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"Hold it still! If the graft slips, we lose the whole batch!"
The shout came with a violent jerk. A heavy, metallic clamp slammed shut around my wrist, pinning me to a cold slab of steel. I couldn't scream—not because I didn't want to, but because my throat felt like it had been replaced by a wet sponge and jagged glass.
I blinked, and the world was a blur of flickering fluorescent lights and the smell of old copper and bleach. Above me, a man in a blood-stained apron leaned in, his eyes wide with a manic sort of greed. He wasn't looking at me like a person. He was looking at me like a piece of steak.
"Look at the stitching on this one," the man muttered, poking a finger into a deep, raw seam running down my forearm. "Clean. Whoever did the graft work on this beast had a steady hand. Vane’s going to pay a premium for this hide."
*Beast? Graft? What the hell are you talking about?*
I tried to pull away, but my body didn't respond. It felt heavy, wrong, like I was wearing a suit made of lead and raw meat. I looked down and nearly choked. My skin wasn't skin. It was a patchwork of grey, bruised leather and sickly pale flesh, held together by thick, black surgical thread. I wasn't a man anymore. I was a goddamn quilt of monsters.
"Settle down, 402," the man snapped. He grabbed a jagged needle from a tray and drove it straight into the base of my neck.
Pain exploded. Not just a sting, but a searing, white-hot bolt that fried my nerves. I bucked against the slab, the metal rattling under my weight.
"Easy!" another voice barked from the shadows. A second man stepped forward, holding a heavy electric prod. "The Harvest is in sixty seconds. If you stress the meat, the quality drops. Just lie there and let us tag you, you mindless piece of stock."
*Stock. I'm stock.*
Panic surged. I remembered a lab. A flash of white light. An explosion that felt like it tore the universe apart. I remembered my name—Jace. I was a researcher. I was a human being. I wasn't a fucking animal to be tagged and sold.
"Get... off... me," I managed to wheeze. The words sounded like a wet growl, deep and guttural, vibrating in my chest.
The man with the needle froze. He looked at me, his eyebrows knitting together. "Did it just speak?"
"Probably just a death rattle," the other one said, stepping closer with the prod. "These stitch-beasts sometimes mimic sounds before they pop. Waste of a good graft if it's already brain-dead."
He lunged forward, aiming the prod at my chest. I didn't think. I just reacted. My right arm—the one with the weird, heavy muscle mass—snapped up. I didn't just block him; I grabbed his wrist.
*Crack.*
The sound of bone snapping was sickeningly loud in the small room. The man screamed, his prod clattering to the floor. I felt something shift inside me. A hunger. Not for food, but for *more*. As I gripped his arm, I felt a strange, electric pull, like my skin was trying to drink from his.
"You little freak!" The first man screamed, reaching for a heavy cleaver on the table. "I'll carve that tongue right out of your head!"
I surged off the slab, the clamps tearing through my stitched skin with a spray of dark, thick blood. I didn't feel the pain. I felt power. I lunged at him, my new body moving with a terrifying, jerky speed. I slammed him against the wall, my hand crushing his windpipe.
"What... am I?" I snarled, the voice now a full-blown roar that shook the room.
"You're... inventory!" he gasped, clawing at my arm. "You're just... meat!"
I tightened my grip, ready to squeeze the life out of him, when the heavy steel door behind me hissed open.
"Drop him. Now."
The voice was cold, sharp as a razor. I spun around, my chest heaving.
A woman stood in the doorway. She was clad in reinforced leather gear, a heavy-duty Rift Hunter’s blade strapped to her thigh and a high-caliber pistol leveled right at my forehead. Her eyes were hard, scanning me from the stitched seams of my neck to the claws on my fingers. She didn't look scared. She looked annoyed.
"I don't know what kind of glitch you are, 402," she said, her finger tightening on the trigger. "But the Farm doesn't like it when the livestock starts fighting back. It makes the paperwork a nightmare."
I stepped back, the man I'd been choking sliding to the floor in a heap. I tried to hold up my hands to show I wasn't attacking, but seeing my claws—long, black, and curved—made me flinch.
"I'm not... a beast," I said, my voice cracking. "My name is Jace. I don't belong here."
She didn't even blink. "Cute. The stitch-beasts are starting to think they have names now. Maybe the mutation hit your frontal lobe."
She stepped into the room, the muzzle of the gun never wavering from the bridge of my nose. I could smell her—gun oil, rain, and something metallic. The air between us was thick, charged with a tension that made the hair on my neck stand up. She was small compared to my new, hulking frame, but she held all the power. One twitch, and my head would be a red smear on the wall.
"Who are you?" I asked, my voice dropping to a low rumble.
"The person who's going to put you back in the cage or put a bullet in your brain," she replied. "Depends on if you can tell me why you're not currently drooling on the floor like every other failure in this ward."
I opened my mouth to answer, but a sudden, violent spasm racked my body. I collapsed to my knees, my vision blurring. A screen—translucent and glowing a sickly neon violet—snapped into existence before my eyes.
**[SYSTEM ALERT: CRITICAL DAMAGE DETECTED]** **[STATUS: TERMINAL]** **[CRAFTED TRAITS: NONE]**
*What is this?*
I looked up. The woman had her gun aimed right between my eyes, her expression a mix of curiosity and disgust.
"What's wrong, 402? Heart giving out?"
I tried to stand, but my lungs felt like they were filling with lead. The world started to dim. The woman leaned in, the barrel of the gun now touching my skin, cold and unforgiving.
"Last chance," she whispered. "Give me a reason not to end this right now."
I couldn't speak. I couldn't even breathe. As the darkness closed in, the violet screen flickered and changed, a new prompt flashing in bold, bleeding letters.
**[DEATH IMMINENT]** **[HIDDEN ABILITY UNLOCKED: CHRONOS-GORGE]** **[Would you like to rewind 72 hours upon death? (Y/N)]**
I didn't have time to think. I didn't even have time to scream.
*Bang.*