The figure’s hunched back returned to view as he or she hobbled over to one of the plush chairs and eased itself down, grunting and then sighing with relief as the worn leather contoured to its frame. I could feel heat rising from underneath my neck, and wondered if this person was going to sit there and watch me burn alive. Sit there and listen to my screams, my pleading. Watch as my eyes liquefied and melted down the front of Caspian’s taxidermy face.

A voice began speaking directly into my ears from tiny speakers. A woman’s voice – polite, yet stern, with the slightest affectation of a British accent. A stewardess for a fancy airline.

Foregoing preamble, she began to relate a story. The hunched figure watched with indeterminate interest from the leather chair, moaning periodically from the pain that sitting caused to its contorted back.

My trapped head grew ever warmer from the fire below.

* * *

The Story None of Us Should Know

as related by an anonymous female narrator to me while being cooked alive

This is how you make a homunculus. Extract semen from a fertile male, preferably one in the peak of virility. Allow the sample to age in an environment that imitates the conditions of a vaginal canal. Once the sample has begun its mutation – usually occurring after forty days of gestation – extract the sample and inject it into the unfertilized egg of a hen. The hen must have lived in its natural habitat for proper insemination to occur. It must not have been treated with hormones or antibiotics of any kind.

Once the egg has been inseminated, it should be kept in an incubator for a minimum of twelve weeks. A horse womb can serve as an incubator. So can the womb of swine. When the shell has blackened and begins to molt, you may then carefully peel open the shell and extract the specimen, presuming the insemination was successful.

A proper homunculus will be anatomically identical to a full-scale human despite its miniature size. It will be able to move its appendages and swivel its head. Given time, and while being sufficiently fed the Arcanum of human blood, it may grow to the size of an avocado and sprout wiry hair. But it will never establish a personality or demonstrate even the most rudimentary form of human cognition.

Hostility, however, is a common trait amongst homunculi, suggesting an instinct for self-preservation. The last homunculus created at the end of Phase One was observed hissing and ejecting a toxic liquid from its mouth that contained acidic properties strong enough to burn human skin. Its ability to aim this discharge suggests spatial awareness, despite lacking observable faculties for sensory perception. Its skin was translucent yellow. Its undeveloped eyes were black.