The straps were already tight around Seraphina’s wrists and ankles when the first jolt of electricity hit her.

The moment it came, the metal of the chair carried the spark to the metal of the leather buckles, and the buckles pulled until they cut into skin. The smell of over cooked meat began to permeate the air of the small lab.

There was a faint squeal of the heart monitor jumping half a beat before it even began, but once it had started, there was nothing but silence.

Seraphina’s head barely moved when the current snapped through her body. She didn’t scream, she didn’t flight, and she didn’t flinch. Her fingers twitched once against the restraints before going still again.

On the other side of the glass, Dr. Davis didn’t look at her. Not at first.

Instead, his eyes never moved away from the monitor in front of him.

Every so often, he made a note on the clipboard in front of him, but otherwise, his attention was on the numbers... at the data climbing in perfect red lines.

"Phase One," he announced, his voice even. "The goal of this phase is to understand the amount of pain that subject 972 can handle before it is unable to continue. Subject 972 has completed the first level, moving on to the second."

The assistant hesitated, only for a fraction of a second. Then his thumb pressed the switch again.

Another snap of light across Sera’s skin. The scent of ozone crawled through the air, faint, sterile, like lightning through the once predominate scent of cooked meat. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

She made a sound this time.

A soft exhale. Almost a laugh.

"That was it?" she asked, voice hoarse from too many sleepless nights, too many shocks already burned into memory. Memories from a past life merged with this one, and Sera couldn’t tell where she was anymore.

The assistant glanced at Davis, but the man didn’t answer. He wrote something on his clipboard instead.

"Vitals?"

"Heart rate spike... normalized in under two seconds," the assistant said, frowning at the screen. "Adrenaline response... minimal."

Another note on the papers.

Sera tilted her head against the table and stared at the round surgical light above her. It glared down like a second sun, bleaching the world into white edges.

"You could at least pretend you’re trying to hurt me," she muttered.

No one answered.

The assistant adjusted the dials. Higher this time. Enough voltage to make a body seize, to lock the jaw until teeth cracked, to make the bladder give out on the table.

The switch went down.

The current hit.

Hard.

The straps rattled against the table’s frame as every muscle in Sera’s body pulled tight at once. Her back arched, fingers clenching, jaw locking until bone creaked—

Then nothing.

She went slack as if someone had pulled the plug on a puppet.

Breathing even. Eyes open. Watching the ceiling.

The monitor screamed at first, numbers spiking, then flattening again into a steady rhythm like nothing happened.

The assistant’s voice cracked. "Recovery... instantaneous."

Sera smiled faintly, the corner of her mouth twisting. "Little late to be checking if I’m ticklish, don’t you think?"

Dr. Davis finally looked up from the tablet. Just once. Just at her.

"Again," he said.

The assistant swallowed but obeyed.

The next shock slammed into her like a hammer.

This one left a red mark across her ribs where the electrode touched skin. It should have blistered. Should have left her gasping, screaming, jerking against the table until her muscles gave out.

Sera only blinked.

Inside, the creature beneath her ribs drank it down like water. It bled off the adrenaline spike before it could reach her head, slowed her heartbeat to baseline, smoothed out the edges until the pain never reached her face.

Let them think she was just... built different.

Let them think she didn’t feel it at all.

But the creature could no more stop taking away Sera’s pain than Sera could stop her heart from beating.

Dr. Davis wrote another note, frown deepening. "Pain receptors intact," he murmured. "Reflex arcs functional. Recovery time... abnormal."

The assistant shifted nervously. "She should be feeling that."

"Then the problem isn’t the current," Dr. Davis said coldly. "Scalpel."

The assistant froze.

Sera didn’t. She smiled faintly at the ceiling. "Oh, finally. A party. Did you bring me a cake, Daddy? You know how much I love cake."

The assistant’s hands shook as he picked up the blade.

He pressed it down against the soft flesh of Sera’s arm.

It was only a shallow cut along the inside of her forearm, clean and clinical. Bright blood welled instantly, a thin red line running down toward the restraint around her wrist.

Sera turned her head to watch.

The blood slowed.

Clotted.

Then stopped.

Not instantly. Not supernaturally. Just... a tiny bit faster than the average human.

The assistant stared. "That should’ve taken at least two minutes—"

"Again," Davis ordered.

Another cut. Longer this time. Blood welled, ran, slowed... stopped.

The monitor beeped steadily, heart rate unchanged.

Sera tilted her head lazily toward him. "You’re very determined to make this hurt."

The assistant’s voice cracked. "She should be in shock by now—"

"Not yet," Sera said, smile thin as paper. "You haven’t even tried fire yet, let alone water. Adam would be very disappointed in you right now."

Davis ignored her. "Apply current."

The assistant hesitated. "While the wound is open?"

"Do it."

The next jolt slammed through her body, snapping across open flesh, nerves singing like struck wire.

The monitor jumped.

Sera didn’t.

Her eyes stayed open, dark and steady, staring at the ceiling like she was already bored.

The assistant swore under his breath. "This isn’t right."

"She feels it," Davis said softly, watching her instead of the screen now. "She simply... processes differently."

Sera smiled wider. "Maybe you should cut off something important. See what happens then."

The assistant turned toward Davis sharply, horrified.

But the man only wrote another note on the tablet. Calm. Cold. Detached.

"Phase Two," he said finally. "Prepare the regeneration protocol."

Sera tilted her head back against the table, smirk curling like smoke.

"Oh," she murmured. "Now it’s getting fun."

The assistant didn’t move. Not right away. His eyes flicked from Dr. Davis... to the girl on the table... to the faint, unnatural way her blood had already dried to a thin red line instead of dripping.

"Sir," he said quietly, "what exactly do you want to remove?"

Davis closed the tablet with a snap.

"Something replaceable," he said. "For now."

Sera laughed then. Soft. Low. The kind of sound that didn’t belong in a lab full of lights and steel.

"You should’ve killed me when you had the chance," she said.

The heart monitor beeped steadily on.

The assistant’s hands shook harder as he reached for the bone saw.