Archive of Our Own

Silence.

And then… merciless life. 

Sounds.

Darkness. 

Light. 

Shock. Pain. Running through your veins, lacing your limbs together. Meaningless. All of it, none of it. 

Moisture. Beading across your temples, slipping down your face. Bright light. Shifting weight. Pressure on your chest. 

Frustration. Impatience. Absence. Solitude. 

Dry eyelids shuttering open, walls and curves clarifying in your vision. A bone-deep ache pervading your form, sending shivers down your bare spine. Bare, bare, bare. Fabric across your waist and nothing more. 

Patterns zig-zag across your skin. Its skin? The skin. It doesn’t feel like yours, feels ill-fitting and tight and stiff all at once. Pattering sounds as something assaults the walls. 

A breath leaves dry and cracked lips. Collects in the air, dissipates into obscurity. Sloping walls and arches, structures gathered together. 

A cold surface beneath you. Tingling in your fingers. You tap them once, twice. They shake in momentary opposition. Another tap against the metal, resounding through the eerily silent space. You mimic the movement with your other hand. Tap, tap. 

Ribs bend and sway with the wind of your breaths, chest expanding and contracting. Rasping and crackling with each movement. 

Repetition. A breath, tap, a breath, tap. Notches of your spine dig into the surface beneath you, pushing you up until you’re lurching forward. The world momentarily blurs, grain and fuzz swallowing your vision before eventually receding. 

You turn your arms, following threads and lines down skin and muscle. Incongruous. Hands bleed into purple and blue fingernails, skeletal edges of bone sharp beneath the fingertips. You drag a finger along the table, your shoulders tensing with the movement. 

A slow breath. Muscles woken from slumber, surging up and sending you catapulting forward. A nearby surface intercepts you, sending a brief burst of hurt through your abdomen. You groan, breaths labored and difficult. 

Crimson paints the floor of this place. The smell of rotten flesh pervades the air, scrunching up your nose and leaving you feeling something close to queasy. You start to drag yourself along, knees momentarily buckling under you before you start to find a rhythm. One foot, then the other. You grasp at whatever’s in reach, propelling yourself forward and out of the space. You push at the end of the space, slipping through the momentary gap it creates until you find yourself in a new area. 

This one looks different, nicer. There’s some sort of red plush material on the floor, with reddish brown ground crawling to the left and right. The walls are an elegant patterned teal, with strange visions. People, you think. But after several seconds, they don’t seem to move, even after you attempt to get their attention. 

Your arms wrap around the crooks of your elbows, teeth chattering in your mouth. After some helpless wandering, you find another end to the space—similar to the last one. You push at it and it swings open, revealing yet another room. This one is structured differently than the last two, more homely and a lot smaller. Objects rest along the walls, big and small alike. 

Though what really draws your attention is the being resting in the bed. A man. He has warm brown skin and curly dark hair; he’s turned on his side and his eyes are closed. He looks familiar, for some reason. You frown, taking a few steps into the room. The material beneath you creaks and groans.

You tilt your head, studying the stranger. Since you woke, everything has been a haze. This is the first human you’ve seen. He’s beautiful, you think. You take a step closer, then another, until you’re standing over him. 

You reach out with a hand, only for his face to scrunch and his breathing to quicken. His eyes blink and he’s suddenly awake, immediately jolting and scrambling backwards. You stare at him, hand still half-outstretched to where you would’ve touched him. 

He looks at you. You look at him. 

His eyes are blown wide, as he breathes indistinguishable words before turning his back and getting up from the surface he’d been resting on. He rounds the structure, holding his hands up in the air. You mimic the gesture, until he’s breaking the distance and pressing his hands to yours. Your palms are bigger than his, your fingers longer. 

The man is warm. You hadn’t realized just how cold you felt, but now that you know warmth, you recognize that you are freezing. You have nothing to cloak you from the brisk temperature of the air, no fabric to drape yourself in like he has. You try to get closer to him, if only to seek out more warmth, but he matches it with a step backward.

After a second, his hand slips from yours and he turns to one wall of the room, before ripping fabric aside and letting a blinding light seep through the room. You hiss and curl away from it, your eyes burning and tears rolling down your cheeks at the brightness. It will hurt you. 

But the man only takes your hand again, slowly guiding you into the light. He stands in it, entirely unharmed. He flips your hand so your palm is facing up, before tugging it gently into the light. You watch in wonder and dread as the light meets your skin, dancing across marks and scars. 

Contrary to what you expect, it does not hurt. In fact, it feels nice. You bask in the light for a moment, before the man’s hands are finding your shoulders and he’s looking up at you with bright eyes. “Victor,” he says. 

You blink. That means nothing to you. You don’t understand it. 

“Victor,” he repeats. A pause. Still nothing. “That’s me. I’m Victor.” 

You have no idea what he’s trying to say. The man exhales, before clasping your hand and placing it on his chest. You can feel his heart beating beneath his ribs, so very alive. He locks eyes with you. “Victor,” he says, squeezing your hand where it rests on him.  

“...Vic… tor,” you repeat, trying to mimic the movement of his lips. The man brightens, his lips curving at the edges as he exposes his teeth and grabs your hands. You flinch at the movement, but he only grasps your hands and transfers his warmth.

“Yes, yes!” he says excitedly. His hand finds your finger, guiding it to tap his chest gently. “Victor.” 

“Victor,” you repeat with a bit more confidence. He is Victor.  

The man soon tugs you after him. 

You follow, because of course you do. This world is new to you, and he is the only one living in it. The only one who you may be able to learn from. So when he leads, you follow. When he tugs you down winding paths and into a cold, dank space, you follow without thought. Because, just as you haven’t yet learned friendship, communication, trust—you also haven’t learned betrayal, mistrust, or violence. 

Heavy objects settle around your wrists. They dig into your skin. You look over at the man, Victor. 

He looks a little sad, though he soon shakes his head and says something to himself. You’re too disoriented to really care, instead tugging at your new accompaniments. They hurt. You get to your feet and try to follow after the man as he leaves, but you’re stopped by the barriers on your wrists. They only give you a little bit of room to roam. 

You frown. This doesn’t feel right. But you won’t know that yet, because you don’t know anything else. A creature that only knows discomfort… does not know of an alternative. Discomfort is mundane to it. 

You aren’t sure how long you stay there, trapped in solitude. Waiting for the man to come back. 

Something scuttles at your feet. You tap at it with a finger; it squeaks and runs off. Some sort of liquid flows in, streaming in rivulets across the floor and falling through a hole in the wall. You watch it swirl and spiral, watch as debris occasionally floats by. 

Sometimes, you follow it along its path. You try to crawl alongside it, until the chains pull you right back. You run your fingers along the cracks in the ground, wincing when you dig them in too hard. This body is fragile, you’re noticing. It aches and creaks as you rot in this dark and damp space. You try to test the limits of the strange cuffs around your wrists, but they don’t budge. Even worse, as time passes, they start to constrict and rip your skin apart, digging into raw flesh. You don’t know much of existence yet, don’t quite know who or what you even are—but there’s a bone-deep conviction within you that tells you life shouldn’t be this painful.

Still, you know little else. 

Perhaps the man, Victor, will return. 

Until then, you wait. 

Time. A foreign concept to you. 

You see lights peek through the space, flicker along the wall and start to fade. Then they fall to obscurity, and the cellar grows dark. Insects buzz and hum outside; rushing water constantly greets your ears. But you have no reason to prescribe meaning to any of these occurrences. You don’t know that there is day and night, that there is meaning to dark and light beyond mere patterns scattered across the walls and floors. 

Your wrists are starting to really hurt now. You think you can catch glimpses of white beneath it all, a hard and unforgiving substance that doesn’t bend when you push it. This explorative gesture hurts enough to bring some sort of liquid into your eyes, so you decide to stop. 

Then, an unfamiliar sound. If you press your ear to the ground, it vibrates. This distracts you enough to blind your other senses, until you’re awkwardly staring up at the man from before. Victor. 

“What’re you doing down there?” he asks, something like amusement coloring his voice. 

You just watch him. His words make just as little sense to you as they did before. You tilt your head slightly, contorted on the ground. Victor reaches out to you. 

You immediately scramble backwards, enough that the chains are rattling in defiance. The man looks shocked, almost offended, before something close to remorse takes over his features.

“I shouldn’t have left you down here,” he admits. Again, no comprehension from you—but you do recognize that his voice has dipped into a quieter and deeper register than before. Victor holds out a hand, palm up. Just like that night. 

But you aren’t so eager to trust him now. Nights upon nights alone in this space, knees curled to your chest, spine jutting from your back, have given you nothing but mistrust. You just stare at his hand. 

Victor takes a step closer. 

You watch him.  

Another step. 

You stare, your knees pulled up to your chest as if you can disappear if you only tighten your grasp. 

The man slowly breaks the distance between you, until he’s standing over where you’re perched. You look at him warily. 

“Vic-tor,” you say. The words don’t seem to want to cooperate; a breath crawls its way out of your lungs and rips its way from your lips in a cough. Your voice vibrates against your throat, rattles behind your teeth. 

“Yes,” he says, lips twisting. “That’s me.”

“Victor,” you say again. You have no other words. He has not given you any. 

“I know,” Victor remarks, his expression torn. “I’m sorry.” 

He reaches for your wrists; you shrink back and curl away from him, hunching in on yourself. Pain flickers across Victor’s face. 

“I need to see,” he says slowly. You don’t really understand what he’s saying, but his words are uttered with compassion and delicacy. When his fingertips land on your forearm, you nearly rip your way out of the cuffs through sheer reflex alone. But Victor’s fingers remain, motionless, and eventually you reluctantly present your wrists to him. 

Victor sucks in a breath through his teeth, guilt flashing in his eyes. He shakes his head, his hand disappearing into the strange fabric he’s wearing before emerging with a small object. He reaches for your wrists again, and this time, you’re too… heavy… to argue. Yes. Heavy. Your eyelids keep trying to slip shut, your head dipping of its own accord. 

Victor notices this as he fiddles with your cuffs. “You’re tired,” he notes. After a few brief movements that jostle your restraints, they finally fall away. And he’s immediately looking at the skin of your wrists, skin flaking away and rubbed raw. What little unblemished skin remains is colorful with bruises. Victor shakes his head in disbelief, looking even more pained. “Come on,” he says, inclining his head and getting to his feet. 

You stare. 

He sighs and extends a hand, palm facing the ceiling. You watch it for a long moment, before hesitantly mimicking the gesture. Victor then places his hand in yours, cradling it with surprising delicacy and beginning to guide you to follow after him. Wanting to escape this dreary space, you repeat his steps—walking across the water, up the incline, up strange jutting steps, down the green hallway… 

Finally, you stop in a side room. There’s a soft looking area that he guides you to sit on, and you do so after a moment’s hesitation. Immediately, you feel yourself sinking into it, eyes fluttering shut with fatigue you never realized you were fighting. 

A warm hand on your face jolts you from slumber. “Hey, stay awake for me,” Victor implores you. “I need to treat those,” he says, nodding down at your wrists. You follow his gaze, a bit confused by what he’s saying. 

“Stay,” Victor says. He places his hands out and holds them frozen in midair for several seconds. Still, static. You keep yourself in this unfamiliar room, on this weird contraption with curved edges that is deceptively comfortable. 

You can hear footsteps as Victor exits the room, ambling about the building. Is this his home? It must be. You look around, taking in the elegant brown wood and deep jewel tones around you. Fabric is draped on the sides of the windows; wood runs along the space where the floor and wall meet; the floor beneath your feet is cold and unfeeling. You remain perched on your new resting spot, awaiting Victor’s return. 

He comes back some time later with something in hand. It’s clear, slightly circular. There’s something brown inside. You watch his movements warily, hesitant to trust him after he abandoned you. He takes slow steps until he’s kneeling before you, his fingertips gliding up your arms and twisting your wrists over so he can study the wounds. Then, he makes a swift motion and dips his hand into the substance he’s brought. 

When he moves to touch you, you instinctively flinch.

“This will help,” Victor says. A cool feeling rushes through you as he begins to rub the ointment in, your pain starting to subside. It feels a bit strange, almost prickling. 

A sudden intake of breath is the only sign that something’s wrong. You look over to find Victor staring at your skin; following his gaze, you discover that the stitches and scars starting near your wrists are knitting themselves back together. You stare in complete wonder, brushing cold fingertips against the unblemished skin. Victor does the same, his hands warm enough to send a jolt down your spine. He looks just as surprised as you feel. 

“They’re healing,” he says with wonder. You don’t know the exact meaning of his words, but judging from his wide eyes and upturned lips, it must be a good thing. The pain in your wrists has ebbed into a dull ache. Victor rubs the ointment in a little more before wrapping some sort of fabric around your arm. He continues this process until the majority of your wounds have been treated. 

At this point, your eyelids are curtaining your vision. You try your best to blink them open, to keep yourself wary amidst Victor’s sudden change of heart, but fatigue wins out and you drift off. 

In the coming days, you explore the castle. You run your fingers along the walls and railings, floors and corners. You watch light trickle in and fade out. 

But, most of all, you watch Victor. 

He has a routine, you’re starting to learn. 

When he wakes, he goes to the room with heat and prepares food for himself. He eats. Cleans up after himself, goes to his study and scribbles things down, flips pages. He must be aware of your presence—it’s kind of hard to conceal your hulking figure between the creaking floors and short doorways. Yet he never prevents you from continuing your observation. 

Victor talks to himself a lot. Or maybe he’s talking to you. It’s hard to tell, and you can’t make much sense of the words at first. During these moments, your attention often wanders to other places: the ticking machine on the wall, the fabric of the lounge, the wave of the trees in the wind outside. 

Your observation of Victor is often an all-day affair, as he is often holed up in this particular room for hours on end—only taking breaks to eat or eventually retire to his chambers. You have to wonder what he’s doing, what could be so important that it leaves him alone and talking to those who can’t answer.

The only other notable component of Victor’s routine is his evening bath. Because after that, when he is clean and donned in fresh clothing, he summons you to the bathroom and gets to work on applying ointment to your scars. You’ve long since grown out of flinching at his touch, and the ointment seems to be doing its job—the scars are starting to fade more every day. You often end up leaning back against one of the surfaces to make it easier for him to reach. The small space of the bathroom makes you rather cognizant of your differences in height, as you tower over Victor and you have to duck your head upon entrance. 

One evening, when you head into the bathroom, you make the mistake of glancing curiously at the reflective material on the wall. Usually, you stand with your back to it. But your curiosity has been building over the past few days, leaving you wondering what the surface’s function is. 

When you look into it, you find something staring back. You immediately flinch and startle. The visage in its surface disappears as you jerk away. Your creator lets out a quiet laugh, strangely pleasant and soothing to your ears. 

“That’s just you,” he reassures you, though you can’t quite understand what he’s saying. “See?” 

Victor guides you to look at the wall again. You stiffen a bit, reluctantly looking into the surface once more. 

Something… No. Someone stares back at you. Faded scars, fragments of skin pieced together. Lips tinged with blue. A light eye and a dark one. You stare at this man. He stares back. 

“That’s you,” Victor repeats. He taps your chest, then the glass. “See? You.” 

“...You,” you repeat. 

“No,” Victor says with a shake of his head. He takes your hand in his, warmth curling around your skeletal joints and pressing them into a semblance of a fist. His fingers find yours, before he’s pressing your joined hands to the surface. Then, Victor draws your hands back and takes one of your fingers, pointing at your chest. “You.” 

You stare at the mirror and blink. 

The monster, man, blinks back. 

You blink again. 

Blink. 

You reach out with a finger, and he does the same. 

Is this what you look like? The thought upsets you. If Victor is what you are supposed to look like… then your form is very far off. Your skin is wrong, your eyes don’t match, the shape of your face is far different. 

Liquid slips from your eyes. 

“Hey, hey,” Victor says worriedly. “No, don’t cry.” 

You don’t have the words for it, but you know: You’re not right. You aren’t meant to be here. Something is wrong. 

Victor’s hands bracket your cheeks, as he pulls your attention toward him. “Don’t cry,” he says, his thumbs rising to brush your tears away. You’ve long since stopped flinching at his touch. After that first night, when he chained you… he’s never hurt you. 

Your eyes meet his. 

He stares back unflinchingly. 

Your hand moves of its own accord, your finger tracing the side of Victor’s face. Your fingertip glides across his cheekbones, briefly settles at the corner of his lips before falling away. 

You frown. More liquid collects at the edge of your eyelids, and you wipe it away with a trembling hand. 

“None of that,” he admonishes you. And though you can’t quite understand what he’s saying, you’ve learned the different tones and emotions he imbues in his voice. And Victor sounds disappointed, chastising. 

You’re quiet for the rest of the night, silent as he applies the ointment to your forearms and face. He’s even gentler than usual, his movements taking on a pronounced languidity as if he’s taking his time memorizing the curves of your jaw and cheekbones. 

You wonder what he sees in you. How he can look at the monster he’s created so reverently. Tears slip from your eyes again as your chest feels heavy. Victor’s left hand tangles in yours, his right hand hovering at your jaw before he’s leaning forward and pressing his lips to your forehead. 

You stare at him in disbelief. You don’t know the real meaning behind this gesture, as you can’t communicate with him well just yet. But the look in his eyes and the tenderness of his touch say more than enough. 

It’s only a matter of time before Victor decides to teach you.

It had been easy before, to dismiss you as a creature. But the truth of the matter is that you are intelligent—clever enough to interpret his emotions based on the tone of his voice, to stay back and observe Victor doing things before doing them yourself. 

He never quite fancied himself a teacher, and going back to the utter basics is a bit difficult at first. But, to your credit, you’re a quick learner. Victor starts with the alphabet and works his way up from there; within a few weeks, you’re reading out of his books. Your command of the language is nothing short of impressive. You grasp difficult concepts with ease, you get through numerous books in a single day. It’s as if you have a voracious appetite for learning, for understanding the world around you. 

This makes Victor feel both proud and almost… envious, for lack of a better word. There’s a kind of childlike wonder that leads your actions, drawing you into beams of sunlight and through dusty stacks of tomes. There is no heartache, no cruelty, no violence. Only you. 

And Victor is growing increasingly devoted to you. At first, he dismisses it as attention to detail, monitoring his creation to ensure it doesn’t hurt or harm. But that attitude doesn’t last for long. You soon govern the wide majority of his thoughts. Victor thinks of you as he attempts to add to his notes and legitimize his research, and he’s starting to realize… 

He doesn’t want to share his findings. He doesn’t want to share you. Not with the rest of the world—cruel, unforgiving as it can be. 

But whenever Victor attempts to recreate the same experiment that gave you life, he comes up short. The body never reanimates, the soul never inhabits it, and he’s left wondering if it was more than scientific reasoning and deduction that gave you life. What if it was fate? Victor had never believed in such things before… but, then again, the majority of the populace didn’t believe in the concept of reanimation, and look what happened! Did fate part those storm clouds and strike energy into the body that would become yours? Did fate send that rain, those violent winds, that eerie calm after the storm?

How much of this can Victor take credit for? And can he even begin to claim responsibility, refuting the impossible, if it will only expose you to prying eyes? 

But, on the other hand, what will become of him if he continues on like this? Is this solitary existence really what he deserves? Is your creation an accomplishment he is forced to keep to himself? Growing old, weary and complacent and alone without recognition? 

He really doesn’t know.  

“What am I?” you ask Victor one day. It’s a question you’ve pondered since you first woke, but you’re only now able to verbalize it. Victor looks up from what he’s reading, his glasses sliding down his face slightly as he meets your eyes. 

“You are my creation,” he responds easily. You knew as much. 

“And what are you?” you question. 

“A man,” he answers. “Victor Frankenstein.”

“Victor… Frankenstein,” you repeat, the words tumbling around in your mouth for a moment. Your creator’s eyes gleam with some unreadable emotion. You stare at him. The words leave your lips without contemplation. “You are lonely.”

Silence.

Your fingers jitter against your leg. “...Am I alone?” you then ask. You feel as if you already know the answer. Of course you are alone. Of course no one wants to be near you. You’re a monster. 

“No,” he says quickly, fiercely. A foreign feeling bubbles in your chest, tight and uncomfortable. Your fingers twitch with restlessness. “Never. Not with me.”

You accept this as fact. 

“Lift your arm,” Victor instructs you, conducting your daily physical test. You obediently lift your left arm. “Good. Other arm? Good.” Your right arm falls to your side. You feel strangely bare in front of him, still wearing nothing but the sparse briefs you were wearing when you first woke. 

A book you read earlier today had detailed different types and styles of human clothing, with the introduction stating that humans wear clothing to preserve their modesty. You had frowned upon reading that, taking a moment to look down at yourself before resolving to think about it later. 

Now, as you sit vulnerable before Victor, you decide to speak up.  

“Modesty,” you recite, staring at his turned back. You pull a leg up, bending your knee and resting your chin on it as you sit. “Something humans value. Yet you do not award it to me.”

Victor turns, raising an eyebrow from where he’d been studying his notes. “There is hardly a point,” he remarks. “I have seen every part of you.” An answer humans may find intimate. But you are not another human. You are his creation.

His answer still does not satisfy you, but you keep silent. 

The next morning, there’s a pile of folded clothing waiting for you outside the door. Though you then spend far too long attempting to put them on, only succeeding in tangling yourself further. Victor eventually finds you and huffs in amusement, before helping you into the tunic and pants he provided. 

The pants are a bit tight—at least, tighter than you’re used to. They feel a bit constricting, though Victor reassures you that feeling will go away when you get used to it. Putting them on was fairly straightforward, but you noticed Victor had this strange flush to his cheeks as he assisted you with pulling them up to your waist. 

The tunic is far more comfortable, gentle and almost breezy. You marvel at the puffy sleeves, hitting them a few times and watching the fabric bend and sway. The neckline plunges down your chest, just like Victor’s own tunic does. Though you doubt it has the same effect. While he looks full of life and warm, you look frigid and sharp. Edges sharpened to a fine point, with none of the careful curves of his form. 

Still, Victor looks pleased. “Very nice,” he assures you with a nod. 

You decide to believe him.

“Why did you make me?” you ask Victor one quiet evening, your fingers resting against the edges of the hardcover book he lent you. Your creator looks up from his own book, considering the question. 

“I wanted to conquer death,” Victor answers, “and I did.”

“Why should death be conquered?” you frown. 

“Because,” Victor responds, “it takes everything. Everyone. All humans die, and some die far too soon.” 

“Why?” you ask.

“Diseases, accidents…” he continues. 

“No,” you interject. “If death is inevitable, why attempt to conquer it?”

Silence. 

“Death grants life meaning, no?” you reason. “Without it, there is no life. Only perpetuity.” 

“Yes,” he agrees reluctantly. Though it’s clear Victor doesn’t really see it in the same manner. You suppose it makes sense. He’s human. He’s not a monster. Of course he would view life as a gift. 

Besides, that is the human condition, is it not? To view something not fully understood as a conquest to be undertaken? Fear and uncertainty are constants in life, yet humans dedicate the years they have to attempting to subvert them. And for what? For a being like yourself to come to fruition? Surely this wasn’t Victor’s end goal. Surely you weren’t his destination. 

“I am a failure,” you realize aloud. 

Victor’s head snaps as he whips around to look back at you incredulously. “No,” he responds immediately. “You are not. Why would you say such a thing?”

“I am not evidence that death can be conquered,” you remark. “Only that it can, perhaps, be momentarily beaten into submission. I am not what you wanted.” That explains his treatment of you shortly after you were created, his fear and dread convincing him to chain you. Ironic, you think. You were supposed to be an escape from those feelings. Yet Victor fell prey to them anyway. 

“You are not what I expected,” Victor admits. He looks over to you, his skin almost glowing in the afternoon sunlight. “That does not mean you are unwanted.” 

And, for perhaps the first time, you can’t bring yourself to believe him. So you frown and let the air fall to silence once more, looking out the window and missing the tormented expression on your creator’s face. 

You grip Victor’s hand tightly as the being approaches. The two of you are standing outside the castle, the hazy morning sunlight caressing the dewy grass. Your fingers are tangled in your creator’s as you hide behind him. A futile gesture, really, because you’re taller. Still, you hunch your shoulders and tighten your grasp on his hand as the animal blinks at both of you. 

“It’s okay,” Victor reassures you, a soft smile on his face. His hand is warm. Victor is always warm. You’re not sure if it’s typical for humans, or if he just feels better in comparison to your cold and unfeeling skin. But you inch closer to him anyway. Victor’s thumb brushes your knuckles. “It won’t hurt you.” 

“What is it?” you ask, peeking at the animal. 

“It’s a deer,” he answers. The animal has brown fur and four legs with hooves, antlers spouting from the top of its head. It has big brown eyes and a narrow snout; it stares at you curiously. “You can touch it, look.” 

Victor gently unclenches your hand, bringing your joined hands close to the deer. You stiffen and try to pull away; he laughs. “It won’t hurt you,” he repeats. “I promise.” 

Fear beats in your chest like a drum. You squeeze your eyes shut. 

A few seconds pass. When you feel something brush against your hand, you immediately yank it back as your eyes fly open. The deer regards you with a tilt of its head; Victor’s hand remains lingering in the air near it. 

After some contemplation, you hesitantly reach out to it again. 

It’s soft. Surprisingly so. You shakily brush the top of its head, knuckles gliding against its fur. 

You feel eyes on your back. Frowning, you turn to the woods at your side. There, camouflaged between the trees, is another deer. This one looks bigger, probably a fully-grown adult. You feel your hand still from where you’d been petting the smaller one. 

“What is it?” Victor asks. 

Another thing you’ve learned: human sight is very limited. Yours doesn’t seem to suffer from the same shortfalls—you can see pretty clearly at all hours of the day, and the adult deer is easily visible to you now against the tawny brown tree trunks. 

“There’s another,” you answer, your hand slipping from the younger animal. Its mother cocks its head at you from the shade of the trees, and an unsettling quiet descends across the cool air. Then, breaking through the tension, the child returns to its mother, butting your hand with its head as it leaves.

Time has passed, and your skin has fully healed. What had once been raw, aching wounds and clumsy stitches are now little more than faded lines. Your hair has grown just past your shoulders now, and Victor is kind enough to tame it for you. The tangles are somewhat painful, but that’s the closest you’ve ever gotten to pain since you were trapped in the sewers. 

You continue to make regular forays into the forest, sometimes with Victor and other times on your own. You lose track of time between the thicketed trees and long grasses, often not returning to the castle until the moon is bright in the night sky. When you reenter the castle, you find a bath drawn for you and clothes neatly folded near a warm towel. Sinking into the warm water of the bath fights off that ever-present chill, and you go to sleep warm and comfortable. 

You’re surprised, though not terribly shocked, when Victor approaches you one day and asks if you’d like to see the town. He maintains that you wouldn’t be in any danger—you’ve healed to the point where you carry a close resemblance to humans. In truth, you haven’t even seen or spoken to another human before. Victor has been your entire world since your creation, and you’re hesitant to leave the safety and sanctitude of the castle. 

But your creator is convinced that it will be good for you, or at the very least something to learn from. 

That’s how you find yourself in a tunic, pants, boots, and a large black coat, trailing behind Victor as always. You can hear the townsfolk as you walk closer to their habitations, and you find your grip shifting from the fabric of Victor’s sleeve to his hand. You must make for an amusing picture: a towering man hiding behind his companion of average height. But you can’t bring yourself to separate from him. 

The grass bleeds into pavement, and before long you’re walking along cobbled streets that lead to a somewhat dreary but crowded town. People walk by in long clothing, hair pulled back or gelled and accessories sparkling in the mid-morning light. You keep quiet as Victor makes his way through the streets with practiced ease, while you slouch more and more as passersby stare. 

The market is far noisier than you would expect. It’s not like the controlled chaos of nature in the forest. It’s different, louder but no less vibrant. Men and women wander from stall to stall, conversing with one another and exchanging wares. There’s the smell of freshly-baked bread, mixing with the bitter air and the unmistakable odor of recently caught fish. 

A small group of women walks by you both, and they exchange glances and quiet laughs. You feel their eyes burning into your shoulders as you walk alongside Victor, closing the distance between you until you’re practically pressed against your side. He senses your change in disposition and glances up at you, before turning to look over his shoulder. His gaze soon finds the women and he looks back at you with a smile. 

“...What?” you ask, your grip on his wrist briefly tightening as you try to make sense of the look on his face. It’s a mix of fond exasperation and amusement. 

“Are you uncomfortable?” he asks, those emotions giving way to genuine concern. 

“They’re staring,” you respond quietly, adamantly refusing to look over at the group again. 

Victor’s smile returns, his free hand reaching over to gently squeeze your hand. “They think you’re pretty,” he says. There is no room for doubt in his voice. The words he has just uttered are ones he believes to be fact. 

“Pretty?” you repeat. Your eyebrows furrow. Pretty isn’t reserved for things like you, you don’t think. Pretty is for the flowers outside, the elegant sway of a well-sewn dress. Pretty isn’t for the man with faded scars walking through the street like a circus performer on stilts. It isn’t for you. 

“Pretty,” he reassures you. “Handsome. Same thing.” 

Your hand slips from his forearm and your fingers tighten around his sleeve. You don’t know what you’re supposed to say to any of this. Victor lets out a fond breath and continues through the market with practiced ease. 

You follow. As always. 

And wonder, idly, if he will ever grow tired of his shadow. 

“I think I am ill,” you announce one quiet morning, apropos of nothing. You enter the drawing room and look at your creator. He sits at his desk, turning and getting to his feet once he hearts your remark.

“You’re sick?” Victor frowns. “How— What do you feel?” His eyes flit about your form as if looking for evidence of this sickness. 

“I feel…” you trail off, struggling to put the sensation into words. “Prickly.”

“Prickly,” Victor repeats, with something like fond exasperation. 

“Yes,” you nod, not catching his sarcasm. “Or perhaps it’s more… fluttery.”

“Fluttery?” he asks, a strange note of something in his voice. Victor presses his sternum, before looking at you. “Here? In your chest?”

“Yes,” you confirm, struggling to explain it. These aren’t your words, and they aren’t your feelings. You are an outsider to the human experience, but you’re confined to that same language nonetheless. You mimic Victor’s movement and feel the flat planes of your chest, fingers gliding across cold skin and sharp bone. Your hand settles on your chest, the dull thud of someone else’s heart doing little to calm you. “Nervous, I suppose.”

“Illness is usually grounded in physical ailments,” Victor says, tilting his head slightly and paying you a considering look. “Does your head hurt? Is your mouth dry? Do you feel anything different?”

“...No, I suppose not,” you eventually reply, coming to the conclusion that your question doesn’t quite have an answer. Something like embarrassment crawls through you. “Never mind.”

“No, no, I’m trying to understand,” Victor says, taking a few steps closer. He places a hand on your upper arm and the feeling reignites. “If you’re hurting, we should fix it.”

Your jaw clenches briefly. Your next breath feels more labored than usual, that uncomfortable heat returning. “It’s not hurt,” you clarify, averting your eyes slightly. “Just strange.” Victor’s hand on your arm, his eyes on yours… It’s too much. And that’s when you realize. 

“It goes away when I’m alone,” you deduce aloud. You look down at your creator. “It comes back, when you do.”

“Me?” he voices, his hand slipping from your skin and falling back to your side. The cold comes crawling back with the gesture. “Wait. You’re nervous around me?”

“I am not sure,” you answer. Nervous doesn’t feel like the best descriptor, but you’re still a novice at interpreting and understanding your feelings. You try to describe it better, hand moving to where his hand had rested on your arm. While Victor’s touch was warm, yours is frigid and empty. 

“My skin feels… hot. When you look at me.”

And suddenly Victor seems very intent on avoiding your eyes. You watch him as he turns to the side, his eyes widening as he almost appears flustered. Naturally concerned, you tilt your head and wonder if you’ve done something wrong. Perhaps your illness is catching.  

“Victor?” you ask hesitantly. “Are you all right?”

He clears his throat pointedly. “Of course I am.” 

“Do you know what ails me?” 

“You said that’s how you feel when I’m near,” Victor manages to say. He looks to be contemplating the words. You watch the line of his throat as he swallows. “...And when I touch you?” His voice briefly dips into a quieter register, as if he’s afraid of the words carrying too much weight in the air.

“It’s… sharp,” you recall. “Like a jolt. But not necessarily unwelcome.”

Somehow, this only seems to worsen Victor’s awkward state. You can’t so much as begin to wonder what’s going on, when he’s immediately getting to his feet and stammering out an excuse to get some fresh air. You watch him depart with confusion, a frown settling on your lips as you wonder if you said something wrong. 

You’ve taken up the habit of sitting near the windows. It’s nice on sunny days, because the warm sunlight streams in and gives you a deep warmth. During these moments, that bone-deep chill finally feels further away. 

Today, you take up residence on your perch near the towering second-floor window, folding your legs so that your knees come up to your chest. You rest your head sideways and look at the scenery outside. The waves are crashing against the cliffside, and birds circle overhead.

You don’t notice Victor, at first. You don’t notice him for several moments, until he’s gently saying your name, your chosen one, and beckoning your attention. 

You turn your head, the motion feeling a bit stiff and wooden. Among the many, many things you’ve learned about your body is the fact that your bones and muscles are fragile. They are prone to wear and tear, as with humans. But they’re also quick to fall into disrepair and stiffness. You are supposed to stretch them frequently, though this tends to slip your mind. And you can tell Victor has noticed this just now, because his eyes glimmer knowingly before he’s taking a step forward.

Still, he doesn’t acknowledge it. “How are you feeling?” he asks gently. 

You consider the question. “About the same,” you answer. You look towards the glistening waters outside, closing your eyes for a selfish moment as the sunlight washes over you. It takes you a few seconds to come back to the present. “Have you found it? The malady I am afflicted with?”

“...Yes,” Victor eventually responds. He doesn’t seem eager to get the words out. This is slightly unusual for him. In the time you’ve known him, he’s never been hesitant to speak his mind. You sense this is what makes him an outcast amongst other humans. They don’t appreciate his candor. Humans tend to be liars—or, at the very least, chained to pretense. They are rarely free to express themselves without fear of repercussion. 

“It only makes sense, I suppose, that I would suffer in this existence,” you muse, letting your head rest on your knees. “Given that it was stolen, not freely given.” 

“It was given,” Victor frowns, his hands resting at the edges of his pockets. His gaze is intent, piercing in its persistence. “I awarded it to you.”

“That may be,” you acquiesce, “but I am still nothing more than the sum of these parts.” An amalgamation of several different pieces, molded into an awkward and misshapen puzzle. You know your creator would never paint you in such a light, but that’s how you see it. 

Victor looks conflicted, eyes darting about the room before settling on you again. Eventually he almost seems to blurt out. “You’re in love.” 

“I am?” you question. You hadn’t even thought yourself capable of love. It doesn’t seem possible. But if that’s the explanation for your symptoms as of recent, you suppose you can’t question it. “And what is the cure?”

“Ha…” Victor exhales. He runs a hand through his hair. “Love is an emotion, a feeling. Not an affliction.” He’s pacing the room as if restless. 

“...I see,” you eventually say, though you really don’t see at all. You don’t understand what has caused his expression to be so downcast, what seems to torment him so. “Does this make you uncomfortable?”

He freezes and straightens up, as if someone just pierced him in the back with a sword. “No,” Victor says immediately, vehemently. He shakes his head. “No. That’s not it.” 

“Are you certain?” you ask. 

“Yes,” he breathes. His eyes glimmer, meeting yours before he nods. “Quite certain.”

“Very well,” you nod, accepting his conviction. “Then… why do you appear so distressed?”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Victor murmurs. “Between us, I mean.”

You squint in skeptical confusion. You don’t know what he means. That’s one of the human things that you still find difficult: ambiguity. Victor has told you that humans sometimes need to “read between the lines,” that expressions aren’t always literal. Sometimes, humans hide what they mean; sometimes, they say one thing but mean something else. It’s rather confusing. 

Victor hasn’t wielded ambiguity before. He is always clear and concise with his words—and you have to wonder if that’s because he knows you struggle with it. Regardless of the nature of that restraint, though… It appears to have broken today. 

“What is the matter?” you ask persistently, slowly unfolding yourself from your perched position and getting to your feet. Victor’s eyes follow you, flitting up as his throat bobs and he swallows. “What bothers you?”

Victor takes a deep breath. “These feelings,” he finally answers. “You spoke of the fluttering sensation, heat rising along your skin. I feel those things too.” 

“Why is that a problem?” you frown. 

“It’s not proper,” Victor answers, with a withdrawn breath that suggests he’s envisioned this conversation already. 

“Proper,” you repeat slowly. This time, you’re the one to take a step forward. Victor doesn’t move. “Propriety died when I rose, Victor.” 

His eyes sparkle, shine. 

“You are my creator,” you continue, reaching down and brushing your knuckles against his cheek. You see him suppress a flinch at the cold temperature at your hands. “Our fates are intertwined. I am not myself without you. Surely you feel the same.”

“...Yes,” Victor breathes, his hand reaching out to mold with yours. “Yes, of course I do.” 

You remain there for a while, before Victor is exhaling slowly. His gaze traces your face, the same one he made. His careful hand wielded the needle that threaded you together. And he looks at you as if there is nothing he is more proud of. 

“You said I was lonely,” your creator recalls. Another breath. “You were right.” 

“No,” you correct him, thinking back to the words he said all that time ago, “you are never lonely. Not with me.” 

“No,” Victor agrees. He reaches up, pressing his opposite hand to your face. Cradling your cheek, spreading warmth throughout your body. His lips quirk into a smile, a rare sight. Victor has always seemed so stern and focused. He rarely allows himself to express emotion or even feel it in the first place. But there’s no denying the look on his face or the gleam in his eyes as he stares at you with such open longing. “I suppose I’m not.” He squeezes your hand. Another wistful smile. “Not anymore.”

He leans into your chest for a moment, his arms winding around your waist. And you realize he’s embracing you. You stiffen on instinct, but Victor doesn’t retreat. Instead, he only waits. Waits for you to catch up to him, as he always does.

Slowly but surely, you relax. You rest your chin on his head and hunch your back a bit, so that you can embrace him back. His warmth seeps into you, heating your skin and bones until it feels as if your very core is on fire. 

Your creator. Your Victor.

You are his, and he is yours. 

You’re beginning to accept… that you wouldn’t have it any other way.