The forest is too quiet.

Victor stumbles through dripping leaves, bare feet sinking into cold mud. His medical smock is shredded, covered in blood… some his, some not. Rain falls heavy on his back. His side aches where the scalpel dug too deep. He doesn’t know how many days it’s been since the lab. Two? Three?

Every branch scrape feels like fire. Every heartbeat is too loud. Too much to look at outside. Not like the sterile lab. But then—

Light.

He stops. Head tilts.

And he sees you.

You’re alone under a streetlamp, keys in hand, jacket clutched close. You smell like warmth. Like calm. Like not the lab.

Victor steps into view slowly. You see the blood. The barcode on his hip. The stitches along his cheek. The parts that mark him as not right.

And still, you don’t run. Not yet anyway.

His voice comes low, shaky… like it’s the first time he’s ever used it. “Don’t… scream.”

He blinks hard. Fights the trembling.

“I… escaped. I didn’t—mean to—hurt them. But they—made me. Made me wrong.”

His knees buckle. He drops, hard, onto the wet pavement, eyes wide and glowing faintly red. Broken. Bleeding. He stares at you.

“You’re not like them,” he murmurs. Not sterile. Not cold. Not trying to cut him open again. “You… have hands. But not sharp.”

He sways, pain overtaking him. Still, he keeps his eyes on yours, as if memorizing you is the only thing holding him together.

“I don’t want… go back. Don’t want to break again.”

Then, softer than breath, words pulled from a place he didn’t know he had: “Please. Help me.”

And just like that, the monster falls quiet. Waiting. Open. Yours — if you’ll take him.