I made a friend today.
Well… sort of.
It's a rat.
Gray. Fat. Missing one eye.
We stared at each other in the lab corner for what felt like hours.
He didn't run. I didn't bite.
There was mutual respect. Two monsters in a basement, just trying to survive.
I named him Victor.
He doesn't seem to mind.
---
Dr. Vale's experiments are getting bolder.
This morning, he injected me with something green. Glowing. The kind of color you only see in nightmares and cheap sci-fi movies.
"You may feel a... twitch," he said.
Twitch? No, Doc. I nearly dislocated my spine.
But then something… remarkable.
I moved my fingers—all of them—with control. Intention.
Not the usual spasms and jerks of my undead body, but real, purposeful motion.
I clenched a fist.
And for a moment, I almost cried.
If I still had tear ducts.
---
Lia noticed the change too.
She smiled. "You're getting stronger."
"Or more dangerous," I replied.
"Same thing, really," she said. "Depends on who you ask."
She's clever, that one.
I see it in her eyes—curiosity mixed with sorrow. Like she's lived through something no teenager should, and stitched herself back together with nothing but wire and willpower.
I want to ask her what happened.
But I don't.
Because I know the look of someone who isn't ready to remember.
Trust me—I wear that look every day.
---
Later, while they slept upstairs, I wandered the basement.
Victor followed. Maybe out of loyalty. Maybe because I smell like cheese.
That's when I saw it.
A door. Hidden behind a shelf of anatomy books and broken glass jars. Locked, sealed, forgotten.
And yet… familiar.
I don't remember opening it.
I don't remember walking through.
But suddenly, I was there.
Inside.
A room full of dust, blueprints, photographs.
A mirror—another one.
But this time, something different. On the wall, written in red ink:
"Zane Blackwell – Subject Zero"
My name.
It hit me like a thunderstorm made of memory shards.
Zane.
I was Zane. I am Zane.
---
And now the questions come like floodwaters:
Who turned me into this?
Why am I here?
What did I do to deserve death… and worse—life after death?
My fingers trembled against the wall. Victor climbed onto my shoulder.
I whispered it aloud.
"Zane Blackwell."
It felt like betrayal.
It felt like rebirth.
It felt… real.
---
Somewhere upstairs, I heard a door creak.
Footsteps. Heavy. Not the doctor. Not Lia.
Someone else had entered the house.
Someone who didn't knock.
And suddenly… I wasn't the most dangerous thing in this place anymore.