The scalpel traced over my skin.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Each cut precise. Measured. Like she was carving something important. Something sacred.

I had stopped screaming… days ago. Maybe longer.

My throat was too raw. My voice had died before the rest of me could.

I wasn’t even sure how long I had been here.

I woke up strapped to the cold table. The metal cuffs had worn deep into my wrists and ankles, cutting past skin, sinking into flesh. Every time I moved—just a twitch—fresh blood welled up.

The first day, I had struggled.

The second, I had begged.

Now?

Now I just waited.

Waited for Eve to cut.

Waited for her to finish me.

But she never did.

She took her time.

And she never finished.

But it always ended the same.

The scalpel. The cold. The waiting.

A ringing in my ears. My limbs—numb. The world tilting sideways.

And then—

Darkness.

----------------------------------------

However, today was different.

This time, I woke up hanging.

The cold bite of metal dug into my wrists, my arms wrenched above me, stretched taut against the unyielding wall. Blood pooled at the edges of my restraints, dripping down my fingers in slow, steady trails. My shoulders burned, my joints screaming from being forced into this unnatural position for—how long? Minutes? Hours? Days?

I couldn’t tell anymore.

The pressure on my ribs made breathing shallow. Pain flickered beneath my skin, coiling deep, raw, like an open wound that never closed. Every attempt to shift sent a fresh jolt of agony ricocheting through my body.

And then—her touch.

Her fingers ghosted over my exposed ribs, slow and deliberate, nails scraping lightly against the bone as if she were testing how fragile I’d become.

She hummed, pleased. A soft, indulgent sound.

“My, my,” she sighed, tracing the blade up my abdomen, pressing just enough to make my skin twitch. "You're holding up much better than the last subjects."

Subjects.

I didn’t ask.

I didn’t want to know.

My head lolled to the side, the fight long drained from my limbs. My vision blurred at the edges, my body too exhausted to react.

Eve pouted.

"Come now, sweet thing." Her fingers wrapped around my chin, tilting my face up. “No screaming today?”

I tried to speak.

Nothing came out.

She smiled. “Oh, Mari… don’t tell me you’re giving up already.”

I wanted to tell her I had given up a long time ago.

But I couldn’t even open my mouth.

Her eyes—gold and gleaming beneath her blindfold—glowed with something amused, something entertained.

She was enjoying this.

She always did.

Her hand trailed down to my chest, fingers pressing against the spot where my heart should be.

"Hmm." She cocked her head. "Something is different today."

I barely heard her.

Pain blurred the edges of my mind, drowning me in a thick, suffocating haze.

The Whisper had gone quiet.

It had been growing weaker with me, its voice fading, flickering like a dying candle.

It had tried to resist in the first few days—had tried to fight against the restraints, against the constant agony. But pain like this had no end.

Not until I ended.

And Eve wouldn’t let that happen.

Not yet.

Her scalpel pressed against my skin again.

I twitched.

A quiet giggle slipped from her lips.

She leaned in, breath warm against my ear.

“I found something inside you, sweet girl.”

My breath hitched.

Eve’s fingers slid lower, past my ribs, resting over something deep.

Something that shouldn’t have been there.

It pulsed beneath her hand.

She shuddered.

“This… is new.”

Her nails dug into my flesh, pressing deeper, feeling it.

Not an organ.

Not a parasite.

Something else.

Something older.

Something unnatural.

Her breath hitched in delight.

“Oh, my love,” she whispered, lifting her head toward the ceiling. “Do you feel that?”

A pause.

Then—Adam’s voice.

Soft. Distant.

“Extract it.”

Eve moaned.

Her fingers wrapped around a fresh scalpel.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes—"

The blade sank into my chest.

Pain.

Raw. Electric.

A scream ripped from my throat.

Eve gasped in pleasure.

"Yes, sweet thing. Sing for me."

I convulsed as the scalpel carved deeper, tearing past skin, past muscle, reaching something deeper.

Something that was never meant to be touched.

Eve’s breath shuddered.

Her voice trembled with euphoria.

“There it is.”

Her hand reached inside.

I screamed.

Not a normal scream.

A sound that tore through reality itself.

The Whisper shrieked inside me, its voice piercing.

It wasn’t just pain.

It was loss.

The scalpel grazed something black.

Not flesh.

Not bone.

Something else.

Something that did not belong in this world.

Eve inhaled, her body shivering.

“Oh, Mari…” She licked her lips, shuddering against my body. "Look at you."

She tilted her head, golden eyes blazing.

“You have a seed.”

I gasped.

I could feel it now.

A foreign, twisting weight inside my chest, pulsing with something dark.

Something different.

Something that didn’t belong to me.

Eve sighed, fingers pressing against it.

She was touching it.

Feeling it.

Worshipping it.

Her voice was breathless, reverent.

"This, my dear, is godhood."

A pause.

Then—

Her lips curled into a delighted, trembling smile.

"But it’s not like ours, my love."

She giggled, twisting her scalpel, watching my body convulse beneath her.

"Ours is golden, pure, divine."

Her nails scraped against it.

"But yours?"

She pressed down.

My veins burned.

Darkness ripped through my body.

Something inside me snapped.

Eve shuddered.

"Yours is corrupted."

My vision fractured.

A cold, slithering hiss echoed through my skull.

And then—

The Whisper moved.

It unlatched from my spine.

Not weakened.

Not dying.

Watching.

And then—

It tapped into the seed.

A shudder ran through me.

Eve’s breath caught.

She felt it.

Her fingers twitched.

Then—

I stopped breathing.

Something inside me moved.

Something not human.

Something that had been waiting.

The restraints shattered.

Eve’s smile froze.

I rose.

The pain faded.

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I couldn’t feel my body anymore.

Because it wasn’t my body.

Not anymore.

I hovered, my limbs stretching unnaturally, twisting, reshaping.

White.

Everything was white.

My skin peeled away like broken porcelain, revealing something else.

A mask formed over my face—smooth, empty, hollow.

Eight black limbs burst from my back, curling like blades, stretching unnaturally.

Horns twisted from my skull, jagged, monstrous.

Eve stared.

Then—

She laughed.

A breathless, shuddering laugh that spilled from her lips like silk unraveling, trembling with something between awe and delirium.

“Oh, Mari…” Her voice quivered, reverent. “You’re beautiful.”

Her golden eyes smoldered beneath the blindfold, burning through the darkness.

“My perfect monster.”

Panic surged in my throat—wrong, wrong, wrong.

I looked down.

Not hands. Claws.

Not mine.

Not anymore.

A scream ripped from me—except it wasn’t a scream. It was a sound that shouldn’t exist, a warping, bone-deep screech that made the air vibrate.

The limbs lashed out, slamming against the floor with a sickening crack. The walls trembled. The ground split. Metal shrieked as something deep inside the facility buckled.

Then—snap.

A fracture split across my face.

The mask—my mask—fractured, the crack curving upward into something terrible. Something unnatural.

A grin.

A grin carved into porcelain.

Eve gasped softly. Then she smiled.

"Yes. Yes, yes, yes— that’s it.”

The world blurred at the edges.

Pain bled into something distant, something unreal.

I was watching.

Not moving. Not breathing.

Just watching.

My limbs weren’t my own. My thoughts weren’t my own.

The Whisper had taken control.

"It's you."

Adam’s words slipped out, slow, uncertain.

Then—he laughed. A low, crackling sound that slithered through the speakers, deliberate and knowing.

"No... not quite."

A pause.

"It looks like you. Same, but… different. Twisted."

His amusement deepened, laced with something else—curiosity? Recognition?

"What are you?"

Eve’s nails tapped against the steel table, tracing idle patterns in my blood.

"Shall I keep going?" Her voice was almost bored.

Adam hummed. "No. Not now."

She exhaled, disappointed.

"Then?"

"Call the enforcers. Let them see what she’s become."

Eve clicked her tongue but didn’t argue. With a wave of her hand, the doors hissed open.

Boots thundered inside.

Black armor. Visors glowing. Rifles raised.

Provenance enforcers.

Elite. Precise. Trained to kill.

They stopped.

Their formation wavered—not out of hesitation, but something deeper.

One of them sucked in a breath. "God’s breath…"

Another took a step back. "What in Adam’s name is that?"

Their fingers twitched over triggers, but no one fired. No one dared to move.

A cold hush spread between them. The air itself seemed heavier.

"Silence."

The captain’s voice sliced through the unease, sharp and commanding.

"We stand in the presence of the Mother."

The enforcers stiffened, eyes flicking toward Eve, who only tilted her head, golden eyes gleaming beneath her blindfold. She did not speak. She did not need to.

The captain inhaled sharply, steadying his grip.

"The Mother watches. Hold your ground."

A breath.

"Fire," Eve sighed.

The Whisper moved.

Not me—it.

Faster than thought.

I felt the lunge, the stretch of limbs that weren’t mine, the wet tear of flesh splitting apart.

The first enforcer never had the chance to scream.

A black limb pierced through his ribs, twisting as his body convulsed. Blood sprayed against the steel walls.

It wasn’t my hands.

But it felt like they were.

I wanted to stop.

I couldn’t.

The Whisper kept going.

A second enforcer raised his gun—too slow.

Something wrapped around his throat, yanked.

His body spasmed once before he crumpled.

Blood pooled beneath him.

The remaining enforcers hesitated.

They had come for a failed experiment. A prisoner. A human.

They weren’t ready for this.

The Whisper laughed.

A soldier tried to run.

The Whisper didn’t let him.

A limb lashed out.

Caught him mid-step.

He screamed.

I felt my jaw twist into a grin.

No—not mine.

I tried to move, to force control back—nothing.

The Whisper wasn’t letting go.

It was reveling in this.

Eve exhaled, almost lazily.

"Stop."

I froze.

Every limb. Every muscle. Every nerve.

The Whisper thrashed—but it couldn’t move.

I felt it panic.

It didn’t understand.

Eve tilted her head, a slow smile stretching across her lips.

"Wild little thing," she murmured.

Her voice wrapped around me like silk and steel.

She flicked her fingers.

"Go away."

Agony.

Something hit me.

Hard.

The world snapped.

Walls shattered.

Steel buckled.

I was sent hurtling backward, through concrete, metal, the very foundation of this place.

And then—I hit the ground.

Distant alarms howled in the distance.

My limbs twitched.

The Whisper staggered.

Something was wrong.

It was afraid but—

The exit.

It was right there.

It surged forward, dragging my body with it.

A desperate, mindless drive.

So close.

So close—

Then—

Crack.

An invisible force slammed me to the ground.

I gasped—no, the Whisper gasped.

Adam’s voice curled through the air.

"You bond so deeply with it."

I twitched.

His golden eyes gleamed from the balcony above, studying me with something between amusement and curiosity.

"It clings to you like a parasite—festering, starving. Pathetic."

The Whisper shuddered.

I felt it thrash.

Struggling. Desperate.

Trying to fight.

Trying to flee.

A scoff.

"When did it become so weak?"

Adam lifted a hand.

I lifted from the floor.

Limbs twitching.

Spasming.

Nothing but a toy in his grasp.

His golden eyes searched my face.

Then—his expression shifted.

He tilted his head.

His voice dipped, softer.

"You’re not her."

The Hands of God tightened.

I felt the Whisper’s body snap.

It gasped.

Adam sighed.

"Someday," he murmured. "When she completes you… I will take you for myself."

His fingers twitched.

The Whisper collapsed.

Limbs twisted.

Blood pooled.

Adam turned away, his golden gaze already losing interest.

"You are incomplete."

A flick of his wrist.

"You are not worthy of my attention."

The Hands of God released me.

I crashed to the ground.

I couldn’t move.

The Whisper couldn’t move.

It didn’t speak.

Didn’t mock.

Didn’t whisper in the back of my mind.

It just breathed.

Terrified.

I felt it quiver around me, a cage of sinew and shadow, gripping tight. Too tight.

I pushed forward.

Fought.

Clawed.

I clawed through flesh, past muscle, past something deeper. My fingers wrenched through sinew, pulling, tearing, desperate to be free.

The Whisper screamed.

A sick, wet wail—like something dying.

Then—I fell.

The world lurched, the ground rushing up to meet me. My body hit the pavement, hard. Pain rippled through my ribs, sharp, suffocating. My breath hitched, ragged and uneven.

I looked down.

My hands.

Not claws. Not twisted limbs. Just hands.

That wasn’t me.

I’m still me.

I’m not a monster.

The towering thing crumpled behind me.

A lifeless heap.

Blood clung to my skin—some of it mine, most of it… not.

I stood.

Wobbled.

And then—I walked.

The door groaned as it swung open, metal grinding against metal.

Cold air rushed over me, sharp and sterile. Not fresh. Not free.

Familiar.

I had felt this before. Smelled this before. The heavy scent of metal and antiseptic. The artificial chill biting into my skin, sharp enough to keep the air clean but not alive. The walls stretched endlessly ahead, steel and concrete swallowing everything, identical no matter which way I turned.

My breath caught in my throat.

This place—I knew it.

Slow, unsteady steps carried me forward, each one dragging, like my limbs were weighed down by stone.

And then, I saw them.

The hunters.

They stood in clusters, their sharp eyes flicking toward me as I passed, whispers rising like static through the tense air.

"Who is that?"

"Where did she come from?"

"Is that... blood?"

A murmur rippled through the crowd. More eyes turned my way. Hunters didn’t come out of the Provenance Hall. Not like this.

I kept moving.

I had to.

Boots stomped against the floor—guards. I heard them before I saw them, their heavy steps closing in, a presence I had long since learned to recognize.

Then—static crackled.

Their walkies flared to life.

A voice.

His voice.

"Leave her."

Adam.

The guards hesitated. I could feel their eyes on me, expectant, waiting for something—an order. A reason. But none came.

Then, slowly, they stepped back.

They obeyed.

I didn’t.

I walked.

The air was colder near the exit.

Ahead, the massive gates loomed, the last barrier between here and out there.

And they were open. Held wide by the massive, mechanical hands of the sentinels standing guard outside—hulking machines of steel and circuitry, their glowing eyes scanning the space before them, uncaring.

I stepped through.

Not stopping.

Not looking back.

The city hummed around me, indifferent.

I kept moving.

Neon signs flickered overhead, their glow casting sharp colors across the wet pavement. The streets pulsed with movement—people walking, talking, lost in their own worlds. Vendors called out from stalls, selling food that smelled too rich, too warm. Somewhere, music blared, distant and hollow.

I moved through it like a ghost.

People passed. Glanced. Their eyes flickered over me, pausing for a fraction of a second before sliding away. Like I wasn’t there. Like I was just another shadow in the neon haze.

No one stopped.

No one stared.

I left bloody footprints behind me, stark against the concrete. A trail, leading from wherever I had come from to wherever I was going.

A woman brushed past, muttering into a communicator. A group of teenagers laughed, their voices rising, carefree and oblivious.

I wanted to stop someone. To grab them, shake them—don’t you see me?

But I didn’t.

A man in a crisp jacket barely avoided bumping into me, his scowl deepening as he adjusted his cufflinks. His nose wrinkled, eyes flicking over the blood smeared across my skin, the tattered remnants of my clothes.

"Watch where you're going, filthy street rat."

He brushed off his sleeve, like my very presence had soiled him.

"Damned Hunters. Waste of space."

He clicked his tongue, shaking his head as he stepped around me, already forgetting I existed.

I kept walking.

A streetlight buzzed overhead, its bulb flickering, on the verge of burning out.

The weight of exhaustion pulled at me, heavier than anything I had ever carried. My limbs trembled, my vision blurred at the edges. The pain was distant now, dulled by something deeper—something emptier.

Droge’s store.

Just a little further.

The ground tilted beneath me. The noise of the city warped, stretching and fading.

I tried to take another step.

Then—

Darkness.

I fell.

The bell above the door chimed—far away, muffled. A voice cut through the haze, sharp with panic.

"Shit—Mari?"

Strong arms caught me. Warm hands. Steady.

I was lifted, carried inside. The world faded as the door clicked shut.