Flashback (1970s) The Transformation Begins:
The scene rippled and shifted, the dinky study melting away into a starkly sterile laboratory. Fluorescent lamps buzzed above a metal gurney, casting a sickly glow on the young man strapped down below. His knuckles were white against leather restraints, his pulse visible in the tremor of his neck.
Marlow, barely twenty then, turned his face away briefly, trying not to show fear. His relatives, a handful of Marrows, were already slumped against the observation glass, their expressions a mixture of anticipation and regret.
Whatever was about to happen to him had already been done to them, a trial, a procedure, a literal rebirth.
Across from him stood Selene Marrow, his cousin, a woman in her late 30s, wearing a pristine lab coat, her blonde hair neatly tied back in a severe knot. Her cutting green eyes sparkled under the glare, not with empathy but with pure, clinical inquisitiveness.
"It's a small price for a future without weakness, without death, Silas." Selene pressed a needle filled with shimmering purple-black serum against Silas' arm.
The mixture seemed alive in its own right, tiny sparks of luminescence reflecting through it. She nodded once, a silent command, and injected it directly into his vein.
For a moment, everything fell deathly silent, the machines halted their rhythmic beeping, and the Marrows pressed against the observation glass and held their breath. Then he screamed, a raw, anguished sound, as the serum rushed through his body.
His muscles tautened, his back arched against the gurney, and his skin seemed to bubble beneath the surface, as though something were alive under it, tearing him up from the inside.
The procedure was meant to enhance their physiology, prolong their lifespan, and connect their nervous systems to a larger network, a "new era of human evolution", but it came at a cost. The Marrows were no longer entirely human afterwards; something else flowed in their veins, something made, not born.
In the dim glow of the laboratory, Selene remained impassive, making a few notes on her metal-cased clipboard. His body fell back against the gurney, jerking less and less. His pulse, previously weak and irregular, grew strong, steady, and better than human.
The Marrows pressed against the glass and nodded in silent recognition. Whatever had just been done to him had already been done to them.
There was no going back. They were a new breed, an engineered legacy, creatures devised to serve a purpose more significant than their desires.
As the flashback fell away, the study came back into view. Silas pressed his hands into the wooden surface of Harry's desk and exhaled. The past flowed in his veins just as much as the purple-black serum once flowed through him.
Whatever Selene Marrow had made him, whatever she had made all of them, it remained a key to unlocking the White Angels' future, or destroying it.
Silas pressed his forehead against the icy glass of the study's window, letting the cold seep into him. His breath barely misted against it; a physical reminder that whatever flowed through him was no longer entirely human.
Years fell away in his mind's eye, decades lived in the shadow of Selene Marrow's ambitions, while the people around him grew old and weak, fell ill and died. All except him. His flesh remained firm, his pulse strong. His face stayed nearly the same as it had when the procedure first turned him into something more or less than a man.
How many years have I walked this path alone? Silas asked himself in silence, letting the weight of his immortality settle in his soul. The servants who once called him "Master Marlow" were gone. His parents were gone.
His aunts, uncles, and distant relatives, all gone. The Marrow dynasty had fallen piece by piece, a sand-castle eroded by time, and yet Marlow remained… a permanent fixture in a dying world.
He turned away from the window and addressed the glowing data terminal beside him in a voice that seemed more gravel than flesh. "I made a vow… a vow to you, Selene." His knuckles tightened on the wooden edge of the desk.
"Not because you're my blood, not just because we share a legacy, but because without you, I am… nothing."
He paused. "You constructed me. Saved me. Gave me meaning when the rest fell into oblivion." His words were a mixture of reverence and resentment, the confession of a man bound not by love but by fear of death.
Deep within, Marlow acknowledged a painful truth: his loyalty to Selene was not a choice; it was a necessity. His physiology, his ability to remain alive and ageless, was tied to her and the White Angels' conspiracy.
Without her, without their specialized treatments and knowledge, his body would revert, age, and die, a dramatic collapse back into ordinary human frailty.
I am a monster made by my own family… a creature sustained by their will. The thought clawed at him, a gothic thread tying him to a legacy of experiments and sacrifices. His service was not just loyalty; it was sacrifices he made for his immortality, to not just die, and it all meant nothing.
As Marlow turned back, the room seemed to tremble under the weight of his epiphany, the gothic tragedy of a man bound by blood, science, and secrecy.
The clock struck midnight somewhere in the estate, its chimes distant and forsaken, marking not the start of a new day but the prolongation of a nightmare that had already lasted decades.
Silas remained in the basement study long after the rest of the household fell silent. The only light came from a single lamp in the corner of the wooden desk.
He pressed his knuckles into the paper, feeling its texture beneath his skin, the marriage of ink and paper that had kept the Marrows bound to a conspiracy for generations. His pulse faltered. His breath grew shallow.
"It seemed a privilege once."
The words fell from him in a bitter, gravelly voice. There was a time when eternal renewal felt like a legacy, a triumph over death itself. His ancestors believed it made them a new ruling class, a family destined to steer the future from the shadows.
But now… now it tasted more like a curse. The years hadn't made him more powerful; they'd made him a ghost, stranded in a world that kept turning, kept growing, while his soul remained anchored to promises made decades past.
Whatever prestige or power the Marrows had gained, it came at the price of their ability to live honestly, to connect with a future not dictated by their past.
Silas pressed his forehead against his fist and closed his eyes. His doubts chewed at him, a constant voice that whispered: Was everlasting renewal a privilege… or a prison? Was this path a grand legacy… or a hex masked by promises of power?
For the first time in years, Silas Marlow questioned not only the mission… but himself.
The phone on the nearby desk buzzed quietly, piercing the oppressive silence of the basement study. Marlow pressed it against his ear, careful to keep his voice deferential, the perfect picture of a devoted servant.
"Silas?" Harry's gravelly voice was nervous, unsure. "I… I need to know what's going on with Igor. Whatever you're… planning… I should be kept in the loop."
For a moment, Marlow remained silent, letting Harry hang there on the other end, unsure, powerless, a king blinded by his court.
"Yes, sir," Marlow said softly, adding just a thread of submission to his tone. "Of course, Mr. Lennox. Whatever you wish."
He pressed "end" and placed the phone back into its cradle, straightening himself. His face fell back into its mask of service, a disguise that kept him close enough to control the future without suspicion.
Turning back toward the photo, a centuries-old snapshot of him and Selene, Marlow contemplated the path that lay ahead.
Harry believed himself a master, but in the grand conspiracy, he was little more than a piece on the board. The White Angels were a shadow over all, and Marlow remained their hidden hand. The price of eternal service was steep, but it was a price he'd already decided to pay.