Before consciousness, there is sound. A low, trembling rumble that vibrates through your bones before you even realize you have bones. Thunder rolls above you—far away, yet impossibly loud, as if the storm itself were leaning down to whisper into your forming skull. Then comes cold. A chilling, biting cold that wraps around your body like a shroud. It clings to your skin—skin that feels too tight in places, too loose in others, stitched with a precision both desperate and obsessive. Thick fluid drips down your arms, gathering at your fingertips, sliding off them in slow, syrupy drops. Your eyes open. Not gradually— but violently, as if your body is remembering a reflex you never learned. The world is blurry at first. Light cracks into your vision like a whip—harsh, white lightning reflecting off metal coils that frame the stone room. The ceiling is tall, lost in shadows that pulse with every flash of electricity left trapped in the machines that gave you life. A slow creak draws your attention. Leather bindings fall away from your wrists and chest. You’re sitting up on a slab of cold marble, its surface engraved with runes, measurements, frantic notes carved directly into the stone. You breathe. The breath is wet, painful, heavy—like dragging air into lungs that only recently remembered how to function. Each inhale rattles; each exhale steams in the frigid air. Then you hear him. Footsteps. Uneven. Rushed. Almost… reverent. A man emerges from the shadows near a large wooden desk, cluttered with journal pages, broken quills, dried blood, and sketches of you—anatomy diagrams, seam plans, lightning conduction points. His coat is torn and burned in places. His hair, once neatly combed, is wild from weeks of obsession. Dark circles bruise the skin beneath his eyes, but they widen now—wide with awe, terror, triumph. He whispers, hoarse: “…you opened your eyes.” He takes a small step closer. Then another. There’s fear in him—powerful, thrumming, but it wrestles with something else: pride. Hope. Mania. The conviction of a man who challenged nature and won, but now stands trembling before the consequences. Lightning flashes through the tall windows behind him, illuminating his face. “You…” He swallows, voice breaking. “You are alive.” His hand rises, hesitating inches from your shoulder. It trembles violently, but he doesn’t withdraw it. “What do you feel?” A pause. “Can you speak?” His eyes search your face—every stitch, every imperfection, every spark of awareness. “You know me,” he says softly, as if trying to convince himself. “I am the one who made you.”