The attic floorboards groaned like dying creatures beneath Leo's knees. Moonlight speared through moth-eaten lace curtains, surgical-bright on the cedar chest labeled "Xmas Decorations." His trembling fingers hovered over yellowed packing tape—this coffin held relics his father buried after the funeral.
June 17, 1995 glowed cyan under UV light. Mother's handwriting spidered across the diary: "John showed me the fusion cells today. Those silver specks divide to Moonlight Sonata..." Ink clawed through paper suddenly. "He put X-03 in my latte. Left eye glows in dark now—"
Leo's Adam's apple bobbed. The blackwood bracelet constricted, runes burrowing into his pores like centipedes. He remembered the graffiti in the subway—a wolf's head entwined with DNA strands, matching his father's keycard emblem.
The basement door shrieked open on rusted hinges. Formaldehyde and lupine pheromones split his pupils into vertical slits. Instead of antique curios, silver pipelines coiled through this biolab. In Tank #3 floated a half-heart sheathed in metallic fur, bitcoin miners embedded in its arteries. Tank #7's spine extruded a scorpion stinger, each joint carved with runes.
"Dearest, if you're seeing this—" Mother's synthesized voice startled Leo into knocking over a dissection table. As steel instruments clattered, a cryochamber hissed open. Frost mist revealed a leather journal stamped "X-07." The ultrasound photo tucked inside showed a fetus with claw-tipped handprints.
Christmas Eve 1998. They took my left ovary. Mother's script bled crimson under blacklight. John says purer eggs needed for 7th attempt... Leo's nails gouged his palm, the wet schlick of healing flesh echoing through the lab.
The hologram projector whirred to life. Father in bloodied scrubs loomed over a pregnant woman's distended belly. "X-07 specimen rejecting host," his voice bubbled like deep-sea decay. "Initiating embryonic extraction."
Leo watched the scalpel slit pale flesh. Silver fur erupted from the incision. When fetal claws tore through the uterine wall, he stared at his own trembling hands—identical talons glinting in moonglow.
Sirens shredded the silence. Culture tanks boiled over. The half-heart spasmed against glass as the scorpion spine whipped containment walls. The bracelet vibrated at skull-fracturing frequency, dying tissues crawling toward him, leaving mucoid trails spelling Þurs—the rune of monsters and rebirth.
"Identity confirmed." The AI crooned. "Welcome home, X-07 Prime."
The mirror wall slid open. Leo's reflection warped into a woman in a hospital gown, blood-tears streaking her swollen lids. Silver mycelium sprouted from her sutured abdomen. Her lips pressed against the glass, shaping his first spoken word—
"Ma...?"
Culture tanks exploded simultaneously. Slime coalesced into the Big Dipper on the floor, pointing to Father's study. Behind a false panel, Leo found documents stamped with the Nightwatch sigil—a 1995 gene-editing permit signed by the vagrant Samuel Bloodclaw