Experiment X

X Marks the Discovery

CHAPTER
2

Aria Voss hated interruptions to her routine. Her days were structured in a way that gave her the comfort of predictability. It was the foundation of her life—the key to managing the world that so often overwhelmed her senses. The moment her morning swim ended, she liked knowing exactly what her day would consist of: hours spent in her lab, alone, where she could focus on her work, perfecting her research without distractions.

Today was different. And the change had thrown her off.

Instead of starting her day in the quiet comfort of her own lab, Aria had been summoned unexpectedly. They wanted her to oversee a new project, something out of the ordinary even for the high-level work she usually conducted. She had protested, politely at first, but when the director himself insisted that it was of the utmost importance, she had no choice but to agree. Now, with her nerves stretched taut, she found herself in an unfamiliar lab, standing before a sealed containment unit where an alien—the alien, Specimen X—was waiting.

Her stomach clenched with a mixture of dread and frustration. The walls of this lab were too close, the sterile white lights too bright, the hum of the air vents a constant distraction in the back of her mind. It wasn't her space, and it made her skin itch with anxiety. She hadn't planned for this, and the deviation from her schedule made her tense in ways she couldn't quite verbalize.

She adjusted her thick black glasses, a habitual gesture, as she tried to refocus on the task at hand. Despite her discomfort, Aria prided herself on being a professional, and when it came to her work, she was meticulous. Her mind functioned like the finest-tuned machine when she was in the lab, sorting through complex data with ease, isolating genes and coding them with the kind of precision that had earned her a reputation among her peers.

But now, the slight tremor in her hands and the tightness in her chest betrayed her inner turmoil.

The project briefing had been vague—something about an alien with extraordinary genetic material, a species they had never encountered before. It was rare for the facility to bring in new specimens, rarer still for her to be pulled from her ongoing projects. Whatever Specimen X was, it must be important.

"Dr. Voss," one of the lab assistants spoke, startling her. His voice was soft, but even that was too loud in this sterile space.

"Yes?" Aria kept her voice even, though her nerves were frayed.

"We're ready for you to begin the examination."

She nodded, her throat tight, and approached the containment unit where the specimen was being held. Her heart raced faster than usual, not just from the unfamiliar environment but because this was a new kind of alien. As a geneticist, the potential to explore the unknown, to unravel the secrets locked in an organism's DNA, was thrilling. And yet, she still hadn't looked at the alien itself. She preferred to work with the data first—objective, detached, just the way she liked it.

The specimen was restrained within a glass-enclosed cell, and although she could sense his presence looming behind the frosted barrier, she avoided making eye contact. It was safer that way. In her mind, the subject was just a body, a collection of cells and DNA sequences waiting to be decoded. But something about this one...there was an intensity in the air that made her uneasy. She could feel it watching her, a gaze so piercing it seemed to reach inside her, even though she hadn't yet turned her head.

She focused instead on the array of screens in front of her, detailing the biological readouts from the specimen: elevated heart rate, blood pressure higher than average, healing rates off the charts. Violet blood—something entirely new. And his DNA...the structure was more complex than anything she had ever seen. Her breath caught as she scanned through the sequences, her mind racing to make sense of the data. It was...incredible. Like nothing she had ever encountered in her career.