Ethan

"This time it has too work", Ethan said. 

He was not the type to cross his fingers. He was looking fixedly at a piece of paper which had been multiply scratched out. He let escaped a big sigh shacking the tube in his hand. 

He had been working on that formula for a month hadn't been able yet to get the expected result. He  fixed up his plastic glasses on his nose. They were a bit too large for him and kept on sliding down. 

"This time is the one", he said as to convince himself. 

He started to poor the greenish solution from the tube in his gloved hand to alarger beaker. It was starting to make bubbles. Ethan frowned, he wasn't expecting the solution to get bubbly. He added a bit more and the bubbling intensified. It wasn't a good sign but he had to pour it all, he couldn't stop just yet.

He took a deep breathe and continue to pour the mixture, the bubbles were now getting out of the beaker dangerously, white smoke was formating on the top of it. 

He finished to pour the liquid and took few steps back. Of course there was a strong glass protection between him and it but he would never know for sure. He kept on looking at it. The substance was turning dark pink and bubbling more and more like his sister when she was chewing-gum. The comparison put a smile on his face. He could always give it to her as a candy if it wasn't for the heavy smoke going out of there and being instantaneously absorbed by the absorbing hood. He counted slowly in his head. He was now too far away to watch his stop-watch. There might have been twenty second at least. He wondered where things had gone wrong.

The beaker started to spit flames. It would soon be over. It was looking a bit like a dragon, it was totally wrong, again. The bubbling suddenly stopped and the fire followed. Ethan came closer there was only ashes remaining in the beaker. At least this time the temperature had been low enough not to melt it. Still it was useless anyway. He took a pen and crossed out something more on this paper before cleaning up.

"As Thomas Edison would put it, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work", well six in my case" Ethan said out loud, "Still this is becoming tiring."

He felt like he has already seen it all, the first time, the mixture have just liquefied everything even making a hole in the table deciding him to work under the absorbing hood for more protection. The second time it had exploded throwing pieces of the glass beaker everywhere in the absorbing box. Ethan had been grateful for the box, he was feeling a bit like the Étienne Lenoir when he invented the two-stroke engine and almost burned his house. The third time had been the most quiet of them so far. Nothing happened, the liquid he had pour in the beaker remained at the surface of the first without even disturbing it. The fourth time had also been spectacular. Ethan sight, he didn't need things to be spectacular, he only needed them to work out. 

He finished to clean up the rests of the experiment and walked out of the room. 

Time for a good hot chocolate with wipe cream and marshmallow and probably some piece of cakes left in the refrigerator. There was nothing better to make him feel better after hard work.

Ethan is a character of Demon Soul.