"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 was standing in the doorway when he finally lifted his head.

The alarms had died hours ago, replaced by an awful stillness that pressed on my ears. I had arrived late—too late—because I’d trusted his assurances, the calm confidence in his voice during our last call. “One more trial,” he’d said. “Then we publish.” I told myself that brilliant people always sounded reckless right before they changed the world.

Now the room looked like a monument to silence. Not the kind that comes with peace, but the kind that follows a storm.

He didn’t see me at first. He was kneeling beside Mara, his hands shaking as if they didn’t belong to him anymore. I recognized that look. I’d seen it in surgeons after losing a patient, in students after realizing the exam wasn’t the real test. It was the look of someone whose certainty had collapsed.

“You always did hate being wrong,” I said softly.

He flinched, then turned. His eyes were bloodshot, hollow, searching for something to hold onto. “You shouldn’t be here,” he muttered. “No one should.”

“That’s funny,” I replied, stepping inside. “I warned you this would happen.”

I wasn’t angry anymore. Anger takes energy, and all of mine had been burned away by what I saw when I walked in. What remained was a steady, aching clarity.

I checked Mara’s breathing, pressed gauze to her side, and met her eyes. She squeezed my hand weakly. That small pressure felt heavier than any accusation. She was alive. That mattered.

“You can still help,” I told him. “But not by pretending this is something you can fix alone.”

He shook his head. “I wanted to end suffering.”

“So did everyone in this room,” I said. “That doesn’t make you special. It makes you responsible.”

I pulled out my comm and sent the call I’d been dreading: emergency services, containment teams, ethics oversight. Each word felt like sealing a door he’d been desperate to keep open. When I finished, he looked at me like I’d betrayed him.

“No,” I said, anticipating the protest. “This is what accountability looks like.”

As we waited, I thought about the early days—late nights fueled by bad coffee and impossible hope. I remembered how careful he used to be, how he once scrapped six months of work because a single result didn’t sit right with him. Somewhere along the way, urgency had replaced caution. Saving the future had become more important than protecting the present.

When the lights of the responders finally cut through the darkened windows, he slumped against the wall, exhausted in a way sleep would never fix.

Redemption isn’t a breakthrough or a confession. It’s a long series of choices made without applause. I don’t know if he’ll have the strength to make them.

But as they carried Mara out alive, I allowed myself one small, stubborn hope: that this disaster would not be the end of the story—but the moment it finally became honest.