"I-I'm a monster." I say looking down at my shaking bloodied hands. "I-It's everywhere!" My screaming voices echoes off the walls of the small room as I begin falling, everything going black just before I hit the ground.

As I slowly regain consciousness, the metallic tang of blood fills my senses, making me gag. I force my eyes open to see the carnage that I have wrought. Bodies lie strewn across the room, limbs twisted at unnatural angles, blood pooling around them. This was not how it was supposed to be. This experiment was meant to bring about a new era of medicine, to cure diseases and heal wounds. But something had gone terribly wrong.

I stumble to my feet, using the wall for support. My head is pounding, my thoughts clouded by guilt and confusion. How could I have let this happen? I was so sure of my research, so convinced that I had found the key to saving lives. But now, all I see are the lives that I have taken, the damage that I have caused.

As I make my way through the wreckage, I hear a faint whimpering coming from the corner of the room. I follow the sound and find a young woman, barely conscious and clutching a wound on her side. Tears fill her eyes as she looks up at me, a mixture of fear and disbelief in her gaze.

"I'm so sorry," I whisper, sinking to my knees beside her. "I never meant for any of this to happen."

She recoils from my touch, her gaze hardening as she speaks. "You may not have meant for this to happen, but you knew the risks. You knew the consequences of playing god, and yet you did it anyway."

Her words hit me like a punch to the gut, the weight of her accusation crushing me. She was right. I had been so blinded by my own ambition, so consumed by the desire for success that I had ignored the warnings, the signs that something was not right.

As I sit there, surrounded by death and destruction, I know that I cannot undo what has been done. But I can try to make amends. I can try to find a way to fix this, to make things right. And maybe, just maybe, I can find a way to redeem myself in the eyes of those who have suffered because of my hubris.

But as I look around at the aftermath of my experiment, I know that the road to redemption will be long and perilous. And there may be no turning back from the darkness that I have unleashed.

I waver over my cellphone. Three numbers. 911. That's all it is--three numbers to save lives ... three numbers to reveal the entire project. And of course, my own role in this terrible night. I wouldn't be surprised if I wound up in prison.

I click on my phone app. My finger is shaking so hard I can barely select the Keypad. The numbers gape up at me, glaringly bright in the eerie umbra that has fallen upon the lab. I've never seen it so dark--normally it's so flooded with white light that shadows can't exist here. Now everything is shadow, and the only light is what beams from my phone. Yet I still linger, wavering. I have the mad thought ... the mad hope to recover my creature and repair the damage without calling the authorities.

The woman stares up at me. Her blue-eyed gaze is hard and sharp like ice, yet somehow, I know she is hoping, desperately hoping, that I will make the call. Her blood stains the white floor.

I look at all the damage, the blood, the dead, the injured, the dying. I think about the monster that is likely prowling around the lab's many hallways like a lost shadow--a beast I forged out of the long-lived creatures of earth. I shudder, now in fear for my own skin. I think of the long teeth that sprouted in its jaws overnight. I took it as a sign of progress, of hope for humanity. I shake my head against the tears. I was blind, foolish, and careless ... and I deserve prison after what happened here.

My finger moves. 9.

Shaking, I reach for the second number. 1.

I struggle to move myself to hit the last one, but I do it. 1.

Now I just have to hit 'Call'.

A shuddery, salivatory growl shivers up from some distance away ... it's echoey in the vents. The woman gasps. Her face is white, not just from blood loss, but from fear. My face is probably just as white. Wonderful! As if I wasn't shaking enough already! How close is the beast? I frantically hit Call.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"I'm not sure how to describe this ..." I say hurriedly, but I'm cut off by a throaty roar. Loud footsteps crash through what I know is the room just next to this. "There is a dangerous animal on the loose!"

"Are you in danger? Is anyone hurt?"

"Well, yes ... lots of people," I flail my hand around at the carnage, even though the operator can't see it. "But the creature is still around! It's huge ... it's--"

The locked lab door suddenly flies off its hinges and crashes against the wall. Red eyes glow at us from the dark. Saliva drips off the teeth, shiny in the light of its eyes. The woman screams.

"Shelley Laboratory!" I shout into the phone. "HURRY!"