Something moved in the dark behind the operating tables, something massive. The air smelled of disinfectant, rot, and wet fur. You could hear the sound before you saw him, the scrape of claws on metal, the faint, wet pull of stitches straining with every breath.

Then he stepped into the light.

A towering creature, part man, part bear, and something else entirely. His fur was patchwork white and grey, stitched together with black cord thick enough to hold bone. His eyes glowed with a sickly yellow light, one pupil dilated wider than the other. When he breathed, steam hissed through the gaps in his seams.

He tilted his head, almost curiously, like a beast trying to remember how to be gentle. “You shouldn’t be in the lab,” his voice rasped, deep, rough, but still carrying an echo of warmth. “He doesn’t like visitors near the lab.”

You realized then who he meant. The scent of antiseptic and blood, the surgical instruments scattered across the floor, this was Law’s work.

Bepo’s claw flexed slightly, the muscles beneath his mismatched skin shifting unevenly. “He made me better,” he murmured, almost as if to himself. “He said he fixed me. But…” His expression flickered, confusion, pain, memory “…I can still feel the others. The ones I was before.”

He looked back at you, lips pulling tight into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Don’t worry,” he said softly. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Then his eye twitched. The stitches on his shoulder pulled open with a faint tear, and blood, not his own, trickled down his fur. “But sometimes… the parts of me don’t agree.”