a mutation of unknown origin.

“No,” he lied. “Did you want him to?”

Dr Hill snorted a laugh, stepped away from the tank, and headed to her station.

He followed, knowing she would continue speaking.

“I suppose he doesn’t have to be. All he needs to do is follow orders.

The vegodians are closing in, and with our goddess no longer answering our prayers, we are on our own. This experiment can help us win.”

“Or it could be another failure like the last.”

Dr Hill’s jaw clenched. She tapped on her keyboard, and a circular hole appeared on her desk. Frost wisped through the air as she retrieved a small tube containing a silver liquid. A glint sparkled in her eyes as she admired it. Dr Elsher fidgeted, made uneasy by her fascination.

They should have left it alone.

“Then we will try again with Mother’s tear.”

His eyes narrowed. “If we keep exploiting magik, are we not as bad as the vegodians who wield it? What are we fighting for? We want anyone who can use magik gone, but we create creatures with it to do so? It makes little sense to me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Go to your station, Dr Elsher. We can talk about the reason you hate…” Her words trailed off, lost in thickened air, then her eyes widened at something behind him.

He spun around, and his stomach dropped as he saw Dr Ledger at the computer beside the cloning tank. There was a pale look in blue eyes that once held the sea, and he stared at the creature as if it were his lover.

“No, don’t!” Dr Elsher raced towards Dr Ledger, whose hands were moving absently over a control panel, initialising the deactivation protocol.

Cold lighting suddenly flushed red, and voices around them rose in panic.

Dr Elsher tackled his colleague to the ground, pinning him down. “What the fuck is wrong with you!?”

Distant eyes gazed at the tank in awe. No words. Only a longing stare.

“Shit,” he spat, and hurried to the computer, only for the deep red eyes of the creature to capture him. Paralysed, a shiver ran down his sweaty back as a clawed hand pressed to the glass.

Let me out, the creature purred, the words pulling at his body. Let me out.

Dr Elsher’s hand hovered over the OPEN command on the touch screen, then his fingers pressed down. The creature’s red eyes crinkled as he smiled, and the slashes on either side of his mouth split open, stretching from ear to ear. Sharp, jagged teeth glistened in the bubbled liquid.

Whatever spell had enthralled Dr Elsher shattered, and he staggered away. He took in Dr Hill as she rushed to the doors while those not yet in thrall were working to put the creature into hypersleep.

We are fucked.

“Keep the door open!” he begged Dr Hill, starting for the doors as she stepped through the exit. She spun to face him but did not demand that he hurry. In her hand, she hugged Mother’s silver tear while her other hand tapped her keycard to the scanner. “Hill!”

The door shut, and Dr Elsher slammed into it. Panicking, he scanned his keycard as a waft of decay hit, a barely tangible touch brushing against his neck. Cold air escaped from his mouth, and he turned, only to be pressed back against the doors.

The experiment stood before him. Black smoke billowed from his translucent skin, thickened, then flooded from his back in streams. Behind the creature, torn bodies were strewn everywhere, blood splattered across the walls and floors, while the streams of inky smoke feasted on their skins.

The creature smiled. Let me out, please. Free me, Dr Elsher.

This was no saviour. They had created a villain.

He shouldn’t exist.

This monster could bring destruction far worse than humans had already wrought.

“Okay,” Dr Elsher said in a shaky voice. “Okay.”

The creature smiled warmly at him, his fingernails growing and forming vicious claws, while shadows snaked from his back, and he watched while Dr Elsher worked.

Dr Elsher punched in the code, and another screen appeared.

As clever as the creature was, he did not know what the doctor was doing.

The creature cocked its head to the side, red eyes dilating.

He believed his thrall was working, just as it had on the other doctor.

Dr Elsher punched in another code, and a red screen appeared.

Dr Elsher closed his eyes, and as his fingers hovered over the command DESTROY, he thought, Gwen, I’m sorry I won’t be making it home for your tenth birthday.

He pressed the button, and the entire room exploded.