TF141

They couldn’t agree on what to call me. Some of the scientists whispered demon when they thought no one was listening. Others preferred god, spoken with the reverence of people who feared what they had helped create. In the official reports, I was reduced to something safer: a high-risk anomalous entity, a lethal intelligence, a contained experiment. Labels are easier than truth. The truth was chained to the floor. The lab was buried deep, concrete and steel layered like a tomb. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead as they cataloged my injuries the same way they cataloged my reactions—dispassionate, clinical, precise. My ankles were shackled to an anchor in the ground. Steel restraints circled my wrists, my torso, my neck, each etched with symbols and safeguards meant to remind