It had been twelve days since I was isolated from the outside world. At least, I thought it was twelve. The only way I could keep track was by scratching crude tally marks into the wall. My fingernails were broken and caked with dried blood, split open from the sheer repetition of dragging them against the hard surface. The pain had dulled by now, replaced by a deep, aching throb in my fingertips.

  They had performed surgery on me. I knew that much. When I first woke up in this padded room, I had fresh stitches running down my abdomen, a sterile scent clinging to my skin. But no matter how much I strained to remember or feel for changes in my body, I couldn’t tell what they had done. Nothing felt different. And that was the worst part—the uncertainty. The waiting. The sheer terror of not knowing what they had turned me into.

  The walls around me were soft, a cruel contrast to my reality. White, cushioned, and seamless, they muffled every sound. It was impossible to tell if anyone else was beyond them, if I was underground, if it was day or night. The silence was suffocating, wrapping around me like an invisible vice.

  Then, I heard it. A voice.

  "Do you want freedom?"

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  I jerked upright, my pulse hammering against my ribs. I turned my head frantically, searching for the source. Was someone in the room with me? A speaker hidden in the walls? Or was this just another trick played by my unraveling mind?

  My throat was dry, my voice cracked when I answered. "Yes."

  There was a pause, heavy and expectant. Then the voice spoke again.

  "Then endure."

  Pain exploded in my neck.

  A fire hotter than anything I had ever experienced surged through my veins. It was as if molten metal had been injected straight into my bloodstream, scorching its way through every nerve, every muscle. My body locked up, every tendon pulling taut. My fingers curled inward, my back arched off the floor, and a strangled cry ripped from my throat.

  I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even breathe properly. My body wasn’t my own anymore—it had become a battlefield of raw agony, an inferno consuming me from the inside out.

  Then, the memories came.

  Flashes of my life before this hell. Sitting in a dimly lit library, textbooks spread out before me, pouring over anatomy diagrams and medical journals until my vision blurred. The quiet hum of late-night study sessions, the dream of becoming a doctor, of saving lives. The pressure, the exhaustion, the hope.

  And now, here I was.

  Broken. Experimented on. Unrecognizable even to myself.

  The fire didn’t stop. It dug deeper, coiling around my bones, unraveling something inside me that I hadn’t known existed.

  Something was changing.

  And I had no idea what I was becoming.