In a Dimly Lit Corridor.

Metal walls stretched endlessly in both directions, pulsing with a faint red glow as emergency lights flickered in and out of existence. The air was thick with static, charged with something unnatural. The factory felt alive—watching, waiting.

A figure moved through the darkness.

Not a person.

Not entirely.

Its form was twisted—elongated limbs, fingers that curled into sharp points, a body that seemed to flicker in and out of visibility, as if caught between dimensions. It dragged something behind it.

A toy.

Broken. Bloodied.

Still breathing.

The creature paused, tilting its head, its glowing eyes narrowing.

It wasn’t alone.

Meters away, Yazmina watched.

She stood at the far end of the corridor, her posture relaxed but coiled with quiet tension. Shadows clung to her like a second skin, the dim lighting barely illuminating the eerie glow of her red irises. But the most striking feature—the most unnatural—was the nine segmented tails that swayed behind her, curling and uncurling like living serpents.

Her tails had emerged the moment she had awakened, a manifestation of something she didn’t yet understand. Ever since then, she had been trying to control them, to master the way they moved, the way they responded to her will.

It was… difficult.

They reacted on instinct, lashing out with terrifying speed whenever she felt even the slightest flicker of emotion. Sometimes they moved as if they had a mind of their own, twisting unnaturally, responding to something beyond her conscious control.

She had no idea why she had transformed into this.

She had asked. Demanded. But the Prototype had refused to answer.

Instead, it had brought her here.

To teach her.

To hunt.

But she wasn’t like it.

She didn’t feel hunger.

Not anymore.

---

The first time the Prototype had brought her food, it had been funny.

A toy. Small, round, stitched together with mismatched fabric and an oversized head. It had been alive when he carried it in, trembling in its tiny hands, its plastic button-eyes glossy with something close to fear.

The Prototype had set it before her feet, watching—waiting.

Yazmina had stared at the thing. It had stared back.

Then, without hesitation, she had turned away.

The next time, it had been dead.

The same kind of toy, but its seams had been torn open, stuffing spilling from its little chest. Its limbs twitched slightly, the last flickers of whatever life it had lingering.

Again, she had rejected it.

The Prototype had watched her for a long, silent moment. His eye pulsed—calculating.

He did not speak.

But the next night, he tried again.

---

She had woken up to the sound of something like bones breaking.

Not from herself.

But from him.

The Prototype had been waiting at the far end of the room, his massive, twisted frame barely visible in the dim light. And at his feet—

Birds.

Small ones. Sparrows, maybe. Probably birds that come and go in this Factory. Their fragile wings were bent at unnatural angles, beaks slightly open as if mid-scream. Some were still twitching, their bodies jerking as the last of their lives faded away.

He had gathered them.

For her.

Yazmina had remained perfectly still.

He had motioned toward them.

"Eat."

The word was layered, distorted, a low, echoing whisper that sank into her bones.

She had only stared.

Minutes passed.

Then, the Prototype’s head tilted slightly, his eyes flickering—faintly confused.

She didn’t need to eat.

Didn’t feel the urge to consume.

That was when he must have realized.

That this wasn’t working.

Yazmina hadn’t noticed at first.

When she had woken up in that cold, dimly lit space, her thoughts had been consumed by other things—her own body, her nine shifting tails, the unnatural sharpness of her senses. But as the days passed, she began to recognize something familiar.

This wasn’t just any room.

It was his room.

The Prototype’s former confinement.

She pieced it together in fragments—details she had seen in scraps of old documents, fleeting glimpses in the game’s hidden lore. The size of the area, the reinforced walls, the faint markings on the floor where restraints had once been bolted down. The space was vast, far larger than any typical containment chamber, built to withstand something far beyond human.

And above—

Glass.

Not just one panel, but all of it. The entire perimeter of the room was encased in glass. At first, she thought it was for transparency, for observation. But the truth became apparent quickly—

She couldn’t see through it.

It was one-way.

She had no way of knowing who—if anyone—was watching from the other side.

She had tried to track them. Listened for sounds. Searched for reflections in the dim glow of the emergency lights.

Nothing.

Whoever had been in control of this place before had designed it this way. It was really built for Him.

And yet—

The Prototype could come and go.

She had seen it.

Watched as he entered without hesitation, looming over her, his massive, shifting frame unbound by the restrictions that once held him captive.

But she couldn’t.

Every time she had approached the door, every time she had tried to leave, she found it locked. Sealed as if it had never been meant to open for her.

She had tried brute force. Her strength had grown exponentially since waking—she could crush metal, shatter reinforced glass, bend steel beams with little effort.

But this door—

It didn’t even budge.

Someone, somewhere, had made sure of that.

And the Prototype?

He never answered her questions.

Never acknowledged her growing frustration.

Instead, he had simply watched.

Studied.

Waited.

And when he had finally brought her food—when she had refused—

He had left.

And hours later—

He brought her here.

The air in the corridor was thick, heavy with something anticipatory.

The creature ahead of her dragged its broken prey across the floor, its claws clicking against the metal.

Yazmina flexed her fingers, feeling the shift in her tails as they coiled in anticipation.

But she didn’t move.

Didn’t lunge.

Didn’t hunt.

Because she didn’t want to.

The Prototype had brought her here for a reason—to teach her, to push her, to make her embrace whatever she had become. But despite everything—despite the changes to her body, the eerie stillness in her veins where hunger should have been—she couldn’t.

She still couldn’t bear the thought of killing.

Not like this.

Not just to kill.

Yet her tails—

They twitched. Shifted. Writhed.

They were restless.

Not from hunger. She had never felt hunger since she mutated, had never needed food. But her tails still reacted, moving with an almost primal instinct, flicking like a predator tasting the air.

She had seen this before.

The scorpion.

The one she had stolen. Observed.

It never ate.

Never needed to eat.

But it still killed.

Ruthlessly. Brutally. It would strike with terrifying precision, venom-laced stinger impaling its prey over and over, even when the creature was already long dead.

Not out of hunger.

Out of instinct.

Was that what this was?

Was she the same?

Her tails curled, the tips quivering as if awaiting her command.

But Yazmina only clenched her fists.

No.

She wasn’t like the scorpion.

She wouldn’t be.

The Prototype wanted to teach her how to hunt.

But she smirked.

She would teach this side of her instead.