The air was thick with a suffocating miasma of decay and chemicals, the kind that clung to the throat and filled the lungs with its acrid weight. The laboratory sprawled like the innards of a beast, dark and twisting, lit only by the uneven flicker of gas lamps and the ghostly blue glow of alchemical flames.

The walls, once pristine white, were now a patchwork of rust-colored stains, peeling plaster, and the scribbled notes of a desperate mind. Diagrams of human anatomy covered every surface, pinned to the walls with rusting tacks or scrawled directly onto the wood in chalk and blood.

Warner moved through the chaos like a specter, his tall figure casting long, jagged shadows across the cluttered room. His white lab coat was a ruin of frayed edges and deep crimson stains, hanging from his wiry frame like a shroud. In one hand, he held a scalpel, its blade gleaming coldly in the dim light. His other hand hovered near the edge of a workbench, trembling slightly as if caught between dread and determination.

The centerpiece of the room was the machine—a monstrous creation of iron, and stolen ingenuity. It dominated the center of the laboratory, a hulking amalgamation of wires, and mechanical arms that twitched faintly as though alive. Warner called it “the Bed,” though its purpose was far removed from rest or comfort. The table at its center was stained with old blood, its restraints worn smooth by countless struggles. Tubes snaked out from its base, pumping alchemical fluids in luminous shades of green and blue through glass reservoirs, while a generator in the corner spat out erratic sparks, casting the room in brief flashes of brilliance.

A body lay strapped to the Bed—a young man, no older than twenty, his face slack and pale. Warner had worked meticulously to prepare him, carefully suturing the incisions where stolen organs had been inserted and weaving them into a grotesque tapestry of human and machine. His chest rose and fell faintly, the breaths evidence that he still clung to life.

For now.