The bone saw whined before the assistant found the courage to lower it.

He stood at Sera’s left side, the plastic shield of his goggles fogging on every nervous exhale. The blade’s teeth shimmered in the surgical light, a thin halo of sterile blue around a tool made for everything but mercy.

"Tourniquet," Dr. Davis advised, a disappointed tone to his voice that spoke volumes.

The assistant fumbled for a moment, putting the bone saw down. He wrapped a bright rubber band high on her bicep and cinched until the skin above it started to turn more red, until the veins flattened and the arm looked like it belonged to a mannequin.

The EKG kept its indifferent cadence. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Dr. Davis didn’t look at Sera yet. He spoke to the glass, to the clipboard, to the idea of her. "Phase Two will assess clotting efficiency, vessel sealing, tissue replication and gross limb regeneration. Begin with graduated trauma."

The assistant swallowed. "Depth and length?"

"Six centimeters. Longitudinal. Avoid the radial artery on the first pass," Dr. Davis said. "I want visibility before I want blood."

The bone saw stayed off as the assistant picked up one of the scalpels.

A cut like that didn’t warrant a bone saw. Not yet.

But the threat still hung above her head.

Sera watched it without blinking. The cut opened like a red mouth. It was a clean, precise line from wrist to mid-forearm. Blood surged with freedom, then slowed down, the edges beading with wet shine that turned tacky too fast.

The assistant splayed the wound with forceps, voice tight. "Dermis separation... fascia exposed... minimal bleeding after initial release—"

"Again," Dr. Davis insisted, his face completely devoid of emotion. "Clearly none of this is really affecting subject 972."

Another cut, this time perpendicular to the one before.

Cross-hatched flaps of skin began to pull away to show the pale slide of tendon, the thread work of flexors, the ropey white of it all. Sera’s eyes tracked the instruments like she was following a parlor trick.

"You’re awfully quiet, Daddy," she said. "No lullaby today?"

The assistant choked on a sound that might’ve been a laugh if it didn’t hurt to hear. But just like everything else that has happened before, Dr. Davis didn’t react. "Observe the margins."

And so, they did.

The edges of the wound were already granulating, a soft, glossy film crawling in from either side, thin as onion skin. It wasn’t miraculous. It was methodical. And it was wrong.

"Sealing rate?" Davis asked.

The assistant checked his watch. "Forty seconds to superficial film. Ninety to partial closure."

"Muscle?"

"Still open. No tremor. No spasm."

"Good," Dr. Davis grunted. That was almost praise for him. "Cut deeper."

The assistant hesitated. Then he did as he was told.

The scalpel slid between muscles, a slick parting that released a darker color of red, almost wine. The smell thickened. Sera’s nostrils flared once, a reflex more than a reaction.

Inside her ribs, the creature pressed closer to the bone and drank. It caught every spike and swallowed it, turned the fire into warmth, turned shock into breath, turned pain into the kind of silence that made men confident.

Stay blind, it whispered sending Sera comfort in the only way that it knew how. Stay arrogant.

"Ligation?" the assistant asked.

"No," Dr. Davis replied, and in that one syllable was the line he was stepping over. "Let it show us what it does without help."

Sera tilted her head toward him, lashes shadowing eyes that were too dark in this light. "He says that to everyone."

"Restraints," Dr. Davis reminded the assistant mildly. "Make sure to check the tension. We don’t want her to be able to get free."

"They’re holding," the assistant replied, as if grateful for the distraction. His gloved fingers slid over the leather cuffs, tugging, testing.

Sera didn’t try to move.

"Then proceed," sighed Dr. Davis, like all of this was beneath him. "Sever the tendon."

The scalpel kissed the white tendon and then continued to cut through it.

The flexor digitorum parted like violin string.

The fingers of Sera’s left hand should have curled or gone limp, but they didn’t do either. They stayed exactly as they were: relaxed, unbothered, the ghost of an almost-fist that never decided whether to form.

The assistant’s voice went smaller. "Functional disruption minimal."

Dr. Davis made a note. "Nerve."

The assistant looked at him.

"Pick one," grunted Dr. Davis with the air of a man coaching someone through a recipe.

He spread the incision delicately, hunted. When he found the paler cord, he lifted it with a hook, and with a flick that made his throat work, he cut it.

Sera’s mouth quirked. "You’re shaking," she told the assistant. "Do you want me to count for you?"

"Proceed," called out Davis, and the saw woke again, its teeth singing high.

The assistant’s hand hovered over the joint. "At the wrist?"

"No." Dr. Davis looked up, his eyes finally met Sera’s from the other side of the glass partition. "At the mid-forearm."

"Replacement cost," she said dryly. "Always thinking of budget."

The saw bit down.

The first contact made a sound unlike a scalpel—the raw, ugly chatter of teeth finding bone. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Sera’s body jolted once, not in pain but in courtesy, as if acknowledging the force.

The EKG spiked and settled, spiked and settled. The assistant’s elbows locked, his shoulders bunched. Bone dust lifted like chalk into the sterile air.

Halfway through, the blade bogged, refusing to continue.

The assistant reset it, angled it into a better position, and then began to cut again.

The ulna gave first with a sharp surrender, then the radius, then there was only the last threads of muscle, the skin that had been so quick to knit now forced to split. He finished it clean.

Her forearm and hand dropped to the tray with a soft, obscene thump.

For three heartbeats, everyone in the room froze.

Sera turned her head slightly and looked at her own severed hand. The nails were clean. The knuckles small. It looked like a girl’s hand, not a monster’s.

"Wave it at him," she suggested to the assistant, her head cocking to the side as she stared at her own flesh and bone. "Make him proud."

The assistant gagged, caught himself, and then suck in a deep breath, dragging air through his teeth before turning to Dr. Davis. "Hemostasis?"

"Observe," Dr. Davis replied, his attention focused on the hand and forearm.

And so, they did.