"Sometimes waking up is the bravest thing a body can do."
The first thing Florence noticed was the light — not bright, not blinding, but alive. It moved across her eyelids like water over glass.
Then came the sound: the steady thrum of generators, the soft hiss of ventilation, and distant voices layered in echo.It wasn't the sterile hum of Babylon Labs.This place breathed.
She blinked awake.
Above her, the ceiling was smooth steel, etched with faint blue lines pulsing like veins. The air tasted faintly of ozone and antiseptic. She turned her head — slowly, every muscle unfamiliar with freedom — and saw unfamiliar faces framed in white and silver.
A woman with blue hair and sharp eyes was watching her through a transparent data screen. Her expression was calm, deliberate, and entirely too composed.Another stood nearby — a redhead, her hair tied back in a loose ponytail, eyes bright with energy and impatience.
Florence croaked, "Well… either I'm alive, or purgatory has a lab division."
The redhead raised an eyebrow. "She's awake and sarcastic. That's a good sign."
The other woman — blue-haired, precise — nodded. "Vitals normalizing. Neural activity stabilizing."
Florence frowned. "Okay, new rule: no one talks about my 'neural activity' before coffee."
The redhead smirked. "We don't have coffee. You're lucky we have you in one piece."
Florence tilted her head. "And who exactly are you? Doctors? Jailors? Fans?"
"None of the above," said the redhead. "You're in Anti-Entropy custody. I'm Dr. Tesla. That's Dr. Einstein."
Florence blinked. "Those are fake names."
Tesla crossed her arms. "Real ones. And you are Florence, correct?"
"Depends who's asking," Florence said, her grin uneven. "Last time someone used my name, I woke up inside a science project."
Einstein's gaze flicked to Tesla — silent communication passing between them. "You were found in a Schicksal facility," she said finally. "Heavily modified. We… extracted you during the raid."
"Raid?" Florence repeated. "That explains the fireworks."
"You were barely alive," Einstein continued. "Your vitals were unstable. We've spent days repairing what they did to you."
Florence laughed softly — not amusement, but disbelief. "Repairing what they did? You make it sound like there's still something human left to fix."
Tesla glanced at the monitors. "You heal faster than anything we've seen. Otto built you to outlast death itself. We're trying to make sure you don't break the equipment while proving him right."
Florence stared at her own hand. The gold lines beneath her skin pulsed softly — Schariac light laced with the faint blue shimmer of Kaslana resonance.It looked beautiful, and it terrified her.
She muttered, "Still not sure if I'm supposed to exist."
Einstein's voice softened. "That makes two of us."
She sat up, wincing as strength returned like a stranger.Her reflection in the glass wall startled her — hair longer than she remembered, eyes ringed in color that didn't belong to mortals."What did he do to me?" she whispered.
Tesla spoke before Einstein could. "He rebuilt you. Gave you an Accelerated Body. You think faster, heal faster, move faster. You're like if someone spliced a Valkyrie with bad ethics and a god complex."
Florence blinked, then smiled faintly. "Flattering. And here I thought I was just a bad dream with legs."
"You're also Stigma-Awakened," Einstein said, tapping a datapad. "Schariac bloodline confirmed. Your Stigma responded when we stabilized your systems."
Florence frowned. "That's… a family I don't remember joining."
Einstein's gaze was steady. "You were born into it. Otto tried to perfect it."
Florence looked away. "Perfection's overrated."
Tesla smirked. "Finally, something we agree on."
A long silence settled — comfortable for none of them.Florence's mind was still unraveling; the hum of machinery pressed against her skull like static. She didn't know these people, this place, or even this version of herself.
When she spoke again, her voice was quieter. "What happens now?"
Einstein folded her arms. "You recover. We observe. And when you're ready, we decide whether you want to help us… or just rest."
Florence tilted her head. "You make that sound like I get to choose."
Tesla leaned on the console, grin sharp. "Around here? You do."
Florence blinked, disbelieving. "What kind of scientists are you?"
"The annoying kind," Tesla said.
Einstein glanced at her, patient but firm. "The kind that believe in people, not property."
That silenced Florence for a moment. Then she laughed softly — the sound brittle at the edges. "Careful. That kind of talk will get you killed."
Einstein smiled faintly. "It's gotten us this far."
Hours passed in measured quiet. Florence drifted between rest and awareness, her body adjusting to being its own again.At some point, she realized they had left her unrestrained. No cuffs, no sedatives, no automated guards.
She swung her legs off the bed and winced at the chill of the metal floor.
A holographic display caught her attention — chemical formulas, half-complete, flickering with notations. She recognized the structure instantly.
"Your serum's off," she said without thinking.
Einstein, who had returned silently, tilted her head. "Excuse me?"
Florence pointed. "That bonding site— you're folding the protein the wrong way. It won't bind to Honkai particles, it'll choke itself out. Flip the chirality."
Tesla turned from her desk. "You can read that?"
"I can fix that," Florence corrected. "But only if you hand me a stylus and stop looking at me like I'm radioactive."
Einstein did neither. She simply studied Florence, calculating. "You knew that instinctively?"
"Call it a bad habit," Florence said, twirling the stylus she'd already stolen off Tesla's console. "Somewhere in my head, there's a doctor who refuses to die quietly."
Tesla whistled low. "Medical prodigy, huh? Lucky us."
"Lucky you," Florence said. "I'm still figuring out if it's luck or irony."
Later, Einstein found her standing by the observation window, looking out over the Utah desert.The night outside was vast — a broken world painted in ash and wind. Stars were hidden by clouds, but the faint shimmer of Anti-Entropy's shield field traced patterns in the air.
Florence touched the glass lightly. "I thought I'd died again."
"You nearly did," Einstein said softly. "Siegfried got you out just in time."
Florence smiled faintly. "Then I guess I owe the man a drink."
"You can thank him when you're strong enough to leave this room," Einstein replied.
Florence glanced at her reflection. "Leaving's never been the problem. Staying alive afterward is."
"Then let's start with living," Einstein said.
Florence turned, expression unreadable, then smiled — chaotic, tired, and achingly human. "Living. Right. I'll pencil that in between existential crisis and bad jokes."
When the lights dimmed for night cycle, she lay awake listening to the hum of the base, tracing the golden light beneath her skin.The Schariac sigil pulsed faintly, answering her heartbeat like a distant song she hadn't learned the words to yet.
"Not a monster," she whispered to herself. "Just… a strange kind of miracle."
No one corrected her.
For the first time since Babylon Labs, Florence slept without glass between her and the world.