Tim's History

The young master, Tim, knew everything and nothing at the same time.

He knew every nation in Ishgar, every city in Fiore and every street name of the megacity he had been living in, yet, he had never been in any of them. Neutral Gounds, as his home city had been called, was a sprawling chessboard of skyscrapers and skyways. It was a city of metal and glass, of pleasure and potential; or so Tim had read in one of articles. To the young boy, it was nothing but home. Yet, young Tim had never went into the streets below. How could he? There was a literal army of security around his house at all times, before the army was the squadron of maids and butlers who monitored him.

Tim knew the sort of life he was living; it was called a life of the rich. But how could the young boy feel luxury when he never knew poverty? The only time Tim had gone hungry was the five minutes between when his stomach grumbled and the moment a servant would give him a freshly cooked meal. The only time he had gone tired were in the middle of the lavish social gatherings he would be forced to attend and hold his consciousness from the boring talks between men in pressed suits and women in stinky perfumed dresses. It was a lavish life and Tim, even as a child, knew the difference between his experiences and the ones he sees in programs and shows he would watch. He never envied the poverty-stricken life he read about people less fortunate than him, but the simple happiness they would get from being unshackled by reputation or wealth? That would often leave Tim awake at night.

In contrast, people would often flock around Tim and his family. “Sir! About the next election? I-” “Ser Timson, I have a favor t’ask-” “Oh my, I didn’t know Mr. Timson had such a handsome son! Why don’t you go play with my sweet daughter, young master?” “Ah, not a bad idea! My little boy’s also yer age, ain’t he? You go along with ‘em-” There was a tactical or social gain even in letting their children interact. But unlike the kids his age, Tim’s father let the young boy know what role he was playing and what these people would be after. Tim didn’t care about them and his role, he would often hide from them till it was time to go home. Home was comfy, unless it was time for school.

School took place at home, in his father’s personal library, and it was routine: Mondays was arithmetic, Tuesdays was literature and the rest was Tim hiding from them before he could get any crazier from their repeated lessons. Tim would often find solace in his father’s office. As long as he kept his mouth shut, listened intently and sat in a chair on a corner he would excuse Tim from escaping his studies. “We are in no hurry, the fact he could keep up the conversations in my office meant he is brilliant enough.” His father would often chide Tim’s personal tutors.

“You really take after your mother,” Tim’s father would often say under his breath whenever they talk alone.

“What was mom like?” Tim would often ask back whenever the opportunity arose. Each and every time his father would always retell the same stories, but never the ones Tim wanted to hear.

What happened to her? Can he see her? Or her grave, if it was the case? These questions crawled along Tim’s surface thoughts but he has never been able to throw at his father directly. He knew Tim wanted to know too, the thin smile he would answer back as he told him other stories was obvious enough.

One of the days when Tim was again hiding from his tutors ended up in his father’s office.

He was busy calling people from work, they talked about a negotiation gone wrong, so for the first time in a while Tim looked around the place as if it was the first time he had been there. It was a gloomy office of dark wood and red curtains. Dimly lit lights cast shadows more pronounced than it should be and what intricate furniture it had was littered with towers of paper, folders and envelopes. Tim was fond of this office, so much he didn’t find the litter of paper disorganized at all. What caught his eye, instead, was the shadow cast behind his father. Tim had heard of the nature of Neutral Grounds, where it actively denies the use of magic and any magical artifacts. Tim had lived his life ‘magic-free’. But he could not escape looking at his father’s shadow as it moved very dissonantly from how his father himself moved. The shadow was pouring a glass of spirit in a glass and handed it to his father who held it as if it was given by one of the servants.

Everything about this was wrong.

Tim left the office that day without his father noticing him. But the thought of such a creature plagued the young boy’s mind for years. It was since that day Tim had noticed things off with his father. While Tim never considered his father normal, he was a very stern man compared to how the servants talk to Tim, but after that day Tim had noticed his father was stern by design. His shadow would almost whisper to him on occasion while his father keeps his even face. Over the years Tim would also find a lot of things being built around his father’s office, it even gone to a point where Tim was forbidden to enter anymore. “It is for both of us, Tim. I promise.” His father would always answer.

Sometime later, when Tim had been mindlessly watching one of his favorite shows, he finally understood why his father had been that way. In one scene he saw a character doing a very similar impression of his father while the second character was comically whispering to him what to do. What this what had been happening?

“Then-what was that thing?” Was his father being controlled by some magical creature? Wasn’t it impossible for such things to live in this region? Tim couldn’t trust himself, the only information he could live off was the books he had read. If that was the case his father’s fate was in the hands of stock knowledge! He was already eleven, way older than when he first found out of his father’s problem. If he couldn’t help his father then no one can! With a shake of his head, he barged into his father’s office one night. Everything from his father’s office was set aside to a single corner while the other side was occupied by a metal hexagonal structure where from each side pylons larger than a fully grown man were erected. He was too afraid to get closer but then heard a voice he instinctively remembered from the deepest parts of his mind.

Tim ran towards the voice, through the hexagonal structure and found what he would later always wish to forget:

“I…where am I?”

“Dear, you are alright. Just- keep calm, I can-”

“Is…is that our son? Tim? Is that you? Oh my, you look all…grown…”

A woman no older than Tim’s father wearing a white nightgown was sitting on the edge of a metal bed in the stone room through the hexagonal structure. She had the very same color of hair and eye as Tim. But therein lied the problem, she had only one eye. The other was an empty eye socket, in fact, half her body was barely recognizable, resembling more a mummified husk with an inklike tar dripping all over it than a healthy body. She looked at Tim, smiled, but she must have noticed Tim’s horrified look because she then tried to look over her own body. Raising her arms up to see made her shriek in horror.

Tim, horrified, stepped back to his father’s office slowly.

“Tim, please don’t be afraid! I’m your mom. I-” She limped with one leg towards the young boy and held his rosy cheeks with her unrotten hand. Tim felt it; her warm hand.

His mother was alive. His father played a hand in whatever happened. The room they were in smelled like iron and the floor was wet. The young boy, too addled to even make sense of what happened hadn’t been able to stop walking back.

“Tim, look out!” His father suddenly warned.

Tim tripped, he fell on his butt and his mother falling over him. As they fell the hexagonal structure flared, arches of blue electricity sparked and the room in front of Tim disappeared leaving the office wall barren.

“What was that?” He heard his mother mutter, coughing. “Tim, dear, are you alright?”

Tim’s eyes widened as he saw even more of his mother was slowly rotting in front of him! She must have realized the same when she saw his face.

“I’m so sorry, dear. I don’t think I have much time left.” She caressed his cheek; her hand was no longer warm. Tim recoiled and crawled away from her as far away as possible. The inklike matter she excreted was lathed all over Tim’s body. Not even a few seconds later Tim felt his body writhe against his will. His body felt hot. Was he on fire!? The young boy screamed as he tried to put out whatever was causing the pain but he felt his body sweating out the very same inklike tar substance.

“Wha-!” Tim’s screams softened; his voice was too hoarse to keep it loud.

“Tim? Tim! Oh no, no, no! Not you too!” His mother grabbed him by the shoulders and tried to hug him tight. “It’ll be alright-!”

But with a twist of Tim’s small frame his mother’s rotted arm fell off. Tim wished he never looked up at his mother, because whatever beautiful face Tim saw in all of her pictures would now be overlapped by the rotting face in front of him. Her words stopped making sense and garbled as she rotted away into a pit of inklike tar. Tim sat flat on the floor; his lifeless eyes was looking at nowhere in particular, the recent events branding itself in Tim’s memory forever.

The servants and security barged in a few minutes later, there they found their master’s office in a pool of black tar and blood. The master of the house and his son was no where to be found. In their stead was an inklike monster with glowing red eyes sitting over the black and bloodied floor. They didn’t even let the creature speak when the guards opened fire. In response to the overpowering force against it, the creature stumbled into the office’s one way glass window and fell over three hundred meters into the ground.

Its body was never found.

One of the street urchins in the Neutral Grounds, Tim, knew everything and nothing at the same time.

“Three years, but I was born here.” Was his answer whenever the other children would ask if he was from around. Their doubt was completely understandable too. Tim knew every street by name, but would fail at even knowing where to buy the best bread in any of the street he named. He could list off the temples and churches and could tell where they were, but would fail to know who was the priest running the place.

To a child living off a local parish’s goodwill? That was unheard of! Some of the older children wanted to say Tim was a runaway rich boy. Some ivory tower kid who had gotten over their head and wanted to run back to his mommy and daddy. But whenever they tried, they would meet his dead brown eyes; that was evidence way more than any answer he would’ve given them.

Most children like them were corralled under one of the megacity’s Casual Wards. They were stern old buildings or turned-over government buildings refurbished to house vagrants. “It was the city’s attempt at giving them the opportunity to ‘reintegrate’ into the normal workforce,” Or so they were told when they first came into the workhouse years ago. The children Tim’s age understood only half of what the staff told them; Tim helpfully explained it to them plainly afterwards. He was the only one the other children, his age or otherwise, relied on to help them understand the more verbose words these adults use. Though, these same children would often find the young boy keeping to himself whenever they weren’t working. He would keep is answers with them and the adults brief, plainly evident when they first heard him register to the workhouse.

“Name?” “Tim.”

“Tim…?” “What?”

“Tim…Watt… hmm, Age?” “…fourteen.”

“Birthday?” “…”

“Birthday…?” “Today.”

“What? The first day of the year?” “Yes.”

“Cheeky brat-” “Thank you.”

“Work experience?” “Two? No, three years.”

“Hrn…which workhouses?” “I forgot.”

“Don’t screw with me, boy. I let your birth date slide. Spill it-!” “The west end… don’t ask for my records, please.”

“Like I care what happened to you. Long as you didn’t have someone killed on the job.” “…”

“What? You did?” “No-! No…”

“Hrn, thought so.”

The workhouse’s jobs were labor intensive: complicated machines only the adult workers understand, making metal parts only more educated adults than the workers understand, where it is to be delivered to people the people in these workhouses would never meet. The children worked to clean these machines as it ran. Oil spills, gunk and drips were not allowed to ever hit the floor whenever they were on duty. Tim was slower than the other children, at first, he was smarter than them, sure, but they would beat him at menial labor. Oddly enough, the children would find him the most talkative whenever they worked.

“Where do I put these again?” “You don’t like that job? Teach me how to do it and we’ll trade places.” “Huh? How’d you do that? That’s a neat trick.”

The adults called him a glutton for labor, or even the warden’s pet for having caught the eye of one of the higher ups. But the children would notice, Tim would never let the adults see him do anything more than work on jobs. They’ve never seen him show off to any of the adults that he knew how to read. One of the children’s favorite pastimes were to steal a book from the library two blocks away and let Tim read them the books aloud whenever they weren’t working. The books would always be about fairy tales, or about mage’s biographies outside the Neutral Grounds.

“Woah! That sounded kinda funny, a flying cat?”

Another child clicked her tongue. “Fat chance that’s real.”

Tim would only look at them with his deadened gaze, but his voice was just as curious. “I haven’t seen one too. They might be Joyan mages?”

“Hah! The butcher over at the markets can’t fly. He’s joyan too.”

“Maybe when he’s, uh, not in here? In neutral grounds?” Another kid added, softly.

“Wanna bet?”

Their days in the workhouse would consist of hard, fever-inducing work and wistful alcohol induced rest. Tim, especially, would ask for small parts of beer or spirits from the pantry instead of the diluted mead they would usually feed to the other children. At first, the adults guarding the pantry would sensibly reject the offer outright. But seeing Tim’s baggy eyes stabbed them with guilt and conceded with one pub measure per day.

It was a routine few years in their workhouse till one day the very same pantry guard tried to figured out why Tim had been so sleep deprived since the first day he joined.

“Tim?” He would call softly upon seeing the young boy run silently outside the building before had gotten dark. Some of the other workers noticed this, but Tim wasn’t the only child to have this behavior. So long as they arrive by morning and work without having any trouble? They didn’t care.

“Hey, Tim? Kid?” The guard called again. He followed Tim back into the back gardens of the facility, it was from the time it had been used as a government building. The new owners didn’t remove the lot and since then it had been reclaimed by nature. In this small forest the guard heard someone breathing evenly, as if asleep.

But when he turned his torch over to the source, he found a red eyed monster.