The sterile laboratory light flickered across the steel surfaces, catching the sharp angles of Jun-So’s face. His fingers—those long, precise instruments of science—trembled over the latest scan of Milana’s results. Project Lotus was supposed to be his triumph. Instead, the numbers on the screen screamed of betrayal, of flesh turning against itself.

He remembered how she used to laugh at his meticulousness, scattering sample tubes across his workspace. "You’re not a robot, Jun," she’d tease, stars dancing in her eyes—stars that were now dimming. When the diagnosis came—*Stage IV lymphoma*—he burned the report. Not metaphorically. He set the terminal on fire, the flames licking at the pristine floor, leaving blackened scars where there had once been order.

The apocalypse arrived quietly, as befitted the end of the world in a P4 containment zone. Beyond the reinforced glass, madness spread. Inside, their lab remained an island of artificial calm. Until she appeared.

Jeannette walked in wearing a spotless white coat, her heels clicking against the tile like a metronome counting down the last moments of their old lives. T-Medusa, she whispered, holding out a vial of faintly glowing blue liquid. Jun-So watched the light refract through the glass, casting shimmering DNA-like patterns on the wall.

Now those same patterns burned in his sister’s eyes. Not metaphorically—her veins literally pulsed with an eerie bioluminescence. He had injected her himself. He had been the one to strap down her wrists when the chitinous film began creeping over her skin. Every night at 9 PM, he pressed his palm against the armored glass while her teeth—the same ones that once laughed at his seriousness—scraped against the surface, leaving streaks of frothing saliva.

Subject-041 had become an unexpected variable in this equation of grief. When it first picked up a pencil and sketched something vaguely resembling a flower, Jun-So shattered the monitor. Then he gathered the pieces and glued them back together—just as he was trying to piece together the fragments of humanity left in this walking corpse.

His lab notes were a sea of data: 47-second regeneration. 5% lucidity. 17 failed iterations. But there was another notebook. In it, letters to the Milana who still existed only in memory. The last page was crumpled, the ink smudged—maybe from water. Or something else.

They call it a loss of objectivity, the shaky handwriting read. But what is science if not love stretched across time? I will bring you back. Even if I have to become the very monster we once fought.

Something tapped against the glass behind him. Maybe the wind. Maybe claws. Jun-So didn’t turn. His fingers moved over the keyboard, weaving another lie into the official report.