"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!"

The beast’s roar vibrates in my bones as I drag the injured woman behind an overturned metal table. The emergency operator’s voice crackles faintly from the phone still clutched in my hand, but I can’t bring myself to answer. Not while those red eyes sweep the room like twin searchlights. The creature steps forward, sniffing the air. Its claws scrape against the tile, a sound like knives dragged across stone. I press my back against the table, trying to steady my breath. The woman trembles beside me, her hand clamped over her wound.

“Is it… hunting us?” she whispers.

“No,” I murmur, though I’m not sure I believe it. “It’s confused. It’s scared.”

She gives me a look that says she doesn’t buy that for a second.

The beast prowls closer. Its shadow stretches long across the floor. A low, rumbling growl rolls out of its chest. With a single swipe, it tears through the tiles, ripping them up like cheap cardboard. Dust explodes into the air. Beneath the floor, thick cables and reinforced panels are exposed. My breathe hitches. If it tears through those--

The woman stares at me. “What is it doing?”

My stomach twists. Because I know exactly what it’s doing.

“It’s going for the sublevel,” I whisper.

The sublevel; the place where my real project lived. The part I hid from the board, from the ethics committee, from everyone. The part that could destroy me, in more ways more graphic than metaphorical. The beast claws again, widening the hole. The floor groans under the strain.

“You didn’t just make one of those things, did you?” the woman says, her voice thin with dread.

I swallow hard. “No.”

“How many?”

I can’t answer. Not because I don't want to, but because the truth is worse than a number. The truth is that I don’t know how many survived, or mutated, or learned. The creature rips up another section of flooring, exposing the steel hatch beneath. It slams its weight down on it, again and again, until the hinges begin to warp.

The woman grabs my sleeve. “We have to get out of here.”

“We can’t,” I say. “If it gets down there—”

“It already is down there,” she snaps. “Isn't it?"

She’s right. The project has been rotting under the floorboards for months—my ambition, my shortcuts, my arrogance. I buried it, thinking I could control it, thinking I could gas it to sleep. It didn't work, didn't starve, didn't burn; I tried everything. Thinking I could fix it before anyone noticed. The hatch finally buckles and the beast drops through the opening with a heavy thud, disappearing into the darkness below with a distant metallic crash. Sirens wail faintly in the distance, but I know it won’t be enough. They aren't prepared. Not if the creature reaches the deeper chambers. Not if it frees what’s still locked inside.

I stand, forcing my shaking legs to hold me. “We need to move. Now.”

“Where?” she asks.

“Down,” I say, staring into the dark hole torn into the floor. “Fast.”

If I don’t face what I created, the whole world might.