Thank you to:
u/SpacePaladin15 for creating the Nature of Predators universe.
u/EdibleGojid, author of Dark Cuts, for proofreading.
EmClear, aspiring author, for proofreading
AlexWaveDiver, creator of The Nature of Music, for proofreading
You, the reader, for your support.
Please consider reading the works of my proofreaders as they’re all authors of excellent stories and be sure to check the links below for more of my work and beautiful art from members of the community.
[Empty Eyes] [Nature of Family Master List]
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Empty Eyes: The Unforgiven
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Memory transcription subject: E̶͉̖̺̣͇̽̔̓̃͑̂̍̍͝Ŗ̸͈̙̭̼̝͛̃̍̃̆Ṛ̶͖̙̩͐̆͝Ȍ̷̡̱̞̳̹̩͙̩̼͚͛R̵̝̽̈͑̌̑̐́̊̍͝!
Date [standardised human time]: E̶͉̖̺̣͇̽̔̓̃͑̂̍̍͝Ŗ̸͈̙̭̼̝͛̃̍̃̆Ṛ̶͖̙̩͐̆͝Ȍ̷̡̱̞̳̹̩͙̩̼͚͛R̵̝̽̈͑̌̑̐́̊̍͝!
Transcription data heavily fragmented…Attempting post-mortem reconstruction…
E̶͉̖̺̣͇̽̔̓̃͑̂̍̍͝Ŗ̸͈̙̭̼̝͛̃̍̃̆Ṛ̶͖̙̩͐̆͝Ȍ̷̡̱̞̳̹̩͙̩̼͚͛R̵̝̽̈͑̌̑̐́̊̍͝!
Evidence of neural pathway tampering detected…Suspicion of attempted obstruction of justice…Decoding memory encryption…
Decoding…
Decoding…
Partial reconstruction complete…Full reconstruction ongoing…
Memory transcription subject: Trilvri Capozzi, Suspected Capozzi Family Caporegime
Approximate Date [standardised human time]: 2137
The Nightside air is cool and crisp this paw, a gentle flurry of softly falling snow drifting down as I lurk in the shadows cast between two tall buildings in Twilight Valley’s commercial district. Herds of people mill about in the streets, completely oblivious to my presence, caught up in the minutiae of their own lives and totally unaware. I’ve been watching them all for some time now. Waiting. Observing. Ready to seize upon opportunity the moment it presents itself.
Ahead of me, rising up from the street like an enormous monolith of glass, twinkling in the refracted neon, stands The Aurora. It’s fairly typical so far as Nevok resort casinos go, a place for both business and pleasure, designed to fleece the masses for every credit they’re worth, but this one is special. This one is the chosen venue for the annual assembly of Skalga’s Predatory Science Society, a conference bringing together the self-described ‘greatest minds’ in their field to share their research findings and discuss them with like-minded colleagues. The fact that they decided to hold it in Twilight Valley this cycle is very… fortunate.
My Family had told me not to come here. All of them. Quinlim, Ramone, Sailee… even Don. They had told me not to do it, urged me to let it go, and to move on with my life. As if that were even an option. I hadn’t said anything either way, but as soon as they learned the conference would be in town each of them knew exactly where I would be going, what I would do when I found her. They had all warned me against this course of action, asked me again and again to reconsider, but not a single one of them had tried to stop me.
A wise decision all around. I love my Family, they’re the only thing left that provides any meaning to my life, and I hate to go against Don’s direct orders, but in this matter I will not be denied. None of them know what it really means to be tortured, to have your sapience stripped from you, peeled back layer by layer as you beg for a mercy that will never come. None of them truly understand what that feels like, what it does to you… and with any luck none of them ever will. But even still, they know enough to understand why I have to do this, even if they don’t approve.
I pull the zipper up tight on the sanitation jumpsuit I chose to wear for the occasion, a faded white workman's outfit used to keep wool neat and clean no matter how dirty the job, currently soiled and stained with streaks of aged sewage and grease, adding to the intended effect. Right now I’m a nobody. Nothing but a common, lower-class labourer. A plumber perhaps, if I’m being generous, or a basic janitor more likely. Practically invisible in a place like this, and to the people who frequent it. The kind of person who blends seamlessly into the background. The kind of person who quietly goes about their business, intentionally ignored if they’re seen at all, a living piece of furniture, forgotten as quickly as he is noticed. For my purposes here, that social blindness is a boon.
The goal of course is to make sure that there aren’t any distinguishing features visible, nothing that could be used to identify me afterwards. Most concerning to me is the web-like lattice work of electrical scars which run the length of my body, starting from where her collar used to wrap around my throat and culminating where steel manacles had once bound my wrists and ankles. It’s an inconvenience I’ve learned to work around over the cycles, but also a constant reminder of what she did to me…
I step out into the open as I finally decide to make my move, merging seamlessly with the crowd as I make my way around towards the back of the resort, dodging the unblinking electric eyes of cameras up above. As I walk past the front entrance, a large digital billboard flashes with the latest attractions and events. Most are related to the assembly, but for me there’s only one that matters. Special guest speaker, and multi-award winning expert in the field of pediatric predator disease pathology, Doctor Synvyq…
Just reading the name alone is enough to send echoes of phantom pain coursing throughout long-deadened nerves situated across my entire body. It’s been over a decade since we last spoke, a decade since the Penitents had removed me from her facility, claiming me as their own ill-gotten property. A lot has happened since then in the intervening cycles, I’m not the scared, helpless child I once was, and I doubt she even remembers me. But I remember. I will always remember…
Finally making it into the back alleys behind the resort and away from the main street, I carry on towards an out-of-the-way service entrance. Locked, but that’s no surprise, and I came prepared. From out of my disguise’s front pocket I pull out a small torsion wrench and a pick, inserting both into the tumbler mechanism. It’s child’s play, quite literally in my case. In less time than most could do with a key, the pins are aligned and the cylinder turns.
I move casually, neither fast nor slow, acting as though I belong and have all the time in the world. In truth, I’ve only got so much. Doctor Synvyq is scheduled to speak within the next quarter claw. After that, there’s no telling where she might go next and my task will be made all that much more difficult, but before that? Before that she’ll be alone in her dressing room, backstage of the auditorium. An easy target.
As I round the corner, deeper and deeper into the backroom bowels of the casino and away from the general public, I spot a patrolling pair of security guards up ahead, off-duty Exterminators by the look of them. I don’t even bother to glance up, instead simply carrying on past them without a trace of emotion in my tail, feigning the beleaguered weariness of long toil. It does the trick perfectly, the disguise working exactly as intended, and I move past without incident or comment.
Before long I find what I’m looking for sitting right in front of me, a door to the dressing rooms labelled with the name ‘Dr. Synvyq’. I unzip the top of my jumpsuit, brushing aside Solomon’s dogtags where they rest against my chest, to retrieve the newly-printed handgun holstered under my arm. From my back pocket I draw out a suppressor and, with practiced ease, I thread it onto the front of the barrel.
“Room service…” I announce with feigned enthusiasm and a knock.
“What…?” Comes the muffled response from inside, a voice I remember well. “I thought I told you to… Oh nevermind. Come in.”
I open the door carefully, knowing that everything is going according to plan, but unable to shake the feeling that it’s all too easy regardless. Nothing but the old paranoia talking, I’m sure. I advance forward into the room with my weapon drawn, pushing the door open as I stare down my sights at the back of my target's head. The room itself is dimly lit, illuminated only by the light produced by the bulbs of a small vanity desk. She sits there pensively, looking down at a series of notes held in her paws, leafing through them again and again and again. In her single-minded pursuit, she doesn’t even consider looking up.
“You can just leave whatever it is on the counter,” she tries to wave me away with her tail. “I don’t want any distractions right now. I need to make sure this speech is perfect…”
“The speech doesn’t matter,” I allow all pretenses to drop, the cold monotone of my true voice returning in full as the door closes behind me with a soft click, “because you won’t live long enough to deliver it.”
E̶͉̖̺̣͇̽̔̓̃͑̂̍̍͝Ŗ̸͈̙̭̼̝͛̃̍̃̆Ṛ̶͖̙̩͐̆͝Ȍ̷̡̱̞̳̹̩͙̩̼͚͛R̵̝̽̈͑̌̑̐́̊̍͝!
Memory transcript ends… Relevant transcription located in system database… Beginning playback of alternate transcript…
Memory transcription subject: Dr. Synvyq, Predator Disease Treatment Specialist
No, no, no… None of this is RIGHT! I need… I need to find the right words… I need to do something different! This won’t work at all! I need to make them understand… I need to do something… special! Unique! I’d consider rewriting the whole damn speech over from scratch, yet another aborted attempt to add to the waste bin, if not for the fact that I’m scheduled to go on stage to present soon. I’ve already half-memorized this version though, and I don’t have time to start over again… I just… I just need to focus on what I have already. I just need to concentrate on the message, on-
“Room service…” my thoughts are interrupted by a sudden knock at the door.
“What…?” I had TOLD them I wanted to be left alone. No distractions! What part of that didn’t they get? “I thought I told you to… Oh nevermind. Come in.”
It doesn’t matter I suppose. There’s no sense getting upset over it, and maybe some refreshments could do me some good. For now though, I need to focus. I just hope that they make it quick.
“You can just leave whatever it is on the counter,” I say, shooing away the attendant with a wave of the tail. “I don’t want any distractions right now. I need to make sure this speech is perfect…”
“The speech doesn’t matter,” the voice which answers back abruptly changes from what it was before. Now it is cold and monotone, devoid of heart and coated in the blackest of venom. Yet, at the same time it seems oddly… familiar. “because you won’t live long enough to deliver it.”
As the door closes behind me with a soft click, it dawns on me just what is happening, and what kind of predicament I’ve now found myself trapped in. There’s nowhere to escape now. Nowhere to go. No one to call for help.
Moving slowly and methodically so as not to trigger a sudden response, I place my papers down onto the desk in front of me with care, tucking them neatly into a small cubby that should hopefully shield them from the most of any blood splatter. If I die here, then they’ll be all that’s left of my message. They have to survive, even if I don’t.
I glance up into the mirror before me, and what stands behind me now is a man. A Venlil with pitch black wool, sheared short in an exterminator's cut, and dressed in a janitor's coveralls. In his hands he holds a pistol with a large suppressor affixed to the front, one pointed right at my head. The pistol is menacing to be sure, but in truth it is his eyes which most terrify me, for in the vastness of their depths the only emotion I can read is malice.
“You’re one of my old patients, aren’t you?” I ask, my voice somehow still calm and level despite the situation. Perhaps it’s simply a byproduct of professional expertise? Of dealing with violence, and the people who propagate it, throughout my entire career. Or perhaps it’s simply that I’d come to terms with this possibility a long time ago, that I knew it would happen eventually, if not when. “What do you want?”
“I should think that’s obvious by now, isn’t it?” The man says, his gun never wavering, his intentions pure.
“Yes, I suppose it is…” I answer sadly. “You don’t have to do this, you know? You don’t have to be the predator everyone thinks you are. Please, let me help-”
“I’ve had more than enough of your ‘help’,” the man cuts me off. “Three star-forsaken years of it, and I’ve got more than enough scars to show for it. You may call me ‘predator’, but I’m not the one who dedicated her life to torturing children. You’re nothing but a monster, and I’m here to finally put you down.”
I bite my tongue, holding back the flood of excuses, of justifications. None of them matter now.
“I’m sorry…” I say instead. “All I ever wanted to do was help, but I’ve failed you. I failed everyone.”
“You really haven’t changed one bit in all this time, have you?” The man states rather than asks. “Always apologising, always lamenting how much it hurt you to do it, right up until the very end. Crying out in pain, even as you strike. But that didn’t stop you, did it? It didn’t stop the electric chair, even as you burned lines into my flesh. It didn’t stop your injections, even after I was long past the point of distinguishing nightmare from reality. It didn’t stop your lectures, your probing, your accusations. You had decided that there was something wrong with me, and you would do anything to ‘fix’ me, no matter how painful the process might personally be… for you. You would find a way, no matter how long it might take… Isn’t that right, Doctor?”
“Wait… ” Something inside suddenly clicks, and I whisper out the name of a long dead child, my greatest professional failure, and my greatest shame. “Trilvri…? Is… Is that really…?”
“I’m surprised you remember,” Trilvri answers without fondness. “You must have had hundreds of victims in your time. Thousands even. What makes me special?”
I swallow, hard, the feeling of confession upon my lips, “You were the first. The first time I’d ever failed, so thoroughly and so completely, to rehabilitate a patient. The first time I’d ever had one taken from my custody. I failed you, and I broke my promise to your mother-”
“Don’t talk about her,” Trilvri commands, tightening the grip on his pistol in the first, subtle sign of emotion he’d displayed yet. That’s right. He had turned rather quiet towards the end, hadn’t he? Almost mute.
“I’m sorry, Trilvri,” I say, barely even able to look at him for the shame of it, yet feeling as though I can’t look away. “I tried everything I could to stop them from taking you. I really did.”
“Don’t worry,” he says, the words sharp with enmity, “the Penitents didn’t do anything worse to me than what you already had. Now get up…slowly. I want to look you in the eyes as I snuff out their light.”
So… This is it then…? So be it. I rise slowly, turning to face Trilvri. Turning to face the monster I’d had no small share in helping to create.
“Hmpf,” he says in a small sign of amusement, “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that I’m not the first of your old patients to pay you a visit, Doctor.”
Almost unconsciously my right hand reaches up towards my own throat, feeling out the ragged scarline that had so recently taken up residence.
“No, not the first…” I mutter softly, before putting the full weight of my resolve into my final words. “Trilvri, I know you won’t believe me when I say this, but I only ever wanted what was best for you. I’m sorry for everything that happened to you, everything that I’ve done to you, and if you think that taking my life will in some way make up for all the pain and hurt I’ve placed inside of you… Then I can accept that.”
Trilvri stares at me in silence, just for a moment, before speaking.
“Goodbye, Doc-”
The door swings open wide, flooding the dressing room with white light from the hallway outside, a familiar figure silhouetted in the opening. A Human figure…
“Hey, Synvyq, are you almost done in there? It’s almost time to go on stage, and no matter how many times you reread the speech it’s always going to say the same-” She startles at the unexpected sight of Trilvri in my room. “Oh! I… Didn’t realise you had… company…”
“Emma,” I say sternly, trying to keep the sudden rising panic from leaking into my tone, “I’m a little busy right now. I’ll speak with you later. An old patient of mine just stopped by for a quick chat. That’s all.”
“An old patient!” Emma’s eyes go wide, recognizing the implication immediately. “Do you need me to…”
“NO!” I shout, more forcefully than I had intended. “No, Emma… No, I’ll be fine just… Leave us alone for a little while… I’ll… I’ll talk to you later.”
Emma pauses, and looks sceptically down at Trilvri. My old patient hasn’t budged one bit, his back to the door, the gun still held firmly in his hands—though I can’t tell if Emma has seen it or not.
“Are you-”
“Yes,” I emphasise. “I’m sure. Now please, just… go. Please? Go… wait outside somewhere.”
Slowly, ever so slowly, Emma closes the door and, to my immense relief, Trilvri lets her. The two of us are alone in the room once again, Emma is gone, but despite that… Trilvri still hasn’t pulled the trigger.
“Explain yourself,” he demands, cold and curt, but his meaning is clear.
“I’ve had other patients come seeking me out before,” I say, reaching up towards my neck once again. “Most under more… controlled circumstances, but none of them gave me this scar. I gave it to myself when… When I realised just what I had done. What I was guilty of.”
Trilvri’s eyes stare out at me from the gloom, seeing everything, saying nothing. He stands perfectly still in judgement, and I feel the urge to continue.
“You were my first failure. The first time in my professional career that I began to doubt myself, to doubt my methods. I still believed in the cause, in the ultimate good of what I was doing, despite the suffering my treatments caused. I felt that there must be some way to do better, to cure my patients once and for all. A way to do it without all the pain and hardship that came as a side effect to accepted practices… But I never found it. I toiled for cycles over that question, agonized over it, continuing my work all the while, but it wasn’t until we met the Humans that I realised… That I realised I had been wrong all along… Not just in my methodology, but in EVERYTHING.”
“The empathy tests…” Trilvri says aloud as though reading my mind.
“Yes,” I wave my tail slowly in agreement. “The empathy tests. I didn’t… I didn’t believe it at first. I didn’t WANT to believe it. But the more time went on, the more the data correlated, the more I saw their words and actions align with the truth… Eventually it became impossible to ignore. My life’s work, all of it, was pointless. More than that, it was detrimental. Harmful even. Evil. I realised… I realised that, no matter how good my intentions were, my actions had caused more needless suffering than I could even imagine. More suffering than I could ever hope to atone for in a hundred lifetimes. And all of it, all of it, for nothing. If the Humans, a predator race, could be empathetic, could sense and feel the anguish of others… then what kind of predator must I be that I could ignore it?”
“The worst kind,” Trilvri answers mercilessly.
I nod my head in acceptance, knowing that I deserve his condemnation and more besides.
“Eventually, it got to the point I could barely even function, barely sleep, barely eat. Working was out of the question of course. I couldn’t… I just couldn’t do it anymore. Not knowing what I know now. I was disgusted with myself. I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror without thinking back to everything I had done. And one paw I just… snapped. I gave in.”
I take a deep breath, mentally preparing myself to relive that paw yet again with a shudder.
“I was walking home from the office that day, retrieving the last of my personal items after having turned in my resignation, when I walked past an electronics store with a large holovision display. The news of the paw was Governor Tarva’s suggested reforms of the treatment facilities, an exposé on the treatment of patients following a UN raid… The patients they had retrieved from that facility… No, the VICTIMS… They weren’t mine, but I could see my handiwork all over them, my decades of academic research and influence… And staring back at me in the glass, was my own reflection. So I did what felt right at the time. I smashed that window, that evil reflection of myself. I took a shard of glass, held it in my paws, and dragged it across my throat. Right there, in the middle of the street…”
“And yet somehow you’re not dead,” Trilvri says, almost like an accusation, disappointed at my lack of results.
“No,” I answer. “No, I’m not. And I have Emma to thank for that. Of everything that could have happened, a Human, a so-called ‘predator’ saving my life was the last thing I had expected to happen. I didn’t even realise she was there, but the moment I went down she rushed over, applying pressure to the wound, trying to stem the bleeding. Eventually she managed to get me to the nearest emergency room, and just barely in time. The strangest thing of all was that she actually cared about me, crying over my body, telling me to just hold on. She had absolutely no reason to. I was a perfect stranger to her, I of all people didn’t deserve it, and yet she still did…”
“They do that…” Trilvri states plainly. His eyes never leave mine, his gun still refuses to waver, but with his free hand he reaches up to retrieve a strange necklace around his neck, the claw of his thumb absentmindedly tracing out the grooves of its metal ornamentation.
“You’re right,” I flick my ears in agreement. “They do. The Humans are far better, far more empathetic, than we ever were. Even after I had been checked into the hospital, Emma still came by regularly to check in on me. Even after I told her who I was, the things I had done, she didn’t go away. She just told me… She just told me that meant I had to be better. That I had to go on living, to make amends for all my mistakes, and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. Meeting with old patients, speaking to colleagues, trying to learn, to be better, to do better. That’s why I’m here, now, trying to undo some small part of the damage I’ve caused…”
Trilvri stands in front of me in silence as I conclude my story, the inner workings of his mind as unreadable to me as they were the paw he left me. Abruptly, his face breaks out into a snarl, teeth bared as his fingers close tightly around the necklace. His finger pulls the trigger… but to my surprise there is no flash of light, no sound of percussion, and I remain unharmed. With his thumb holding back the hammer of the pistol, Trilvri slowly decocks the weapon, unthreads the barrel and puts it away. Without another word he turns to leave.
“Thank you…” I say as his hand brushes the handle, stopping it short. “I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but-”
“Make no mistake, Doctor,” he cuts me off, a carefully restrained rage now leaking out from his every word. “You do not deserve my forgiveness, and I do not grant it to you. I don’t believe that you will ever be able to redeem yourself for what you have done… But I won’t take the opportunity to try away from you. HE wouldn’t want me to,” Trilvri’s thumb traces out the patterns of the necklace once again, “and for whatever reason your Emma seems to believe in you. I won’t have her grieve your loss just to satiate myself. I won’t bring that pain into this world. I won’t kill you, Doctor, but make no mistake… You are unforgiven, and I hope our paths never cross again.”
I bow my head low, hands clasped in front of with ears back and tail down in a display of complete submission.
“Thank you…” I whisper. “You won’t regret this…”
Trilvri pauses for just a moment more, a singular empty eye casting a sideways glance back at me, before he opens the door and vanishes from sight without a word. Not even a moment later and Emma comes rushing back into the dressing room, practically smothering me in hugs as she looks me over for injuries, her voice full of concern.
“You’re ok!” She says with obvious relief. “Who was that? Was that a gun? I thought for sure he was going to kill you!”
“No, no… he’s not a murderer, not a monster,” I say soothingly. “Just a sad child I once mistreated, now fully grown, and a better person than I ever was…”
Memory transcript ends… Relevant media recording located in system database… Beginning playback of media transcript…
“...And welcome back to The Upstart,” a suave Yotul man in a Human-style suit says from a small and austere recording studio, “Twilight Valley’s number one independent news broadcast, bringing you the truth that no one else will! Our top story this paw comes from The Aurora, where Skalga’s Predatory Science Society, an extreme Federalist organization dedicated to promulgating the now debunked ‘science’ of predator disease, has recently cut short their annual assembly due to widespread unrest and public disorder. Following unconfirmed reports of a break-in on the premises, headline speaker and prominent predatory ‘science’ expert Dr. Synvyq sent waves of confusion and anger throughout her community with a bold announcement. In an impassioned speech decrying traditional predator disease treatment methodologies, Dr. Synvyq publicly recanted all of her previous work and threw her full support behind recent initiatives by the Skalgan Restoration party to overhaul the planet's abysmal mental healthcare systems. The event concluded when enraged attendees rushed the stage, forcing Dr. Synvyq to evacuate under armed guard, and forcing authorities to shut down the event over fears of ongoing stampedes. That’s some pretty predatory behaviour from the so-called ‘experts’ and ironic to say the least, at least so far at this Yotul is concerned. Be sure to tune in later for more updates as this story develops, and remember, an Upstart questions everything!”