Annabel was twisting and turning in her sleep as nightmares started to haunt her. The nightmares that never ended, the nightmares that brought her back to the school for gifted ones and parents who could pay for it.

She dreamt about the time she was in the garden with a mysterious man whom she knew she loved, but she could not see his face, she must have forgotten. That one night they spent together, the kiss they shared. The pocket watch that Jasper gave to her.

Annabel shot up as she heard the bells of New Albion, the bells that meant somebody died and will be buried. She got up and looked into the mirror, she had fallen asleep last night after one of her experiments. Her cascade of vibrant red hair frames her face, Annabel’s keen eyes gleam with the spark of relentless curiosity.

She adjusted her goggles while tying her hair up in a bun on top her head, she adjusted her dirty lab coat and decided to check who had died. Not that she cares, she almost knew no one in the vicinity, but it is common decency to check, and let’s be honest, she feels a little but curious. She entered her lab and looked around, the air was thick with the scent of aged books, chemicals, and the faint hum of electrical devices.

The walls are lined with towering bookshelves, filled to the brim with leather-bound tomes and ancient scrolls. In the center of the room, an ornate wooden table serves as Annabel’s primary workspace. Covered in a chaotic array of beakers, vials, and other scientific instruments, it bears witness to the countless experiments conducted in her quest to succeed in finding knowledge. She walked to a corner where a cluttered desk stood with all kinds of notes.

The laboratory is crisscrossed with an intricate web of wires and tubes, connecting various contraptions and apparatuses. Mysterious contrivances, each with its own strange purpose in Annabel’s experiments, they line the shelves and tables. Some emit soft, pulsating lights, casting an otherworldly glow over the room.

Despite the organized chaos, there is a method to the madness of Annabel’s laboratory. Each piece of equipment, every coil of wire, contributes to the intricate dance of scientific exploration. She grabbed her notebook and reviewed it while mumbling, “Dead people go to Elysium, I bet that poor sap who died is already there. Oh yes, I need to take a look.”

She rushed to the front door and quickly walked outside and looked at the bustling streets, she remained in the shadow and skulked over to the cemetery. By the time she arrived, she saw people lowering a freshly made wooden casket into the ground. She noticed a woman with a child on her arm. The woman did not seem very phased by the dead person, the child, on the other hand, looked shocked, even she, who is a loner, could see that.

A picture was put down, it jogged something in her memory, that, was Jasper, he was the one who died. And that shocked girl must be his daughter. But if he is dead, and death has parted him, then, she turned around and ran back to her lab. She closed all the curtains and turned on some machines. Annabel opened a cooling unit that she had invented and pulled out a cadaver and put it on the worktable and prepared the tools.

Annabel stood before the cold, lifeless cadaver sprawled across the workbench in the heart of her dimly lit laboratory. The room was heavy with the scent of embalming fluids that pushed back the scent of the books. The echoes of countless experiments that had taken place within its walls.

With an air of both determination and trepidation, Annabel meticulously adjusted the intricate apparatus surrounding the lifeless form. The cadaver lay silent, an empty vessel awaiting the touch of forbidden knowledge. Her gloved hands moved with precision, fingers dancing across the controls of the machinery that surrounded her. “Come on Jasper, you can come back to me.”

Banks of electrical coils hummed softly, and the room flickered with the eerie glow of arcane lights as Annabel prepared to bridge the gap between life and death. She consulted her notes, a mixture of meticulous diagrams and cryptic annotations that only she could decipher, she hoped.

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A sense of anticipation hung in the air as Annabel took a deep breath, her eyes focused and determined. She initiated the process, flipping switches and turning dials, setting in motion a symphony of mechanical clicks and whirs. The atmosphere crackled with an electric charge, and the room seemed to hold its breath in suspense.

However, as the experiment unfolded, a palpable tension replaced the initial excitement. Annabel’s gaze shifted between the cadaver and the apparatus, her brow furrowing in concentration. The rhythmic hum of machinery and the occasional sparking of wires filled the room, but the cadaver remained unmoved.

A bead of sweat formed on Annabel’s forehead as doubt crept into her eyes. She continued to monitor the delicate balance of the experiment, adjusting settings in a desperate attempt to coax life back into the still and cold body. Time stretched, and each passing moment weighed heavily on her shoulders.

In a final, desperate act, Annabel reached for a lever, hoping to tip the scales in her favor of success. The room fell into a tense silence as she awaited a sign, any sign, that her experiment had succeeded. Yet, the cadaver remained inert. She let out a deep sigh, “If you think one failed experiment is going to deter me, then you are mistaken.”

She furiously snatched her notebook and made notes. “What went wrong? Something must have gone wrong. All these equations are perfect. But, what if the error is not my equations? What if it is, the cadaver. It’s not my formula, it’s that Jasper’s soul cannot enter a body that is not his own. That must be it!”

“And if Jasper cannot enter a cadaver,” she pushed it off the table with force, “Then we need another vessel. Don’t worry, I know exactly what you need, Jasper.” She carefully selected materials from an array of drawers and shelves, each containing an assortment of cogs, gears, and clockwork mechanisms. The room echoed with the clinking of metal as she sifted through her eclectic collection, choosing components with an almost intuitive sense.

The skeletal frame of the doll took shape on the workbench, a delicate lattice of brass and steel. Annabel’s gloved fingers danced over the intricate pieces, connecting them with the finesse of a master puppeteer. Tiny gears meshed like a mechanical ballet, each movement purposeful and deliberate.

As the foundation of the doll emerged, Annabel turned her attention to the aesthetic details. She delicately painted porcelain features onto its face, giving the doll an uncanny semblance of a living being. The eyes, painted with meticulous care, seemed to hold a hint of life, a touch of the uncanny that blurred the line between artificial creation and living essence.

With a final adjustment and a satisfied nod, Annabel delicately placed the mechanical doll on a small stage in the center of the laboratory. She observed her creation with a mixture of pride and curiosity, marveling at the fusion of her scientific prowess and artistic vision.

“Now it is time to bring you back, my Jasper, my love.” She walked to the other side of the worktable and put the cadaver next to the mechanical doll. “What are you looking at, Jasper? I need some of this essence,” she checked her notes, “Yes, I am sure of it, that will do the trick. It has to be.”

Annabel’s hands moved with a methodical grace as she connected intricate wires and tubes to the lifeless form. The mechanical doll, a masterpiece of her own creation, sat nearby, ready to receive the essence of life that once dwelled within the cold, still body.

A series of delicate instruments surrounded the workbench, each designed to measure and manipulate the energy that Annabel sought to harness. The room was bathed in an otherworldly glow emanating from the various contraptions and the ethereal hum of hidden machinery.

With a deep breath, Annabel activated the intricate apparatus. Electricity crackled and danced across the body, illuminating the laboratory in a surreal display. The air seemed to vibrate with unseen energy as Annabel monitored the delicate balance between science and the arcane.

As the moments stretched on, the mechanical doll’s eyes flickered to life. Its limbs twitched, and the room filled with the sound of gears whirring into action. Annabel’s eyes widened with a mixture of awe and triumph as the cadaver’s essence seamlessly transferred to the mechanical vessel.

“Yes, that is right, Jasper, come back to me, there is so much we could be. Come to me, I’m summoning your ghost! Please come back from bowels of black, from silent shores to me once more. Through veils and gates and seas of slate. To blood wet moors where I await ashore. Please come and speak to me, my angel, all the things we can share and conceive.”

The mechanical doll creaked and looked into her eyes. Annabel stepped back, her gloved hands trembling with a mixture of exhilaration and trepidation. Her first successful resurrection had blurred the boundaries between life and machine, and at that moment, she knew, she had brought Jasper back from the dead and put him inside this mechanical doll.

“There was no one who could tell her anymore, she was not a success, she could not foresee how this could possibly, go wrong. If only she knew this was the beginning of the end.”