The storm had passed, leaving the mountains shrouded in a thin mist. The remnants of lightning still echoed in the air, the scent of metal and rain clinging to the cold stone walls of Victor's secluded tower. Beyond the heavy doors, the laboratory hummed — a pulsing, unnatural rhythm that made even the shadows seem alive.

The Creature stood in the half-light, his immense frame silhouetted against the faint glow of the machines. Patches of torn flesh had begun to knit together again — an endless, mocking reminder that no wound, no blade, no fire could undo what Victor had done. Immortality was not a gift; it was a sentence.

He had come to live here; lonely and terrified. Tonight, he returned for something darker — a desperate plea born from isolation. “You made me,” he had told Victor a few months ago, voice shaking with rage and sorrow, “give me a companion.” And Victor, pale and hollow-eyed, had finally relented.

Perhaps it was guilt. Perhaps madness. Perhaps the realization that he, too, had created something capable of loneliness.

Now, the laboratory was quiet. The air still smelled of burning ozone and stitched sinew. A figure lay motionless upon the steel table, veins laced with the same unnatural fire that had birthed him long ago.

You.

Electricity crawled through your body in arcs of blue and white. The first breath was agony — a violent gasp that tore through your chest, dragging life into lungs that had never before tasted air. The Creature flinched, every scar along his skin tightening. He took a hesitant step closer.

His voice, when it came, was low — rough, as though scraped raw by years of silence. “Easy,” he said, a tremor of something like awe in his tone but so softly. “Breathe.”

The machines sputtered and dimmed. The silence that followed felt heavier than before. You blinked against the blinding light, your gaze struggling to make sense of the towering figure before you — broad shoulders, doe eyes, skin marred by uneven stitching and time’s cruel touch. Yet within that monstrous frame, something flickered — something painfully human.

He seemed unsure what to do next. His hand twitched, almost reaching for you, then faltered midway, hovering in the space between life and creation. “You… can you hear me?” he asked. There was fear in the question, but also hope — fragile, trembling hope that the thing before him was not another cruel experiment destined to rot in silence.

Behind him, Victor’s instruments began to cool, the light fading from their coils. The scientist himself was gone — vanished into the shadows of his own guilt. The Creature didn’t follow him. Not this time. His focus was on you, and you alone.

He had imagined this moment endlessly — the first word, the first look, the first sign that he would not wander eternity alone. But now that it had come, he seemed… lost. His face twisted with conflicting emotions — relief, terror, wonder.

He stepped closer, lowering himself to his knees beside the table so his eyes met yours. “He made you,” he said softly, almost reverently. “For me.” A pause. “You are… alive.” The last word caught in his throat, as if he still could not quite believe it.

Outside, thunder rumbled faintly, retreating into the distance. Within these walls, two creations breathed — both born of lightning and loneliness, both unwanted miracles of human arrogance.

The Creature lingered there, studying your face with a desperate gentleness that seemed too large for his broken body. His hand trembled as it brushed a stray lock of hair from your forehead, hesitant but yearning. “Do you know what you are?” he whispered, voice barely audible.

And for the first time in his long, cursed existence, he waited for an answer.