She knocked on his bedroom door. Not hearing an answer, she pushed the door slightly, calling him a few times. When there was no reply, she pushed open the door widely and her eyes fell on the disgusting looking thing on the bed. It looked just like a butterfly's cocoon, except that this one was as large as a man and definitely didn't contain a butterfly. She got closer to the bed. Touching the fluid leaking from the empty chrysalis, she noted that the fluid had almost dried, suggesting that this chrysalis had been empty for at least a few hours.

"Sir?" she called again.

She opened the bedside drawer, removing the Glock 17 inside it, just in case. Readying herself, she got out of the bedroom, the gun pointing downward and called for him again. She may not be a field specialist, but she didn't spend two years as the Headmaster's secretary without picking up new skills.

The Butterfly Project
By Shini Eris

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*This story was inspired but not exactly based on Andrew Butcher's The Time Of The Reaper. The basic premise of the story is similar, that an unknown virus has infected the population and killed the adults, leaving only children and young teenagers to roam the streets. While I have some idea what he wanted to do with the rest of the story, I couldn't know for sure since the next book hasn't been published. This story took the basic premise (which wasn't much) and modified with my own ideas, so I can't really call this a fan fiction.*

"Administrative assistant Cassidy, 20324323. Your presence is requested in Headmaster's Quarters, Fifth Floor, Residential Building. Administrative assistant Cassidy, 20324323, your presence is requested in Headmaster's Quarters, Fifth Floor, Residential Building."

Cassidy glanced up at the speaker in the dining hall. She felt it weird that she was suddenly summoned to the Headmaster's quarters. Although she was the Headmaster's private secretary, it has been about two weeks since she last spoke to him. He was supposed to be in a deep slumber now. He was not scheduled to wake up until 3 more days, unless...

She quickly got up from her stool and left the dining hall in a hurry, ignoring the glares from the kitchen staffs and almost tripping over an extended leg when she passed one of the tables. She swore she'll make that troublemaker pay soon, but the headmaster was her priority for the moment. As for her meal tray, well, she thought the kitchen staffs wouldn't mind taking care of that. Her mind was already occupied by all the bad things that she feared would've went wrong.

The Headmaster was Carl Andrew Benton, a multi-billionaire who owned several companies specializing in high tech solutions. In 2000, he stepped down from the leadership role of Stardust Industries to take on a humanitarian role. He founded the United Care Foundation, that built several large orphanages - institutes he called them - as well as provide scholarships for gifted orphans in other orphanages across the world. This sudden shift from his usual habits brought many criticisms from friends, foes and neutral parties. They questioned his motives since he had the reputation for being power hungry, monopolizing and a ruthless businessman. When there were no signs of any foul play or ulterior motives, they pretty much lost interest and he was mostly left alone. Most likely it had to do with an article from one of the tabloid magazines relating his sudden change with his 'traumatic' divorce just a year prior. Those who still bugged him were mostly charity organisations who touted him as a hero for the underpriviledged, though he only ever seemed to care for orphans.

Cassidy recalled her first meeting with the Headmaster. It was her first day in Sanctuary Institute, the first Institute built in 2002. She was 14, an orphan and was ecstatic to be given a chance to study at a decent school with a scholarship with her name on it. Before arriving at the Institute, she lived with a foster family with a few other orphans. It wasn't too bad, she was grateful that she got to live with a good family, but there was always something lacking. When she heard of the new institute for orphans, she discussed it with her foster parents and they both agreed that she should try for the exam. She and about a hundred other orphans took the exam at a specified school the following Sunday. When she received the letter about a month later telling her that she was accepted into the institute and entitled to an allowance of $100 a month, she was overjoyed. The fact that $100 was not such a large sum didn't faze her at all as the institute will pay everything related to her studies, including lodging, food and standard uniforms.

When she was standing in the large hall that day with the entire second batch of the institute, she was elated. For the first time in her life, she did not stand out. She was just another girl, on her first day of school. No more taunting calls by nasty kids who made fun of her status as an orphan, no more discrimination by the other girls at the playgrounds, she was now with people who suffered the same injustice of life like her. If anyone made fun of her because she didn't have a father and mother, it would be the same as making fun of themselves. When the Headmaster said that they were no longer orphans, but students, and he would be their father if they would like him to be, she couldn't stop herself from wetting her sleeves. Finally the stigma of being an orphan, the embarrassment of not having parents no longer mattered.

She was interrupted by the sound of the opening elevator. She decided to wait for the elevator as the alternative would be climbing the stairs to the 5th floor. That would've been a viable alternative if it was the standard 5 floor climb, but it's not. She cursed the architects for making the ceilings for each floor so damn high. Finally, the elevator stopped on the 5th floor. She has been here plenty of times, mainly to help the Headmaster get ready for whatever meetings or appointments he would have for the day.

That was before The Plague, she thought.

There was nobody in the hallway. A good omen, she thought. If anything was wrong, the place would be crawling with either security personnel or medical auxilliary by now. She pressed the intercom next to the Headmaster's Quarters, "Sir, this is Cassidy, your secretary. I was asked to come here?"

She paused, giving time for whoever inside to answer. She took a look around. The overhead lights were dimmed as everyone believed that nobody will be using this floor for anything much. The hallways was lined with rooms similar to the one she was standing in front. She felt saddened that most of their occupants were among the first to suffer The Plague and succumb to their illnesses. A great loss as only the most celebrated students of the institute were assigned one of these rooms as their work involved some very top secret projects.

She was glad when she heard a, "Come in," through the intercom. She felt the voice was a bit weird, but she dismissed it as mechanical fault. She'll get one of the technical staffs to take a look at it. She pushed the 'open' button and stepped in.

She didn't see anyone as she walked into the living room. She thought that the Headmaster must have been in his bedroom still. She heard that the process could be very exhausting for the body and mind. The third person who survived the process was still bedridden after a week. If the Headmaster survived this, he would be the fourth, she thought.

She knocked on his bedroom door. Not hearing an answer, she pushed the door slightly, calling him a few times. When there was no reply, she pushed open the door widely and her eyes fell on the disgusting looking thing on the bed. It looked just like a butterfly's cocoon, except that this one was as large as a man and definitely didn't contain a butterfly. She got closer to the bed. Touching the fluid leaking from the empty chrysalis, she noted that the fluid had almost dried, suggesting that this chrysalis had been empty for at least a few hours.

"Sir?" she called again.

She opened the bedside drawer, removing the Glock 17 inside it, just in case. Readying herself, she got out of the bedroom, the gun pointing downward and called for him again. She may not be a field specialist, but she didn't spend two years as the Headmaster's secretary without picking up new skills.

"SIR! THIS IS CASSIDY. IF YOU ARE HERE, PLEASE RESPOND!"

She heard a slightly muffled voice just then, "I'm in the bathroom".

She moved slowly to the lone bathroom next to the kitchen. Gripping her gun tight, she twisted the knob and jumped right in.

"Eeeep!" she heard a high pitched shriek from the bathtub.

She was shocked to see a thin-as-stick, young blonde girl, probably no more than 14 submerging herself under the water's surface. Her first thought was that the Headmaster's been shagging with a girl more than 20 years his junior all these time. Then she thought that couldn't be the case. Since he only just emerged from the chrysalis, he wouldn't be able to 'shag' with anyone for the next few days.

Must be an intruder then, or an assassin, she thought.

"Don't you knock? Who taught you to barge in on other people taking a bath? And what's with the gun?" yelled the girl as she raised herself a bit.

Cassidy wasn't intimidated, so she replied with, "Who the hell are you? This is the Headmaster's Quarters. Nobody was supposed to be here. How did you get through the security system?"

The girl gave Cassidy a confused look, then finally understood, "Oh right, you've never seen me like this before, no wonder you're freaked out. Heck, when I saw myself like this," she gestured to herself, "I freaked out as well."

She looked up at Cassidy, "It's me, Cassie."

Cassidy was trying hard not to show her confusion, "Me, who?"

The girl made a sigh, "Carl Andrew Benton. You know, your boss?"

Cassidy didn't believe a single word, "You're saying that my boss, a man's man, is now a teenage girl. And you're expecting me to believe that?"

"Although that is my final goal, my immediately interest is in seeing you pointing that gun elsewhere."

Cassidy thought that the idea was pure bull, but she decided to entertain this teenage girl for a bit. "Fine, if you're the Headmaster, you should know where I was from before I came here".

The girl closed her eyes, as if trying to think. Then she opened her eyes and said, "You used to stay at a foster home in Cincinnati. Your foster parents' name was Mack and Jane Hammer."

"What was my biological parents' name?" Cassidy asked.

"Sorry, can't recall that. I had thousands of students, you can't expect me to recall everything," the girl said, annoyed.

Cassidy still wasn't convinced, "Okay then, when's the first time we slept together?"

The girl appeared shocked, "What the hell? We never slept together. The only time I could think of was when our plane crashed in South America, and I don't consider that as sleeping together".

Cassidy giggled at the girl's reaction. She meant that last one as a trick question. She knew for sure that they had never slept together. Even the thought itself made her skin crawl. The Headmaster was like a father to her, it would be almost like incest.

"Okay, I believe you now. What happened?" she said as she put the safety on the gun back on.

The girl looked annoyed, "I think someone screwed up".

She continued, "Either someone screwed up or someone screwed me up".

Cassidy leaned on the wall. Hugging herself, she said, "Someone from the lab? But why would anyone do anything like that?"

"That's what I intend to find out!"

They spend the next few minutes just looking at each other.

Finally the girl said, "Would you please get out? I'm getting cold".

"Oh! Right."

The girl, Carl Andrew Benton in a teenage girl body came out of her (his) bedroom wearing a bathrobe. She (he) watched Cassidy trying to establish a stable connection to the possible culprits on the wall mounted monitor.

"I've established connection with Lab 12, sir. Do you want to talk to them?"

"Damn, right."

Cassidy nodded, "Very well then." She looked into the screen and noticed a few people in labcoats in the background. One of them, wearing a mouth cover, was looking back at her.

"This is Second Class Administrative Staff Cassidy, Staff Number 20324323, private secretary to the Headmaster of Sanctuary Institute, calling from Sanctuary Institute. Who am I speaking to?"

"This is Biochemical Specialist Mario, Staff Number 20220276, attached to Lab 12 Genetics Lab. What may I help you with?"

The girl stood in between Cassidy and the monitor. "Well, for one thing, I want everyone involved in the Butterfly Project to be present, Biochemical Specialist Mario."

Biochemical Specialist Mario gave a dismissive glance at the girl.

"Who's that?" he asked, directing his question to Cassidy.

"Well, that's your creation. This teenage girl was once Carl Andrew Benton, Headmaster of Sanctuary Institute and Chairman of United Care Foundation. That was before he underwent the metamorphosis."

Mario was silent for a while, his eyes switching back and forth between Cassidy and the blonde girl.

"No shit?" he said, his left hand removing his surgery cap, then scratching at his scalp.

"No shit, and you should do as she, I mean he, oh what the heck, I'll just call you a 'she' from now on."

About half an hour later, a few more people in labcoats appeared and some of them asked Mario what was going on. Some of them looked like they just got up from their beds. Mario pointed to the screen and said something to them.

One of the newcomers, a rather dashing but unkempt man in his early twenties ignored Mario and directly approached the screen.

"Yo Cassie, how are you, babe? Missed me already? Aww, that's so sweeet. Don't worry, once we got a cure for this plague, I'll be happy to put you in as my Sunday regular."

Cassidy was about to make a retort when the girl said, "I want to know which one of you screwed up my serum!"

The man looked blankly at the girl. "You look familiar, but I don't think I've seen your before. Doesn't matter, I can put you in for Sundays if you want. I'm sure Cassie don't mind sharing, don't you baby?" he said directing the last sentence towards Cassidy.

"Biochemical Specialist Roger Milton! Would you stop your womanizing habits and focus on the issue at hand? I want to know what happened to my serum and I want the answer now!" the girl yelled.

Roger looked at Cassidy, "Who the hell's this?"

Cassidy put her hands on the girl's shoulders, "This, my dear ex-boyfriend," she stressed on the word 'ex', "was once Carl Andrew Benton, our mutual boss".

Roger appeared lost for words for a while. Then unexpectedly, he broke up and laughed. Not just the average everyday laugh, this was the 'rolling on the floor laughing out loud' kind of laugh.

"And what was so damned funny?" the girl asked.

It took a while for him to calm down, his eyes watering, he replied, "Oh god, this is like the biggest prank of the century. My name will be a legend for the future generations".

He fell to the floor and continued laughing.

The girl and Cassidy looked at each other. Both of them thinking the same thing, yet both was almost afraid to acknowledge it.

Cassidy spoke to the screen when Roger recovered, "Roger, am I correct in assuming that this was no accident? That you purposefully modified our boss' metamorphosis serum so that he will emerge as a young girl?"

He grinned, "Yup. Yes for both questions".

"WHY!!!?" Cassidy had to hold her from jumping at the wall mounted flatsceen monitor.

"Payback. Plain and simple."

"Payback? Wha... wh..." she was totally clueless, "What have I ever done to you? I fed you, I clothed you, I gave you an education, I gave you a job and this is how you repay me?"

Roger started to look serious, "I have already repaid you. I saved your life with my research. How I save your life is a totally separate subject."

By this time, everyone else in the background was already gone. None wanted to be anywhere close to the scene.

He continued, "Do you know what 'payback' I was talking about? Do you still recall my 3rd year at the university?" seeing the blank look on both Cassidy and the girl, he said, "You cancelled my scholarship! I was so close to graduating and I had to take two extra semesters when you cancelled the scholarship that was mine!"

"So this is what it was all about? Scholarship? I withdrawn your scholarship because your womanizing habit had affected your studies! You already failed two of your subjects..."

"Which I had no problem taking again..."

"I have given plenty of warning..."

"You never said you would withdraw my scholarship..."

"That's beside the point..."

"So what is the point?"

"You! You were irresponsible to anything, even yourself. The only reason I gave you funding last time was because you were the first person who proposed that idea. If by merit alone, I would've just given you a job as a research assistant, regardless of how bright you were."

"Well, it turns out you made the correct decision, didn't you? If we were late by a year, you and everyone else saved by this project wouldn't been nothing more than rotting corpses with pockmarked skin by now."

The girl bristled, she knew she could go on arguing back and forth on this issue, but her analytical and logical mind told her that it was pointless.

"Now that we've established that this is a prank by you, I want to know if there's any way to return me back to my previous form."

Roger took a seat, and appeared to calm down somewhat, "No. Hold it, let me speak first. It is theoretically possible to give you another metamorphosis serum which would return you to your previous form if you desire."

"But," he continued, "it cannot be done now. You body will not be able to handle it and you will most likely die stillborn. As you know, the primary concept of this treatment was designed to create immunity to The Plague. The way we do this is to allow a new body to reborn under the layer of skin and body fat, which would solidify to become the chrysalis. The organs with the exception of the brain will be processed and restructured by our own genetically engineered virus and bacterias. Can you imagine what will happen if an infant, such as yourself be attacked by viruses and bacterias twice in a short period of time?"

Neither Cassidy nor the girl replied.

"Well, simply said, the human body has a limit as to how much punishment it can take. Therefore, for safety reasons, I will only allow you to metamorph again when you start to contract The Plague, which should be around 5 more years."

"5 years? You gotta be joking! What am I going to do in the meantime?"

"My suggestion is to start mingling with people of the same age and learn how it was like to grow up as a girl. Maybe you would even get a boyfriend or two, heheheh."

"Not funny, asshole."

"By the way, the DNA model I used was from a 13 year old girl from Sweden. So if you start finding the urge to speak Swedish and eat husmanskost, tell me about it," he said right before he cut the connection with a smile.

"You DO NOT hang up on me! And what the heck is a husmanskost?"

She growled, "If not because we need them I would've opened their bunker myself and let them all, especially him, rot in hell".

Cassidy has been watching the verbal exchange for a while now from the comfort of the couch. She got up and said, "Want to get some dinner?"

The girl suddenly realised that she was starving. "Yea, sure. Would you tell the kitchen to send some of whatever they're having up here?"

Cassidy giggled, "Oh that's not going to happen. With so many people dead and so few kitchen staffs left, they couldn't spare anyone for that task".

"Oh well, I guess a little walk won't be too bad. The elevator still works, right?"

"Of course, but before that, what should I call you? I can't call you Headmaster when you look like this."

The girl looked at herself, "You're right. I don't think I want people to know what happen to me yet. I'll still have to notify the administrative staffs about my current situation, but I don't think anyone else should know about me".

She appeared pensive for a moment, "My mother wanted to name me Charlotte if I was a girl. I guess you can call me Charlie".

"A nice name. Shall we go then, Charlie?"

They took a short walk towards the elevator.

"Cassie, have you applied for your serum yet?"

"Nope, I'm sure they're already burdened with making serum for the more important people. I don't mind sacrificing myself."

Charlie looked at her, "Don't say that, Cassie. Nobody is more important than anyone else. Each of us deserve the right to live. You only have at most 2 years to live. In a worst case scenario, you probably only have one year before The Plague start to affect you".

Cassidy smiled, "I'll think about it, sir - I mean, Charlie."

Just then, the elevator arrived.

"Don't think about it, just do it. I don't want to lose you".

"Okay, Charlie," she said, dismissing the issue. How could she tell Charlie that the real reason she didn't want to take the serum was because she would rather die than look 300 pounds heavier?

*I know I promised Chapter 10 of The Half-Lilin, but I realised that I had some problem with making the structure of the chapter to work. So I'm taking a break for a bit and finished this one. Comments are always welcomed.