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undead-merman · 10 months ago

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Garnet

December 31st 2015

To my horror, my father's scraps of rambling claiming to be research turned out to be true.

Deep in this unnamed facility past a million warning signs was the monster. His eyes gleaming in the darkness, reflecting the light of my lantern. I swear his eyes bore into me as if he was reading my very soul. He shouldn't be alive, not for how long this place has been abandoned. Life behind a chain link fence with only stagnant air and dust particles.

I pulled him out and seeing as how I simply came here to fight off my burning curiosity and hatred, I don't have a team to help me swipe the place and collect the research from the last group that contained him. I've contacted my most trusted allies to help me. They'll arrive any day now to my camp just outside this worn down concrete mess of a building.

He's semi feral. He understands basic body language, but does not speak or respond to any spoken language. I've tried. He growls and hisses at the most basic of things. He didn’t even understand forks and knives. He doesn’t even eat with his hands, he kneels down and licks it up from the ground. It’s a sad sight, really. I managed to lead him outside with some scraps of my lunch. He hissed and shied away from the sun like it was a beast. The poor thing, I shielded him away from the sun and waited with him until the sun went down. I made him a spot in my tent, and I'm watching him. I can’t be too careful with how wild he seems to be. He’s sleeping in my bedroll.

I cannot believe my father was right. The power of manifestation is true and has happened in the past, allowing a billion gods to be born over the years… Garnet, as I will be calling him from now on, doesn’t seem to look like one. He looks more like a demon. Garnet horns, a long tail, rough skin with pillars of said stone growing out of his spine and across his skin. His skin I can tell is supposed to be a much more saturated red, but with who knows how long he’s been in there he’s surely gotten paler.

I’m going to do my best to look after him. I think I should look into my father’s notes more as well.

January 5th 2016

A few days have gone by, and I want to compile my notes here. My new team has arrived, a few of my late father’s friends, a few friends of my own. All of them know of my father’s sudden detrimental interest in manifestation, even after all his years as a man of hard science. A handful of them searched the building, while a few stayed with me and studied Garnet.

Previous research dating back to the 1800s shows he wasn’t always feral. He was a calm-collected man that was theorized to be a demon of sorts. The horns on his head are indeed made from pure garnet, as well as the protrusions on his body. He used to have wings, as stated in some of the old writings, but they must have atrophied and fallen off.

I’ve taken some time to try and teach him some basic English. He’s a fast learner, which makes my life a lot easier, though it seems like he used to speak it a long time ago. My guess with how long he’s been alone, he’s forgotten it. Makes me sick to my stomach. Over a hundred years of solitude. Strangely enough, looking at his old enclosure, there were no signs of attempted escape. He stayed put like a well-trained dog.

There are thousands of files, some of them unreadable, almost all of them unorganized. We suspect people have been in here to explore or trash the abandoned facility, so it makes it harder to find material. But with Garnet the moral is up at the very least. Though, Garnet seems wary of new people. He only seems at ease around me and inside my tent. He snaps at anyone getting too close. In fact, he goes ballistic unless I stand in the way. I hate to describe it as such, but he acts like an unsocialized dog. Still, he seems like a good man, just lost from the stillness and loneliness of that facility. I’ve seen him sneak around and patrol my tent before curling up by my head. When he thinks I'm asleep he’ll lick my hair and chew it.

Talking with the team they agreed to stay here for as long as it takes. One of them even inviting a few more to understand garnet, a biochemist, a genealogist, Histologist, Biophysicist, the whole nine yards. Some of my father’s friends are even paying for the expenses of this trip. I’m so grateful. I hope that the study doesn’t stress Garnet out too much. Furthermore, I’ve resolved myself to taking Garnet’s comfort as a priority. If he doesn’t want to do something, then I will make sure that they don’t press anymore.

January 16th 2016

Our team has done some more digging and careful organizing and we’ve found out more about Garnet’s reason for being here. This used to be a research company that was looking into lab grown crystals but had ended up finding Garnet. They had harvested garnets from his body using different methods from bloodletting to cutting them out of his skin after burning him. From what it seems his blood would solidify into gemstones. It would provide hefty amounts, though their color would be low quality. The act of burning him which would scab over with the crystal and yank them out. These would result in much higher quality garnets. They wanted to test this, but I refused. It's far too inhumane.

We have also discovered he’s been there for generations. They had found a collection of folders called ‘Project Vein’, they didn’t even properly give him a name. I couldn’t stop myself from crying, knowing this man had gone through all that for some stupid fucking jewelry. Worst of all, when he saw me crying he straddled me licking my face and tried to comfort me, me. I couldn’t sleep that night, I didn’t even try.

The company dissolved after the great depression and he had been there ever since. Wasting away as he waited for someone to come find him. Save him, give him orders. Good riddance. I don’t even want to know the names of the people working here… it would eat me up inside.

We’ve been trying to teach him more and he’s picked up on it more and more. Instead of basic words, he’s relearned slightly more complex sentences. Thankfully, he’s a bit more social now and not just hovering around me and hissing and biting at the others. Not to say he doesn’t hover still but at least he’s not hostile to the others at camp. My father’s closest friends from work, he has taken great interest in Garnet. He keeps trying to feed him and get Garnet to spend time with him. Garnet is still wary of him. We did find out Garnet enjoys fruit. One in particular being a pomegranate. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. We gave it to him, and we watched as he peeled the flesh with such delicacy. No juice spilled from it unless it was already in his mouth. We all sat around and watched as he plucked seed after seed. He offered a handful to my colleague and myself before eating the rest. Ever since then, he’s been pestering us for ‘the tiny pom’.

His body is nothing like the doctors have ever seen. They were able to take small tissue samples and do some check up and scans. The tissues turned to Garnets within a few minutes. After study, his flesh truly turned to the crystal. The Mineralogist explained that garnets have a few different species. He seems able to produce many species… I wasn’t aware there were species.... Chrome pyrope garnet seems to be the main one he produces. He’s only able to produce a red variety as far as we know. But even she doesn’t know if. His flesh produces Spessartine. She wanted to take samples from all over his body including bone and marrow samples, but I refused.

I made sure they don’t go overboard with testing. As fascinating as he is, I cannot allow any mistreatment.

January 25th 2016

We have been here for nearly a month and Garnet has made leaps and bounds worth of progress. His long hair had been bothering him so they went head and cut his hair. He perked up the minute they showed him his reflection and he came scrambling over to me asking if I liked it. It suits him, and now I don’t have to spend twenty minutes every morning combing it.

He’s finally comfortable wearing clothing, much to everyone’s relief. With the cold, It only further proves the point that he is not bound by reality like us mortals. While he contains a stomach, he does not need to eat, he doesn’t need to sleep, the cold has no effect on him, he can have his body torn apart and beaten and still be fine, and heal it all away within a matter of hours.

He is not a mortal creature. If my father had any say in this, he would have called it a god. Garnet ceaselessly creates from his body without the need for energy. What else could you call it? I’m not even sure myself. Father’s research says there are billions of them. Gods created from the ideas and concepts attached to them. He mentioned gemstones, devils, zodiac, animals, though gemstones are primarily the object of his interest. Garnet, amethyst, ruby, topaz and citrine. He claimed to have known about Garnet, his mother telling stories about him. I worry that my family was somehow involved with him.

We’ve plucked through as much as we could inside, but sadly time has destroyed most of their research. What I've previously written down in my cataloging is simply all we have. Garnet doesn't seem to remember anything after the last visit to him. From what he's told me, a man had come up to him and told him to wait there. He waited and waited until I came.

Everyone discussed what to do next. Without Garnet consenting to testing, there wasn’t much they could do. But when I told them about my father’s research, they asked if I was planning to see if there was more like Garnet. I had to admit it. If there were any more creatures like Garnet, I was willing to risk everything to find them.

I really am my father’s child…

They agreed to help me and asked what to do with Garnet, and honestly I had to think awhile about it. I simply just couldn’t let him go about the world on his own. I know it in my heart that he’d be taken advantage of the moment someone got him in his grasp. But keeping him with me? It is not like he’s some pet. I’d have to hide him, keep him safe. I’m not sure if I am up to the task.

But seeing how Garnet curls up to me every single night, licking my fingers and hair, and nibbles at my shoulder just to hug and hold me, I knew I had to. I told the group I’d keep him by my side and Garnet was thrilled about it. He latched on and didn’t let go until bed. I’d have to return home to look more into my father’s notes. The people of my camp offered to help me get back without having to arouse suspicion from the public. I am privileged to have such lovely people surrounding me in this mission. When I told Garnet that we’d be traveling back home, his tail whipped around wildly, and he seemed to take pride in the fact I called it home for the both of us. I hope I can spoil him like he deserves.

January 28th 2016

We ended up taking a train. We were able to have a whole private cart to ourselves, so I didn’t have to worry about Garnet getting overexcited and getting caught. I had to thank one of my dad’s old friends for that.

He was pressed by the window the entire time, and he refused to let me squirm away. I was by his side with his hand around my waist as he watched trees and mountains go by. It was charming seeing how amazed he was. Every seat cushion he bounced on, the table he laid upon and lounged like a king. After so long alone, it was heartwarming to see him so enthusiastic about the world.

I’d let him pick at my lunch and takes the things he wanted as I looked up more about Gemstones, mostly the ones about my dear new friend.

From my dad’s rants, I remember him saying that humans assigning characteristics would result in a grain of truth. So I looked at what the birthstone would represent and their symbolism. It was sweet seeing him sniff and poke at my pad and pen.

Loyalty, passion, healing, and protection were the most common aspects… and it would make sense for him. Loyal to the end. Waiting for someone to come find him. I have to push down all those hateful feelings. I have Garnet to look after.

Maybe in the future we will find more about them, but for now I'm going to spend some time looking into my father’s things and making sure Garnet feels safe, loved, and taken care of. He deserves it.

#undead oc #garnet the god #reader insert #gn reader #tw: experimentation #but it's a world where if an object or idea is given characteristics or symbolism they will adapt them and become an avatar of it #more to come next month #Symbolika verse

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