"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 reach to inspect the gash in the woman's side, but she brushes my hand away. We share a look, an agreement that neither of us will pretend she isn't beyond saving. The pool of blood beneath her has begun to thicken even as she adds to it.

I wish I could recall her name, something to let her know she'll be remembered, but even now, her face means nothing more to me than "lab assistant."

I decide to not insult her further with lies.

"He wasn't just anyone," I say, nodding to the man strapped to the chair in the center of the room. The halo fastened to his skull shines ghostly in the flickering fluorescents, sprouting a tangle of wires like fungal roots searching for a carcass to decompose. "Not just a random subject."

Through her gathering fatigue, the assistant's eyes search me. I can't help but admire that her scientific curiosity still lingers despite the approach of death, or perhaps because of it.

"This isn't the first experiment," I explain as I stand. "We've melded minds before. This ... " I trail off. My hand rustles the hair on the back of my neck, feels the cold titanium plate of the implant. "This was supposed to be the next step."

The assistant manages a weak scoff behind me. "Progress," she murmurs, and I imagine her looking about the gore-stained tiles. To the splintered drawer bin, the mangled IV stand, or other weapons I can't remember using.

"It could be," I reply, and l study the man in the chair.

He is slumped under the weight of the halo, his eyes closed and peaceful, and I can't tell if his gown was soaked from wounds of his own or the violence that took place around him.

"This could help us map the nature of the mind. A window into the human soul." I hesitate. Did his face twitch, or was it a trick of the flickering light? "You see, to draw the roads of the map correctly, we must study when the roads lead astray and into the darkest corners of our being. We need to understand the minds of those like him."

"Like him?" The assistant wheezes. She's almost gone.

"The criminally insane."

The man's eyes flash open, glare into me. His mouth contorts into a wild grin, one that pours into me, that excites me. The warmth comes from the tingling implant in my skull.

I stoop to grab a bloodied piece of metal from the floor -- the loose shaft from a rolling chair, I think. I look to the door of the lab, to the key pad on the wall. They will have changed the code by now. I search my coat pocket and find the override key.