The rain had softened by morning, but it hadn't stopped.It whispered against the lab windows like a secret trying to be heard. The city outside shimmered faintly through the fog, the light pale and sleepless — much like Hana herself.
She hadn't gone home.Her lab coat still clung to her shoulders, damp at the edges from last night's storm. The girl — Lilith Noir — had vanished before security arrived, leaving only fragments: the torn gauze she never used, the faint imprint of her presence on the cold tile floor, and a single blood sample Hana had taken before she disappeared.
Now that sample sat beneath her microscope, glowing faintly against the sterile white.No color looked like this — not quite red, not quite silver.It pulsed.
She leaned closer, eyes narrowing. The cells didn't move randomly; they expanded and contracted in rhythm, like a living metronome.Each beat synced with the faint sound she swore she could hear through the glass — the rain tapping in perfect time.
"Don't anthropomorphize it," she muttered, forcing a shaky breath. "It's just an anomaly. Just chemistry."
But the data didn't lie.Every three seconds, the cells flared faintly, releasing a shimmer like reflected moonlight.
Hana scribbled notes:Possible unknown hemoglobin variant.Non-human structure. Viral? Synthetic? Unknown.
She reached for her stethoscope out of habit, then stopped. The room was quiet except for the soft hum of the freezer. She could hear her own pulse — steady, anxious — in her ears.But beneath it, faintly, there was something else.
A second rhythm.Soft. Subtle. Not her own.
She froze, hand hovering above her chest.
The sound came from the microscope.
Hana stepped back. The monitor displayed real-time magnification of the blood sample, but now, the cells weren't just pulsing — they were mimicking her heartbeat.
The closer she moved, the faster it beat.The farther she stepped away, the slower it grew.
She stared at the screen, disbelief breaking against fear. "That's— no. That's not possible."
The lab lights flickered once. Static filled the monitors for a brief second, then cleared.On the glass, the reflection of the lab looked normal — except her own figure wasn't alone.
Behind her stood a silhouette — slender, still, watching.
Hana spun around.
No one.Only the faint hum of machines and the steady tap of rain.
Her pulse thundered in her throat. She closed her notebook, sealed the blood sample, and told herself it was fatigue — hallucination from no sleep.Still, before leaving, she turned once more toward the microscope.
The sample shimmered faintly.Then, under the sterile glow, the pattern in the cells rearranged — not randomly, but into faint lines.
Letters.Three of them.L I L.
Her pen slipped from her hand.
Outside, the rain began again — heavier this time, as if the sky itself was trying to breathe.