The stark white walls of the facility never failed to make Rody uneasy. They glowed with a cold, clinical light, as if mocking the warmth and life that should have existed within them. In this secret government laboratory, everything felt wrong. This wasn’t science, not in the pure sense. It was something darker, something twisted, all under the guise of progress. Rody had learned to live with the guilt, but every day the weight grew heavier.
He adjusted the tight collar of his lab coat as he made his way down the sterile halls. The air smelled of antiseptic, masking the faint scent of something more acrid beneath. The researchers here were good at their jobs, at keeping the horrors hidden from view. But no amount of sterilization could cleanse what happened behind these closed doors.
Rody hated it. Hated the endless cycle of experimentation, the way they stripped the test subjects of their identities. Stripped them of their humanity. The others in the facility didn’t understand—because to them, the subjects weren’t human at all. They were created here, artificial life born from experiments, brought into the world with no family, no history, no future. Just a purpose.
That was the justification they used. Rody could hear the words echoing in his mind, the way the other researchers justified their actions over and over. "They’re not people. They’re tools. Designed for a purpose. They never had lives to lose."
But it was a lie. No matter what they told themselves, Rody couldn’t accept it. He saw the test subjects flinch in pain, their eyes widen in fear. They felt everything. They suffered. They were human in every way that mattered.
Except for Vincent.
Vincent was different. He was the anomaly in this place, the exception to all the rules. Born from an experiment just like the others, but something in him had developed beyond what anyone expected. His intelligence was unparalleled, his mind quick and sharp, capable of calculations that left even the most seasoned researchers in awe. They trained him, molded him into one of their own. And now, he worked among them, experimenting on the very beings who were created like he was.
Rody had never been comfortable around Vincent. There was something unsettling about the way he moved through the lab, cold and calculated. He was brilliant, no one could deny that. But it was the kind of brilliance that made you uneasy, that hollowed out a person and left them a shell of what they could have been. Vincent lacked something fundamental, something Rody couldn’t quite name but felt in his bones.
Maybe it was empathy.
Vincent didn't care about the test subjects or himself. He never flinched when they screamed, never hesitated when the data required further pain. To him, they weren’t people. They were objects to be used, just as he had been used once, and he had no qualms about it.
The thought chilled Rody to the core.
He turned the corner into Lab 32, Vincent’s assigned space. Today, he was supposed to assist in another round of experiments, something to do with neural manipulation. The details were already making Rody’s stomach turn.
But as he stepped inside, something was wrong.
Vincent stood at the far end of the room, facing one of the workstations. His posture, usually so rigid and composed, seemed slightly off, his movements slower than normal. Rody took a step closer, his gaze narrowing in confusion.
Then he saw it.
Vincent’s face, usually pale but untouched, now marred by a dark hollow where his left eye should have been. His eye socket was empty, a stark void of raw flesh and tissue. Blood had dried around the wound, but the way Vincent stood, calmly typing something into the console, made Rody freeze in horror.
