Hempoo: The Germo Boy

Deep beneath the world humans knew, existed another world.

A world of bubbles.

A world of bottles.

A world of suspiciously slippery floors.

A world where the smell of shampoo was so strong that even the walls smelled clean.

Welcome to the Shampoo World.

And no, despite what its name suggested, it was not a place where people went to get haircuts.

It was much worse.

It was the underground kingdom of the germs.

Far below, there existed a complicated network of tunnels, laboratories and secret rooms. Every germ had a place in the system.

Some were trained.

Some were traded.

Some were imprisoned.

And some were used.

At the very bottom of Shampoo World, stood a huge black building made entirely of old soap bars.

Above its entrance hung a sign:

SHAMPOO WORLD: KEEP CLEAN. KEEP QUIET.

Underneath, in smaller letters, someone had scribbled:

NO HUMANS ALLOWED.

Someone had crossed it out.

Then written:

ESPECIALLY HUMANS.

Then someone else had added:

OR HAND SANITIZER.

Nobody knew who kept changing the sign.

Nobody dared to ask.

Inside the building, hundreds of germs hurried through the corridors.

Some carried files.

Some carried test tubes.

Some pushed tiny carts full of mysterious green liquids.

And some were simply running around because they had absolutely no idea where they were going.

One of them was Hempoo.

He was two years old.

And he was running.

Very fast.

“Hempoo! STOP!”

A tall germ in a black coat chased him down the corridor.

Hempoo looked behind him.

“Why?”

“BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE IN HERE!”

Hempoo thought about this.

Then ran faster.

The tall germ sighed.

“Why do I even bother?”

Hempoo suddenly stopped.

The germ almost crashed into him.

Hempoo pointed at a large metal door.

“What is that?”

“Nothing.”

Hempoo’s eyes widened.

“Nothing?”

“Yes.”

“What’s inside Nothing?”

The germ stared at him.

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

Hempoo smiled.

He loved doors.

Especially doors that adults told him not to open.

He reached for the handle.

“DON’T—”

Too late.

The door opened.

Inside was a huge laboratory.

Rows and rows of glass containers filled the room. Strange, coloured liquids bubbled inside them. Tubes ran across the ceiling. Machines hummed quietly.

Hempoo’s mouth fell open.

“Wow.”

The tall germ quickly grabbed him.

“No.”

“But—”

“No.”

“But I just want to see.”

“No.”

“But why?”

“Because this is the Restricted Germ Laboratory.”

Hempoo blinked.

“What’s restricted?”

“YOU.”

“Oh.”

A pause.

“Can I go inside?”

“No!”

Hempoo frowned.

He didn’t understand why adults always became angry when he asked perfectly reasonable questions.

He looked through the glass door again.

One of the machines suddenly beeped.

Hempoo’s eyes lit up.

“What’s that?”

The germ hesitated.

“That…”

He lowered his voice.

“…is what you are capable of.”

Hempoo looked confused.

“Me?”

“Yes.”

Hempoo looked at himself.

His tiny hands.

His tiny feet.

His messy hair.

His little shirt.

He looked extremely harmless.

“You mean I can make that machine?”

“No.”

“Then?”

The germ sighed.

“Your germs.”

Hempoo smiled proudly.

“My germs?”

“Yes.”

Hempoo immediately sneezed.

A tiny green cloud flew out.

The germ jumped backward.

“Hempoo!”

“What?”

“Cover your mouth!”

“Why?”

“Because—”

The germ stopped.

There was no point explaining basic hygiene to a germ.

Hempoo had always been different.

The other young germs could produce one type of germ.

Hempoo could produce several.

Cold germs.

Fever germs.

Itch germs.

And sometimes germs nobody had even named yet.

The people running Shampoo World had noticed this very early.

At first, they treated Hempoo like a special child.

They gave him toys.

They gave him sweets.

They even gave him a tiny room with a bed shaped like a soap bubble.

Hempoo loved it.

He didn’t understand why everyone was so interested in him.

Whenever someone asked him to produce a germ, he happily did it.

After all, he was two.

If an adult asked him to do something, he assumed it was important.

And Shampoo World understood that.

They began using him.

Not because Hempoo wanted to hurt anyone.

He didn’t.

He didn’t even fully understand what “hurt” meant.

They would take his germs and send them through the underground tunnels.

Sometimes they went to hospitals.

Sometimes factories.

Sometimes homes.

Sometimes places humans had never heard of.

Hempoo thought it was a game.

He thought the adults were collecting his germs because they liked them.

One day, he asked:

“Where do my germs go?”

A senior germ smiled.

“Important places.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re useful.”

Hempoo smiled.

“I’m useful?”

“Very much.”

That one word stayed with him.

Useful.

He liked being useful.

But there was one problem.

Hempoo was curious.

Very curious.

Dangerously curious.

One evening, while everyone was busy preparing for another operation, Hempoo wandered into a room he had never seen before.

There were files everywhere.

He picked up the first one.

It had his name on it.

SUBJECT: HEMPOO

Hempoo tilted his head.

He opened it.

There were pages and pages about him.

His abilities.

His germs.

His weaknesses.

His behaviour.

And at the bottom of one page was a sentence that he could barely understand.

“Subject may be utilized for large-scale biological operations.”

Hempoo frowned.

He didn’t know what biological meant.

He knew what “large” meant.

He knew what “scale” meant.

But the whole sentence sounded scary.

He turned the page.

There was another sentence.

“Subject is unaware of the actual purpose.”

Hempoo stopped smiling.

He didn’t understand everything.

But he understood one thing.

They had been lying to him.

He kept reading.

And then he found something that changed everything.

A plan.

A very big plan.

A plan that involved sending Hempoo’s germs into the human world in enormous quantities.

Not one house.

Not one person.

Millions.

Hempoo stared at the paper.

For the first time in his tiny life, he was scared.

He dropped the file.

It hit the floor.

Footsteps came from the corridor.

Hempoo froze.

Someone was coming.

He quickly crawled underneath the table.

Two senior germs entered the room.

“Did he find out?”

“I don’t think so.”

“We need to move him tomorrow.”

“And if he refuses?”

A silence.

Then:

“He won’t.”

Another pause.

“He’s only two.”

The two germs laughed.

Hempoo covered his mouth.

He didn’t like that laugh.

He waited until they left.

Then he crawled out.

His hands were shaking.

For the first time, Hempoo didn’t want to be useful.

He wanted to go home.

But he didn’t know where his home was.

That night, Hempoo packed his things.

It took him approximately thirty seconds.

He put one sock in a tiny bag.

Then a spoon.

Then a toy.

Then he remembered he didn’t have the other sock.

He looked under the bed.

Nothing.

He sighed.

“Fine.”

He left the sock.

He quietly escaped through a ventilation tunnel.

Unfortunately, Hempoo had never been particularly good at escaping.

He got stuck three times.

Fell into a bucket once.

Accidentally sneezed on a guard.

And at one point, he crawled into the wrong tunnel and ended up in the laundry section.

But eventually, he found a way out.

He reached the surface.

The human world.

For the first time, he saw the sky.

He stared at it for a long time.

It was enormous.

There were stars.

There was wind.

And somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.

Hempoo smiled.

Maybe he was finally free.

He started walking.

He didn’t know where he was going.

He didn’t know what would happen next.

He only knew one thing.

He didn’t want to go back.

Back in Shampoo World, the alarm suddenly went off.

BEEEEEEEEEP!

Every germ froze.

A red light began flashing.

One of the guards ran into the main hall.

“HEMPOO IS GONE!”

Silence.

Then chaos.

“What?!”

“Search every tunnel!”

“Check the drains!”

“Check the laboratories!”

“Check the soap warehouses!”

Someone shouted:

“CHECK THE BATHROOMS!”

Another germ yelled:

“WHICH ONES?!”

“ALL OF THEM!”

Within minutes, the Shampoo World was in complete panic.

The senior germ stood at the centre of the hall.

His face was expressionless.

“Find him.”

A guard swallowed.

“And if he doesn’t come back?”

The senior germ looked toward the surface.

“He will.”

“How do you know?”

The senior germ smiled.

“Because he doesn’t know what he carries inside him.”

Meanwhile, several kilometres away, Hempoo sat outside a human house.

He was tired.

Hungry.

And completely lost.

He looked at the house.

Warm lights glowed through the windows.

He could hear people laughing inside.

Hempoo hesitated.

Then he walked toward the door.

He knocked.

Knock. Knock.

The door opened.

And that was how Hempoo entered the human world.

Not as a weapon.

Not as a monster.

Not as the dangerous germ Shampoo World believed him to be.

Just as a little two-year-old who desperately needed somewhere to belong.

But somewhere deep beneath the ground, the Shampoo World had already begun looking for him.

And they weren’t looking for their lost child.

They were looking for what they had created.

What they had used.

And what they were terrified Hempoo might eventually discover about himself.

Because Hempoo had escaped "The Shampoo World".

But the Shampoo World had not escaped Hempoo.

Not yet.