High above the factory—in its most untouched, hidden sanctum—she lay.

A woman.

Not just any woman, but something otherworldly.

A goddess in human form.

She was breathtaking—ethereal in a way that defied reality. The dim light bathed her in an almost celestial glow, illuminating skin so flawless, so porcelain-smooth, it looked untouched by time.

Her face was the kind that inspired poetry—long, white lashes resting like soft feathers against her high cheekbones, her lips a perfect shade of cherry, plush and inviting. Her nose was delicate, her brows gently arched, as if crafted by the most patient of sculptors.

And her hair—a cascading waterfall of silvery white—spilled across the pristine sheets, shimmering with a faint luster, as though woven from threads of moonlight itself.

But it wasn’t just her face that entranced.

The curves of her body—elegant, sculpted, divine—rose and fell with each shallow breath, accentuated by the fitted white dress clinging to her form beneath the open lab coat. The fabric hugged her slender waist, tracing the gentle swell of her hips, the soft arch of her collarbone leading down to the dip of her exposed shoulder.

And yet—

Despite the picture of untouched perfection, something was wrong.

Very wrong.

Her chest barely moved. Her breaths came so faint, so fragile, that she might as well have been carved from marble.

The source of her suffering lay exposed.

The delicate white fabric had been torn away at her side, revealing the deep, cruel wound that marred her flawless skin.

Dark veins pulsed around the gash, twisting like cursed roots, creeping outward—spreading.

Reaching for her heart.

A faint tremor ran through her fingers. Her eyelids twitched, ever so slightly.

Even in unconsciousness, she felt the pain.

A shadow loomed over the bed.

Massive. Monstrous. Enigmatic.

The figure stood tall, its sheer presence devouring the dim light that barely reached this secluded chamber. A being of metal and darkness, faceless yet sentient.

One of its hands—an intricate assembly of needle-like mechanisms—twitched, gleaming under the cold factory glow. The other hand, though still mechanical, was more human-like in structure. Fingers crafted with eerie precision. A grotesque imitation of what it once was… or what it could have been.

Slowly, awkwardly, the mechanical fingers extended.

They hovered over the sleeping beauty’s silken hair, strands of silvery-white gliding between its cold touch.

It was hesitant.

It had never done this before.

A foreign act. A fragile thing in its monstrous grasp.

It knew science. Surgery. Anatomy.

It knew how to cut. How to stitch. How to mend.

But comfort?

That was something beyond its understanding.

It studied her. The slow rise and fall of her chest. The way her porcelain skin was marred by spreading darkness, black veins creeping outward like a deathly omen.

This was not normal.

It had seen wounds before—it had created wounds before.

But this?

The blood oozing from her side was not red.

Not human.

It was deep purple. Thick. Foreign.

It wasn’t healing—it was changing.

The figure straightened. The mechanics within its chest whirred softly as it processed the situation.

The wound needed to be cleaned. Stitched. Secured.

It reached for the cloth, its motions eerily precise, preparing to redress the injury—

Then it stilled.

Something moved.

A skittering sound.

From the folds of the woman’s tattered lab coat, a small creature emerged.

A scorpion.

It crawled over the pristine white fabric, its small legs clicking softly against the sheets as it moved toward her exposed wound.

The figure’s needle-hand twitched. Its first instinct was to eliminate it.

Crush it. Destroy it.

It lifted its hand, prepared to strike—

But the scorpion moved too fast.

In an instant, it burrowed into the wound.

Drilled inside.

Straight into the spreading black veins.

The woman’s body jerked.

Her back arched—a sharp convulsion.

And then—

She stilled.

The figure hesitated, processing what had just happened.

Its mechanical hand hovered over her now motionless form.

And for the first time in its existence—

It felt something close to uncertainty.

The figure hesitated, then lowered its human-like mechanical hand, brushing its fingertips against the beauty’s face. Porcelain. Ice-cold.

It moved with precision, placing two fingers just beneath her nose.

A pause.

Then—a faint breath.

Weak. Shallow. But there.

She was alive.

The figure's head tilted slightly, processing. The convulsion had ceased, and her body had gone eerily still. But the scorpion... it had vanished inside her.

Had it helped her?

Or had it made things worse?

The figure did not know.

Gently, with surprising care for something so monstrous, the figure reached down and adjusted the torn fabric of her dress. It took fresh bandages from a nearby metal tray, its needle-hand working with cold efficiency as it wrapped the wound again, covering the corruption that threatened to spread.

It stitched the torn flesh methodically, knowing she wouldn’t feel it in this unconscious state. The soft glow of overhead lights flickered, casting elongated shadows across the room as the factory creaked around them.

When it was done, the figure stepped back, observing its work.

The woman’s long silver-white hair spilled over the bed like liquid light. Her dress clung to her curves, accentuating her delicate yet resilient frame. She looked ethereal—a goddess trapped in the body of the dying.

Its head tilted slightly, scanning the beauty before it. The dim factory lights flickered, casting a soft, ghostly glow over her still form.

She looked untouched by time, as if she belonged to something greater than this decaying place.

Her long lashes trembled, eyes twitching beneath closed lids. Was she dreaming? Or was she trapped inside herself, just like this factory was trapped in ruin?

The figure’s metal fingers ghosted over her forehead, brushing aside a stray lock of silver-white hair. Silky. Weightless. A stark contrast to the cold metal of its touch.

Her breathing remained shallow, chest rising and falling in uneven intervals. The wound was wrapped, the stitches secure, but the veins beneath her skin continued to darken. A creeping infection. Something unnatural.

The figure’s gaze moved lower, to where her dress clung to her form, accentuating the gentle curve of her waist, the smooth line of her legs. Delicate, yet strong. A contradiction. Just like everything else about her.

It had seen humans before. Countless of them.

But never one like her.

The factory groaned, the sound reverberating through the steel beams above. It was a reminder—this place was dying. Just like she was.

And yet…

She still breathed.

It wasn’t time for her to die.

The figure’s human-like mechanical hand clenched, the joints whirring softly. There was something there—a flicker of thought, of memory. It didn’t understand it, couldn’t process it fully.

But it knew one thing—she was not to die.

Not yet.

Turning, the figure stepped away from the bed, moving deeper into the shadows of the factory.

The sound of its heavy movements faded, swallowed by the hum of distant machinery.

The woman—the beauty, the anomaly, the goddess trapped in a decaying world—remained still, her unconscious form bathed in flickering light.

And though she did not wake, her fingers twitched, her body shifting ever so slightly.

As if something inside her was beginning to stir.