Chapter 2
"My imagination, I know not why, delighted in torturing me with visions that would thrill the blood and make the heart palpitate." —**Historical Archive 𝕄𝕒𝕣𝕪 𝕊𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕪, year 1831 — Record No. FRK-015//ΔΣЖл✖⌁▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
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Chapter 2: Reflectios, Mistake and memories
Two weeks had passed since that night when the sky roared, flesh shuddered in the storm, and a new life—or something like it—opened its eyes for the first time.
Since then, the creature had remained in an isolated room, in one of the mansion's less-traveled wings.
Victor had equipped it with the bare minimum: a bed with a metal frame, a small table with instruments, and a lamp hanging from the ceiling like a solitary eye. Everything was clean, but cold. Inert.
"She" had also noticed that the man's dark circles had not only not diminished since the day he was born, but had grown larger and deeper.
It seemed as if he hadn't closed his eyes since that day. Or even before.
The magus came in every day. Sometimes with instruments. Sometimes with just a notebook. He observed. He took notes. Sometimes he touched it carefully, applying mechanisms, measuring impulses, reactions. And when he didn't find what he was looking for... he fell silent, frustrated. He avoided looking at her directly.
Their interactions were brief, punctuated by long silences. He spoke in a subdued, almost mechanical voice, as if he were nothing more than a cold, lifeless machine. She listened to him in silence, sometimes nodding, other times just staring at him, as if she were assessing him.
She wasn't what he'd imagined. She wasn't perfect. She was too quiet. Too thoughtful. Too... human.
"You have to learn," he told her. "To control your impulses. To speak properly." Or sometimes, in rare fits of rage, he would simply shout, "Don't look at me like that!"
But she kept doing it. She always looked at him with those dull eyes, one light green and the other pale blue, with a distant yet focused gaze.
One afternoon, he found her leafing through a book he didn't remember lending her. An old copy of "De Humani Corporis Fabrica", illustrated with skeletons and organs. Eva turned the pages slowly, running her fingers over them, as if she wanted to feel the knowledge she possessed.
"Where did you find it?" he asked irritably. He was sure he hadn't left that book there. A thought struck him: had she left the room? he thought uncertainly. She just looked at him. Victor shook his head and grabbed the book roughly. For some reason, he didn't feel comfortable letting her see its contents.
She didn't respond. But he looked down, and for the first time, he thought he saw a slight grimace touch her lips.
Was that... disappointment?
The first true emotion he'd seen in his creation, apart from the fear and fury of her birth.
He felt a pang in his stomach. Not of guilt. Not of pity. It was something more. He didn't dwell on that thought; he quickly left the room and this time locked the door... just to be sure.
Later, during one of his routine evaluations, Victor tried to measure her nerves' reaction to pain. He had designed a simple, controlled procedure... at least in theory.
Eva didn't scream.
She didn't even blink.
She just watched him. As if she knew exactly what he was doing. As if she understood... or forgave him.
Victor walked away, dropping the scalpel onto the small mobile table he'd brought. He rubbed his hands together vigorously, as if trying to erase something invisible. Then he murmured:
"She's not responding as she should. It's not logical. Her synapses... they're not empty. She's not a tabula rasa. So... where's the error?"
The question wasn't directed at her, but at the void. But Eva heard it.
And for the first time, her voice emerged in a barely audible whisper:
"Does...that...mean...I'm...broken?" The words came out clumsy, halting, as if each syllable were difficult to pronounce.
It wasn't just a physical difficulty; it was as if the language were still foreign, borrowed.
Victor froze. His voice was hoarse and thick, rough, imperfect. BAD.
"It shouldn't be like this," he thought with frustration, like a wound burning his mind. But his face showed nothing. Not a tremor. Not a shadow.
Then, without looking at her, without saying another word, he left the room. Eva followed him with her eyes. She didn't fully understand what had just happened. Only... something was wrong. Something about her.
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Pov. Victor.
Victor didn't pause for a moment upon hearing her first words.
He didn't even care that his creation could speak.
That was overshadowed by the fact that it wasn't what he had envisioned.
It wasn't perfect.
He walked through the dark corridors of his laboratory, the light from the alchemical tubes bathing his hunched figure in a greenish glow.
Where is the error...?
His mind, trained to dissect, calculate, and understand, precisely reviewed each step of the procedure. Each formula. Each hand-molded fold of flesh.
The nerves responded. The Od flows. The soul anchored. The spiritual connection stable. So... why?
He gritted his teeth. The echo of his solitary footsteps seemed louder than ever.
She spoke. She reasoned, even if rudimentarily. She is not a wild beast. And yet... that voice. That gaze. That latent imperfection.
He stopped beside an old bookshelf, resting a hand against the cracked wood.
Is this what I am now? A craftsman of aberrations?
He remembered the first time he thought of Eve, not as a concept, but as a symbol. The beginning of something greater.
Eve... The first step. The mold... Adam's mother. The original vessel, capable of giving birth to the perfect being.
He covered his face with his hand, trembling. Not from fear. But from disappointment.
This isn't her. This isn't the figure I envisioned. This isn't the key to the next stage.
And yet... her words had stopped him. For an instant. A split second.
Why... Why did I stop?
He frowned. It can't be... compassion. That stupid feeling. A magus is unmoved. A magus observes. Evaluates. Cuts. Substitutes.
To be a magus is to walk with death.
An existence that renounces love, empathy, the present. All to reach the root. The Origin.
But the image remained vivid in his mind: those trembling hands, that broken voice, that stifled cry he didn't understand, but which resonated with too much humanity.
She's not perfect. She's not what I wanted. And yet... why do I feel like she's... judging me?
He punched the wall hard, leaving a crack in the stone.
Damn it! I don't need her judgment! I am the one who creates! I AM THE ARCHITECT!
His breathing became labored. Slow. Finally, he looked back at his bloody hand. Trembling.
So... the mistake was mine...?
Silence didn't earn him an answer.
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Pov. Eva.
The room fell silent after Victor's departure.
Only the faint hum of the machines remained, the dripping of a faulty valve... and her.
Eva sat on the edge of the bed, her feet dangling like those of a child who doesn't understand her place.
The skin of her arms was still wrapped in bandages, yet she felt the cold of the floor through them.
Her fingers trembled slightly. She sat there, her mind trying to form coherent thoughts. She didn't understand why.
"Broken..."
"NO"
"But... he said I am."
"Lie."
"He... created me."
"Lie."
"He... understands better than I..."
"LIE!!"
Her hands went straight to her head, as if she wanted to silence voices that weren't her own.
Her face twisted in anguish, her eyes wide with inexplicable terror.
She couldn't speak properly. She didn't understand. But something inside her burned.
And then...A flash.
A glimpse.
A fleeting image.
"Broken." The word floated like a needle in her mind, stabbing with an uneasy familiarity.
"Broken..."
"Who... taught me that?" And like a spark in the darkness, a distant memory emerged. Diffuse. Warm.
A room lit by sunlight filtering through the window and curtains.
A soft voice. Delicate hands holding a doll.
"What's wrong with Molly's?" came a white, childlike voice.
"It's broken, see?" a woman said with a sweet smile, pointing to a doll's detached arm. "But it's okay, we can fix it."
The little girl—she, maybe—nodded, her eyes wide open, more concerned with the condition of the toy than what her mother was teaching her.
A laugh. A caress. A magical warmth blossoming in her head.
And then... nothing.
The memory faded as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving behind the word: broken. But now that word held no comfort. No warm hands, no promises of repair. Only disarray. Only a cold emptiness she couldn't explain.
Eva shuddered. Like a huge puzzle, a puzzle desperately trying to piece itself together.
But still...
"This voice..."
The warmth and the voice she had heard remained in her mind, like a tender embrace that clarified her thoughts.
Tears fell from her eyes, but she didn't understand the reason for them.
Her body responded, but her soul... was a labyrinth of fog.
She placed a hand on her chest, as if trying to stop something that was throbbing violently.
"Who...?" she murmured, her voice hoarse and broken.
She wasn't asking about Victor.
She wasn't asking about her "creator."
She was asking about the woman she had seen.
She squeezed her eyes shut, but the memories didn't return. Like smoke between her fingers, they were gone. And with them, the only certainty she had in that instant: she felt that this was the real one.
That life wasn't this one.
This life is false.
This life... it hurt.
She hugged herself. The mattress beneath her legs sank slightly.
She thought there was an appropriate word for her current state.
Alone.
Totally alone.
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Pov. Third Person
Darkness surrounded her again, not like an abyss devouring her, but like a soft blanket falling slowly.
After hours of stifled sobs, silent tears, and shattered thoughts, her body finally gave way.
The crying brought her no answers, but it left her empty. Light.
And in that emptiness, sleep came to find her. Not violently, not with confusion. But like an unexpected comfort, as if, for an instant, the world allowed her to stop struggling.
Her eyelids fell without resistance, her breathing became slow and steady.
And she slept.
Not like an abandoned monster... but like a lost child who, at last, found refuge in her own dreams.
End of Chapter 2
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Well, that's it for Chapter 2. I hope anyone who reads this enjoys it, and if not, I'm always open to criticism or comments. Goodbye, have a good night (if it's nighttime wherever you are).
EXTRA NOTE: Writing in webnovel on a cell phone is difficult.