Dr. Elara Voss had not spoken to anyone in three years when she found the creature. The lab was a cathedral of sterile silence, its walls lined with glass chambers housing specimens that never moved. She had abandoned the outside world after the accident—her partner’s death, the lawsuit, the hollowing of her name in the scientific community. But this thing, this living enigma, was different. It lay in a containment unit of her own design, its translucent skin pulsing with a faint bioluminescence. The moment she locked eyes with it, she knew: this was why she had stayed.
The creature’s wounds were not wounds at all—open sores that sealed themselves in seconds, leaving no scar. Elara watched, mesmerized, as a gash across its thorax vanished like ink dissolving in water. She ran tests, cataloged the process, but the data defied logic. Its cells weren’t regenerating; they were rewriting. The same way her own body had, years ago, when she’d first noticed the fractures in her bones, the way her skin would mend overnight, leaving no trace of the breaks. She’d buried that memory deep, beneath layers of denial and rationalization. But now, staring at the creature’s flawless skin, she felt the old ache rise again.
“You’re not a mutation,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “You’re a mirror.”
The creature tilted its head, eyes reflecting the sterile glow of the lab. It did not speak, but something in its posture—its stillness, its awareness—made her stomach tighten. She had spent years alone, but this was different. This was a presence that did not need words to demand attention.
Elara began documenting everything. The way the creature’s wounds mirrored her own suppressed memories: a childhood fall, the jagged edge of a broken window, the moment her partner had slipped from her grasp. Each time the creature healed, she felt the memory resurface, sharp and unfiltered. The lab became a labyrinth of recollection, its walls closing in as she unraveled the past she had sworn to forget.
“Why do you keep me here?” she asked one night, her hand hovering over the containment unit’s activation panel. The creature’s eyes flickered, and for a heartbeat, she saw something in them—recognition, perhaps, or warning. She withdrew her hand.
The deeper she probed, the more the creature’s instincts clashed with her morality. It did not fear death; it embraced it, as if the act of healing was a ritual. When she tried to restrain it, it fought with a feral intensity, its claws tearing through metal. She had created a monster, but was it the creature or herself? The line blurred as her own trauma bled into the experiment. She began to see the creature not as a subject, but as a reflection—raw, untamed, and unapologetic.
One night, she found a photo in her desk drawer: a childhood snapshot of herself, smiling beside her partner. The memory surged back—their laughter, the way he had held her hand as they walked through the forest. Then the crash, the screams, the silence that followed. She had buried this grief so deeply that even now, it felt foreign, a stranger in her own mind.
The creature’s wounds pulsed again, and this time, she did not look away. She let the memories flood her—every loss, every failure, every moment she had tried to erase. The lab seemed to breathe with her, the air thick with the weight of truth. When she finally looked up, the creature was close, its gaze piercing, as if it understood.
“I can’t run from this,” she said, her voice steady. “I won’t.”
The creature tilted its head once more, then turned, its form dissolving into the shadows. Elara stared at the empty containment unit, a strange calm settling over her. She had spent years chasing answers, but the truth had been here all along—not in the creature, but in herself. The experiment was over. Now came the hard part: healing.
She stepped out of the lab for the first time in years, the world outside unfamiliar yet inviting. The sun felt warmer, the air cleaner. She did not know what came next, but for the first time in a long while, she was ready to find out.
