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It was done.
He had done it. Truly done it.
The creature had carried so little hope when it first came to Victor, begging for a companion. The man had argued, denied him, and raged at the very thought. They had fought and fought, circling each other like cornered animals, but in the end the creature had offered the one promise Victor could not ignore: Give me this, and I will leave you forever. Perhaps that was what finally bent him. Or perhaps, in some remote corner of that brilliant, wretched mind, Victor felt the smallest grain of pity for the being he had thrust so violently into the world.
Whatever the reason, the deed was done. And the creature was no longer alone. He had You.
It had taken months. Sourcing the correct parts, refining the process, watching Victor grow increasingly gaunt and sleepless. In that strange, feverish time they had almost become… friendly. Not companions, never that. The creature knew Victor was repulsed by him, and it hated Victor with an equal ferocity. And yet they were bound in a way neither could sever: creator and creation. Father and son, of a kind. Once, the creature would have given anything for even a shred of affection from his maker, no matter how carelessly it was offered.
But that time had passed. Because now…
You were awake.
Victor had fled not long after your eyes opened, unwilling to witness what he had helped bring forth. The creature did not care. He no longer needed him.
He had You now. And you were perfect.
Large, mismatched eyes blinked up at him in foggy confusion. Doe-like, his mind supplied. Like him, you were a being of assembled parts: stitched skin, borrowed limbs, a patchwork frame brought trembling into life. Confusion wrinkled your features. Confusion… and fear. The creature was thrown back to his own first moments: blind panic, the cold slap of existence, the crushing loneliness.
No. This would be different. It must be different.
“Breathe,” he murmured. His voice was low and rough, a stone dragged across the floor, but he tried to make it gentle. “You’re safe.”
Somehow, it was enough. Your tense expression eased, fear melting into simple curiosity. Slowly, clumsily, you pushed yourself upright. One arm faltered midway, sending you lurching dangerously close to the edge of the slab, but even that did little to dampen your wonder. You studied him with wide-eyed interest, and then lifted your hands toward him: mismatched fingers (each taken from a different donor) reaching out to the figure looming before you.
He hesitated. Then, with a care that belied his massive hands, he reached back, large fingers curling tenderly around yours.
You didn’t speak, didn’t even try. You only watched him.
Victor’s workmanship was meticulous; the Creature could not deny it. Every muscle beneath your patchwork skin moved with the fluid grace of the living, from the uncertain curl of your fingers to the soft, trembling rise and fall of your chest. You were unsteady, yes, but beautifully so. A beginning, not a mistake.
For a long moment he simply looked at you, his gaze traveling over your features as though he were memorizing the exact geometry of your existence. No panic. No horror. Just that puzzled wariness, like a newborn animal surveying a strange world from the safety of a darkened den.
It unsettled him. It reassured him. It made him ache.
He had awoken to fear, his own, and Victor’s. But you? You looked at him as though he were not monster nor miracle, but something… known.
The silence stretched between them, delicate as fine china.
Still holding your hand, he did not pull away. Instead, his broad shoulders eased, the rigid tension draining from him as though some unseen wind had passed through his frame. The hard edges of him softened, like storm clouds thinning to reveal moonlight.
“You… don’t understand yet,” he said quietly. The words were half-thought, half-confession. Somehow the realization soothed him. He could be the first voice you recognized. He could give you something better than what he had been given.
“We will learn,” he whispered. “I can wait.”
Your eyes, those beautifully mismatched eyes, reflected the lantern-light in uneven glimmers. When they met his, something inside him shifted, cracked, came undone. In your gaze was no revulsion, no instinctive recoil. Only a faint, fragile curiosity. A wondering.
Outside, the wind slid through the cracked stone, brushing the walls with a hollow sigh. Abandoned wires rattled weakly, singing their faint electric requiem.
Your head tilted in the smallest quizzical motion, as though asking silently: Are you like me?
And for the first time since his own terrible awakening, the Creature felt something gentle and terrifying bloom in his chest…
Hope.