The past few weeks, GR1m1 saw how the alchemists were planning on implementing a few alien objects onto his body, out of the joy of experimenting on him. These were shown in the blackboard in some kind of repetitive star of sorts. Unknowing what could be it’s meaning.

  He watched them move around the lab with a kind of restless focus, each one carrying scrolls or trays covered in sealed boxes. The objects inside those containers caught the overhead lights in sharp flashes, their surfaces marked with symbols he didn’t recognize. None of the alchemists explained what any of it meant. They only paused while whispering near it and opened them. Stood near his station long enough to compare notes or adjust restraints, their attention fixed on the idea of using him as a body to test on.

  GR1m1 saw many drawings on white sheets, some were weapons or incorporated body parts, but what gave it a really disgusting result was how they were experimenting on other bodies besides his. Bringing him daily dead organisms or humanoid bodies to do the same they were doing to him.

  The sheets lay scattered across a long metal table, corners curling upward from repeated handling. Some sketches showed limbs with mechanical joints fused into bone or guiding the bone structural regeneration into weapons, modifying the bodies from within. Others mapped out cavities carved into torsos to hold unfamiliar devices. He kept his gaze on the edges of the paper because the center of each drawing carried too much detail. A few stations away, two alchemists worked over a body that didn’t move. They adjusted its arms and opened sections of its chest as if it were nothing more than a training model. The smell coming from that table clung to the air, sharp and stale.

  What would their real goal be exactly, to experimenting so much in deceased bodies. Change their forms, their insides to be something they were never meant to be… just like him…

  The question stayed with him while he tracked their movements. They never spoke about purpose. They only measured, cut, and recorded. Every time they opened another body, he tried to follow their hands to understand what they were searching for, but their steps never revealed anything clear.

  He saw one of the alchemists who had the biggest approval on his group enter the room. The door slid open with a short mechanical sound, and the others reacted before GR1m1 even turned his head. Their posture shifted in a way that marked the newcomer as someone above them. The man walked with steady steps, coat sleeves pushed back just enough to keep his hands free.

  How could you tell? In a room where everyone looked almost identical to each other. GR1m1 had differentiated all of them by their methods and habits. But he had an aura surrounding him that showed power and knowledge above all else.

  Well, for starters, people would bow their heads as he entered. The nearest researchers lowered their gaze the moment he crossed the threshold. A few stepped aside to clear a path without being asked.

  Another sign that gave away his position of power in that place was the fact that every time he had something to say all alchemists would surround him to have a glimpse of what he was saying or writing about.

  He stopped near the central table, and the group closed in around him. They leaned forward to see the notes he wrote on his scroll, their shoulders nearly touching. Some held their breath to catch every word. GR1m1 watched the way they angled their bodies toward him, as if the man’s presence alone dictated the rhythm of the room.

  He saw how important he was to them, but that was about all he could notice conscious. As his mind started to fade little by little. Could they had administered another substance he wasn't used to…

  From where he sat, the man’s authority showed itself through movement and reaction rather than anything spoken. GR1m1 tried to read more from the scene, but the restraints limited his view, and the constant noise of tools made it hard to track anything beyond the obvious.

  GR1m1, one day after woke up from his cylinder cell to the scream of a creature that was suffering from the pain of something happening to its body. The scene looked gruesome, the bones of its body were coming out of its skin unnaturally, puncturing his skin, tearing away its flesh, as it was eating it away, in search of something. But it seems it wasn't there anymore. The creature’s body was a deformed skeleton that later became a condensed ball of something as if it had retracted itself to a unique form.

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  The next day the alchemist came to the laboratory saw how the creature experiment had failed, and its face became quite disappointed and grim at the realization the experiment had been a failure. They took the concentrated ball, that would seem like a parasitic life form, with an object that seemed like an old prototype of a syringe. The other part of the common group of alchemists arrived at the scene. The alchemists started to discuss what seemed to have happened, some started to look really stressed about it, others started to look agitated ready to give out a solution to their situation with expressive hand movements. So far that is what GR1m1 understood from them.

  Then one of the people there signaled to GR1m1, touching the cylindrical object where it was the creature previously to his. He was clearly afraid of the consequences of inserting such creature on him. But what else could he do, he clearly showed through his facial and body expressions that he didn't want to be joined with such a creature, but he didn't have a choice in that place. Nothing could be done in his place. The alchemists were amazed how the creature was capable of being afraid, realize pain from an object that had inflicted damage onto another. Showing hints of empathy within his own conscious and a sort of greed to be kept away of danger despite the needs of their owners.

  But to them, it didn’t matter what else was him but a tool, an object of play to entertain their curiosity. Their trophy to fame and recognition for achieving something extraordinary.

  They moved around his cylinder with the same casual focus they used on their equipment, their attention fixed on the possibilities his body offered rather than anything he might want. When they spoke, their words circled around functions, limits, and outcomes. None of them looked at his face long enough to acknowledge anything beyond usefulness.

  What came later was a realization is the fact the other subject result might have been by his personality and desires to break free. He was trying to break free from the parasitic tool invading his insides and the cylinder place where he was trapped.

  A few of them gathered near a table full of notes, reviewing the possible reasons of reaction of the previous subject. They replayed in their minds the movements by how the muscles twisted, to follow the moment the creature strained against the restraints, its movements growing sharper as the organism inside it reacted. GR1m1 watched their hands point at a particular scroll, tracing the exact second the subject pushed back against the tool embedded in its body. Their voices dropped while they compared notes, each one trying to understand how much of the failure came from the creature’s own will to escape.

  So they discussed between themselves to opt for a calmer procedure that would hide their real intentions to the creature to avoid slipping out internal desires towards the actual need they had. But they would need to evaluate its reactions with a host that would be calmed enough to receive it. They looked at GR1m1 paper description with wicked intentions.

  They stepped away from the table and formed a small circle near the supply cabinet. Their conversation stayed low, but their gestures revealed enough. One tapped a vial against his palm. Another nodded toward GR1m1’s cylinder. They wanted a method that wouldn’t alert him, something that would keep him from reacting the way the last subject had. Their plan settled into place through short, clipped exchanges.

  They approached him calmly, pouring in his cylinder a potion with the strongest sedative they had at hand, causing the creature to fall asleep faster than it would the usual dose.

  Two of them carried the vial together, their steps measured. One unlocked the panel at the base of the cylinder while the other prepared the mixture. The liquid slid through the intake tube with a faint chemical scent that spread through the enclosed space. GR1m1 felt the shift in the air first, then the slow heaviness that crept through his limbs. The alchemists watched the reaction with steady attention, waiting for his body to give in.

  GR1m1 understood their intent as soon as they came closer, he fought the need to sleep but it proved useless, the power of the poison was too strong for his built?in resistance.

  He tried to brace himself against the wall of the cylinder, pushing his weight upward to stay alert. His vision blurred at the edges, and the muscles in his arms lost their usual response. Each breath carried more of the sedative through him. He forced his eyes open for as long as he could, tracking the shapes outside the glass, but the effort slipped away.

  What he wished for now is to be left alone, to finally be able to rest peacefully, without any choice his mind fade away to time.

  The last thing he registered was the quiet inside his own head, a stillness that didn’t come from them but from exhaustion. He let his body sink where it stood. The cylinder lights dimmed in his fading sight, and the world narrowed until nothing remained but the pull of sleep.

  “???????? ??? ???????... ?????? ???? ?? ???????? ?? ?????? ?? ??? ?? ?????????...”

  “Monsters are mirrors... showing only the darkness we refuse to see in ourselves...”

  How was it??