“Big sis… then try to sleep for a bit first.” Turing gently pulled the woman over and laid her down on the metal bunk inside the aside.

“Is… is this all I have to do?” The woman did exactly as Turing told her.

“Yeah… don’t think about anything. It’ll all be over soon.” Turing, in the end, didn’t lie to her. But she didn’t tell her the real reason either.

It took a lot of coaxing and soft pressure before Turing finally got the woman to reluctantly agree to lie on the machine for a while.

Turing softly closed the woman’s eyes for her, then leaned in close to her ear, voice full of feeling.

“I’ll definitely get you out of here.”

——————————————————————————

“But… the Bible says the outside world is full of greedy sinners and endless wars.” Oedipus said to Prometheus, who sat across from her.

“Going abroad doesn’t sound that great either, does it?”

Prometheus wore a white lab coat, but his face looked like a little sister’s. You could tell from his haircut and makeup that he was trying hard to avoid looking girly, yet his efforts weren’t very effective.

Prometheus and Oedipus sat at the dining table, chatting as they slowly ate.

He didn’t look very old, but according to him he actually wasn’t that young. He just looked that way.

“Do I look like a bad guy to you?” Prometheus’s smile was like a ripe orange. The packaging might be unconventional, but the sweetness went straight to the heart.

“You don’t. But…” Oedipus lifted her fork and tapped it lightly against her lips.

Prometheus’s appearance and his steady, magnetic voice clashed in a huge contrast. That contrast fascinated Oedipus.

“You don’t look like a good guy either.” Oedipus laughed.

“Look, isn’t that how it usually goes in the stories you tell?”

“More villains than heroes.”

“More suffering than happiness.”

“The outside world really is too scary. I think you should just stay here in Acadia.”

Prometheus often told Oedipus foreign fairy tales, hoping to erase her prejudice against the outside world. He hadn’t expected the effect to be the exact opposite.

“Of course the outside world can’t compare to Acadia, that’s been prosperous and peaceful for thousands of years,” Prometheus said. “But there are brilliant things out there too.”

“My break’s still got some time left. I’ll tell you another fairy tale.” Prometheus set his fork down on the empty plate and cleared his throat.

——————————————————————————

“Why… am I here? I remember falling asleep back in my room last night…”

Oedipus woke up in an emerald forest. The grass was lush and green around her, but everything was covered in a hazy gray veil. Poor little Oedipus didn’t know why, but the back of her neck hurt like she’d slept funny and pulled something. It hurt so much she couldn’t think straight.

“Right, I was going to find Prometheus. Yesterday’s story didn’t finish.”

“I want to see Prometheus,” she said.

The brave Oedipus pushed up her heavy body and made her very first wish. She wished she could see her own handsome prince.

Soon, the little rabbits, squirrels, and fawns in the forest all seemed to hear Oedipus’s wish. They wriggled out of the blurry grass and hopped over to her, chattering at her like they were trying to lead the way.

What a shame. If only our Oedipus could understand animal language. Then she could make more friends—and find her prince, too.

“I want to understand what the animals are saying,” she said.

Just as Oedipus made her second wish, something magical happened. The chirping of the animals flowed into Oedipus’s ears and actually turned into human speech.

“This is that one from The Altria Family… a princess, right?”

“Don’t talk nonsense. Acadia’s a federation. No princesses. But she’s definitely someone of high standing.”

“Bringing a kid like that to a research facility, no school, no friends… man, these Acadians really are heartless.”

“Can’t be helped. The fewer people know about this facility, the better. We can only pick from within the family. Kids have the most mana and fit the requirements best.”

Oedipus could understand the animals’ words, but she couldn’t make sense of what they were saying. She tried to think hard about it, then decided this was way too complicated to bother with.

Oedipus decided she’d rely on herself to find her prince.

But just as she made up her mind to set out, the big bad wolf showed up too. It opened its long, wide mouth, showing off its sharp, gleaming teeth, and scared all the little animals away.

Oedipus was terrified, so scared her legs went weak.

But she’d heard that even if you got eaten, it was fine. As long as someone cut open the wolf’s belly to rescue you, everything would be okay.

Oedipus regained a little bit of courage.

“I want to run faster than the big bad wolf,” she said.

Oedipus silently made her wish, then turned and ran with all her might. To her surprise, she found herself running faster and faster, light as a breeze.

That wish came true as well.

The big bad wolf chased close behind Oedipus, lifting its head to howl, calling more wolves over to surround her.

But clever Oedipus slipped around twisted, gnarled old trees and darted across crisscrossing streams and ravines. She ran the wolves in circles until they were completely confused, and finally left them far, far behind.

At last, Oedipus could stop to catch her breath—only to suddenly feel she’d arrived in a place that was very familiar to her.

A dazzling shaft of sunlight shone down on a wooden stump in front of her. On it sat an exquisite treasure chest, quietly waiting for Oedipus to come open it.

A few small, perfectly round characters were written on the box. Under the sunlight, they looked dusted in gold, bright yet blurred.

Oedipus rushed eagerly to the treasure chest and reached out to open it—only to be blocked by someone in white, strikingly handsome.

Isn’t that the prince? Oedipus thought joyfully.

All three of Oedipus’s wishes had come true.

——————————————————————————

“Get your filthy hands off Oedipus’s lunchbox, you monster.”

With a cold, sharp crack, the bullet slammed into “Oedipus’s” body, making it stagger.

A few magicians finally arrived, charging in through the cafeteria doors. They pinned the squirming monster to the floor. Sealing spells, anesthetics, cryo-fluid—Eastern and Western meds all together—poured on until the monster was subdued.

Not that it struggled much. It just kept rubbing itself against Prometheus.

“You guys are getting worse. An angel breaks containment and you don’t even notice.”

“And you still fell for its disguise. Didn’t you bring McNewdeau’s anti-magic spray?”

“Even if it’s a rare resource, this is not where you save it.”

“Good thing the one that escaped was Mostima. If it were any other angel, ten lives wouldn’t be enough to cover it.”

These magicians were big shots in the outside world. Even if getting yelled at face-to-face by a foreigner was humiliating, they all swallowed it down.

The monster at Prometheus’s feet kept making wet, squelching noises, stretching out its tentacles toward the lunchbox on the table.

The irritation from their slow experiment progress caught on Prometheus’s temper like a spark in dry grass. He yanked out his pistol in anger and fired several more shots into the tentacles, only stopping when the magazine ran dry.

“Professor, that’s not Mostima. Mostima’s still in its containment unit.”

“What?” Prometheus frowned.

“Pure white body, docile temperament… it should be Mostima, shouldn’t it?”

“Then is this… Mostima No. 2?”

The subordinates exchanged glances. One of them pulled out a tablet, tapped a few times, and opened a live camera feed.

“Mostima No. 2 is still there too,” he said.

That’s the giant angel in the underground chamber! Turing, still reading memories, recognized the massive blue figure on the screen.

“Then where the hell did this one come from?” Prometheus looked down at the angel at his feet, riddled with bullet holes and starting to turn into a sticky, lumpy mess.

“No idea, Professor. We’re investigating,” one magician answered.

“Sigh.” Prometheus glanced at the magicians standing ramrod straight, then let out a deep sigh, muttering to himself, “This rotten place…”

He didn’t say anything else. He picked up the still-steaming lunchbox and headed for the door.

The “Oedipus” on the floor could no longer see or hear. But she could still smell a breath of sunlight, slowly moving farther and farther away.

——————————————————————————

Now I finally understood why, in Prometheus’s fairy tales, the little match girl could only make three wishes.

“Oedipus” thought.

It had to be because humans are just too greedy. If you let them make more wishes, they’d never stop wishing.

“I must’ve been too greedy.”

“I didn’t realize early enough that some things were never meant to be mine. That’s why it ended up like this.”