The smell of formaldehyde, acrid and penetrating, mingled with the sweet, sickening aroma of decay. Herbert, hunched over the operating table, looked at her. His eyes, burning with a manic gleam, were fixed on the body parts lying under the bright light of the lamp. Pale, lifeless limbs, fragments of a torso, a head with closed eyes and a cascade of matted hair, seemed like elements of a sculpture.

Days and nights merged into an endless nightmare marathon. West, as if possessed, sewed pieces of flesh together with thick, waxed threads, connected nerves. The lamp above the operating table flickered, casting shadows on the walls.

Finally, after several sleepless nights, the moment of truth arrived. West, exhausted but triumphant, stepped back. On the table lay a body - a whole, stitched together from different parts, but still a body. The skin was pale, almost transparent, but no longer lifeless. A weak, intermittent pulse could be heard in the chest, the serum was working.

The eyelids of the body on the table shuddered, slowly rising. The eyes that opened to meet the gaze of their creator were empty, lifeless, like two dark pools reflecting the abyss of his madness.

"You're alive..." - As if he himself did not believe that he had succeeded, said Herbert