Nikola didn't know exactly what kept him so calm, as his blood was being drained out of him and filling up a small plastic bag. The very same ones the doctors used to fill in systems with.
"Do you have all your vaccinations?" The doctor was writing something in his clipboard. So, as if whatever Nikola said should be studied.
"Yes, of course," his parents didn't want any child-sized coffins, thank you very much.
But he still wondered what his vaccinations had to do with anything.
"Good. Good. Since when have you become a mutant?" The doctor asked. Nikola furrowed his brows.
"I am a druid," he insisted, even though the barely knew anything about druids.
Since the research he had done before they had to run from the Wild Hunt had been hogwash.
"That is good to know. Now, do you feel faint?" The doctor asked next.
Nikola sighed.
"Why don't you just take my blood and research it? I have places to be. I am not sick. Just…" not human, he wanted to say. But he knew that it was the wrong thing to say to a doctor who had security guards at his beck and call.
The doctor finally placed the clipboard down.
"I know that you probably want a peaceful life," the man began, his gaze calculating. "But there are rumors of a Wendigo in the mountains. At least four campers have disappeared by now."
Nikola tried to think about what a Wendigo was, but he came up blank.
He knew one thing, though.
"I am not a soldier," Nikola insisted. "And my magic goes on and off."
"I have a theory for that. But first, we might as well test it," the doctor opened a freezing box. There was a heart in it.
"I think that, just like humans, you need proper nutrition. You said earlier that you have killed a Selkie, did I understand you correctly?"
Nikola nodded. The heart was still fresh. Something told him that the giant organ had belonged to a pig, before it had found a new home in the box.
"And proper nutrition for druids means raw meat. Have you eaten anything after the Selkie?"
Nikola tried to remember if he had but could not.
"I wasn't hungry," he still wasn't. Not even two days after his last meal.
"It is said that we eat with all our senses," the doctor handed him a knife and a fork. Placing the pig's heart on a platter. "It is my theory that your stomach is building a new gut bacterial flora. That is why you are not so hungry. You still have your old gut flora. And the gut, dear boy, is the second brain."
"Second brain?" How could something which main purpose was to process food be called a brain?
"If you eat the proper food. The food you are meant to eat. Then you will be happier. What did you do after you ate the Selkie?"
Nikola's cheeks grew crimson. How was he supposed to tell this man that he and Dimitri had done their best to break the bed?
"You must have done something that would release even more of your hormones to make you deal with all the excess energy. It was either running, or… well, you do have a lover, yes?"
Nikola nodded. He didn't want to share all of this with this man.
"But the problem is that the human gut has long since grown unused to raw meat. Not to mention that most of us don't go around eating souls. Could you please do something about the park outside? The sick love taking walks in it. The religious ones are going to start yelling doomsday if the leaves all fall down in the middle of summer."
Nikola looked at the heart. He took his knife and fork and dug in.
The blood was sweet on his tongue. There was something left behind in the heart. Just a tiny slimmer of a soul.
He felt better the more meat he ate.
"I'll try," Nikola didn't want to imagine how he looked. His lips bloody, his teeth covered in blood as well.
He looked out of the window. Tried to make the plants become green again.
He blushed even harder. Could he only use his powers after some bed sport? That… well, Dimitri would be happy, should he stay.
And then, he heard it. The soft breeze was ruffling the tree's crowns. The leaves were falling.
Nikola took a deep breath. Tried to calm himself.
"You need a teacher, but there are no druids left," the man said, as he took out another heart from the freezer box. "I think that you have it in you to heal, should you choose it. I… I am supposed to deliver your blood to the labs, and yet… if I do it, you will be hunted."
"Why?" Nikola asked. The doctor pointed at the bag with the blood.
There were leaves inside.
"You need to become in tune with nature. I will say that you have passed away. We promised you 10,000 dollars, and we will deliver. But you have to disappear."
Nikola nodded. He had heard more than one story about the laboratories and the mutants, as the people called them, which they held and experimented on.
"Why?" Nikola knew that this doctor was not acting of the goodness of his heart.
"I won't lie to you. You have power in you. Power to turn a desert into a garden," the old man looked at the blood once more. Nikola followed his gaze.
"But this power can be weaponized," the man said, as he leaned back in his chair. "You are young. Haven't eaten a human yet. Keep it that way."
The man took out a checkbook and began to write the sum on it.
"And should the world need you to save it from hunger, do so, but from the shadows," the doctor handed him the check. "You ID, please."
Nikola handed it over. Thinking that the man was going to use it to fill out paperwork.
Instead, the doctor took out a pair of scissors from his desk and cut it in half.
"We will give you a new identity. This is not the first time we have done so."
The "and it won't be the last" went unspoken between them.
Nikola stood up, went and washed his face, and then exited the room.
It felt strange to be a nobody.