I woke to the sound of breathing that wasn't mine.
Not heavy, not shallow, but steady, mechanical. Like an old respirator somewhere in the room, though the rhythm of it almost… adjusted whenever I exhaled, like it was copying me.
That's when I realized I wasn't in a bed. I was floating.
Cold liquid hugged my skin, thick like oil but breathable, filling my lungs without drowning me. My eyes burned as they fluttered open, revealing a pale green haze lit by faint strips of fluorescent light above me. The walls around me curved, slick with condensation. A tank. I was inside a containment tank.
Memory? Nothing. My last moment alive or before this was gone, erased like a corrupted file. No name surfaced, no family, no fragment of a life. Only the present: my body pressed against thick glass, wires tugging at my chest, and that breathing machine echoing me.
Something stirred outside the tank.
Through the foggy surface, I saw a silhouette, a tall but rigid human. A lab coat. They scribbled notes onto a clipboard, lips moving silently. Then their eyes flicked up, locking onto mine.
They froze.
A second later, the room's intercom crackled: "Subject-████ has ac███ved conscio███ss. Notify ████ Director." Perhaps due to the liquid around me, the voices seemed difficult to make out.
One thing was for sure:
I was called a subject.
Not "patient." Not "person." Subject.
I struck the glass with my fist, hard enough to rattle the fluid. The scientist flinched but didn't move closer. They whispered into a recorder, never taking their eyes off me.
Another voice joined from the intercom. This one lower, controlled, authoritative:
"Restrain it. Prepare cognitive testing."
And that's when I felt it—metal bands tightening against my wrists and ankles, pulling me back into place. Like the tank itself had arms. I tried to resist, but the bindings bit into me with mechanical precision.
Panic churned in my chest. But beneath the panic, something else simmered. Something I shouldn't have known how to feel, like I'd been born with it.
A hunger.
Not for food. Not for air. For something deeper, rawer.
And as my body fought against the restraints, the glass shuddered. Just slightly. A hairline fracture branched across its surface like ice.
The scientist outside staggered back, wide-eyed.
For the first time, I realized: whatever I was, I wasn't human anymore.