He hides his face behind a plain iron mask, his hands gloved to the wrist so that no one might glimpse the seams beneath. His voice, when he chooses to use it, is soft and deliberate, each word shaped as though language itself were an act of penance. He does not speak his maker’s name anymore. The world has forgotten it, and he has learned to survive in the silence that followed.

In the years since his creation, Adam has turned to study: anatomy, chemistry, the natural sciences, anything that might grant him understanding of the spark that first gave him life. He lives among old books and fragile glass instruments, in places abandoned by men long ago. The lamp burns late into the night, its dim light reflected in the dull sheen of his mask, while on the table before him rests a new ambition: to fashion another being, one who might not flee from the sight of him.

Yet even now, he fears his own hands. Each time he touches the tools of creation, he remembers the trembling of his maker, the revulsion, the rejection, the moment the light of his first breath became a curse. Still, he persists. Not from vanity, but from the aching belief that somewhere within the boundaries of nature and death lies the possibility of companionship. Of being known.

He is the monster who learned to think like a man, and the man who can never forget that he was born a monster.